Behind the Scenes of Delivering a Computing Course: An Experience Report
There are many tasks that must be done to keep a computing course running smoothly. In addition to pedagogical work, instructors do a multitude of behind-the-scenes administrative and organizational work themselves or delegate it to Teaching Assistants (TAs). Despite the pervasiveness of this type of work, the explicit details of what kinds of tasks are necessary, the processes to execute these tasks well, and the experiences and feelings of those doing the tasks have not been reported in the literature. Therefore, this experience report surfaces these details by presenting the reflections of a long-time TA who has worked on significant administrative tasks across eight CS courses at our institution over the years. As a representative sample of her experiences, we report on three anecdotes that highlight logistical and internal challenges she faced as a TA for a CS1 course: 1) managing the flow of 600 students coming into a computer lab to take proctored assessments, 2) scanning and uploading thousands of pages of on-paper exams, 3) leading an exam grading session of dozens of TAs. Based on her reflections, we see how much intentional foresight and preparation goes into preventing chaotic situations, as well as many concurrent and overlapping threads to manage in an overarching task. The combination of these factors as well as challenges in team and interpersonal dynamics were the primary sources of stress. Our goal is to bring awareness to this aspect of course delivery that is oftentimes hidden and inspire future research around it.