Instructor: Professor Rich Korf, 4532E Boelter Hall, phone 206-5383, email korf@cs.ucla.edu. Office hours: please stop by any time. My door is almost always open if I'm in. I'm generally not available Monday, Wednesday, or Friday between 12 and 2. You can also make an appointment if you prefer.

TA Consultant: Jon Canan, tac@cs.ucla.edu. Jon is the head TA in the department and will also serve as a TA to this course.  Office hours are available by request.

Class: meets on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 12 to 1:50 in 5272 Boelter Hall.

Teaching Requirement: Starting with students entering in Fall 2000, all computer science Ph.D. students are required to satisfy a teaching requirement. Most students will satisfy this requirement by serving as a TA for one quarter. Satisfactory completion of CS495 is a prerequisite or co-requisite to serving as a TA. This course is only offered once a year, in the fall quarter.

Requirements: You're required to attend all class sessions. If you can't attend class for good reason, please let me know in advance. You're required to give one or two very short talks on technical material during the course. You're expected to participate in class discussions and critiques of presentations. You're required to visit the TA section of another TA and write a critique of the class session. Your TA section may also be observed by Jon and possibly video-taped. The results of the observation will be discussed with you.

Grading: satisfactory or unsatisfactory (SU).

Goals: The primary goal of the course is to help you improve your skills at presenting technical material orally to a group of people. Most of this training will carry over into writing technical papers as well. A secondary goal is to convey information about how to teach a course.

Format: I will spend some time talking about teaching, but most of the time will be spent in 10-minute student presentations of technical material, together with constructive critiques of those presentations by all of us.

Topics to be covered include:
Teaching as a Priority
What to do in Discussion Section
Being prepared, Preparing for class
Presentation Media: Blackboard vs. Overheads vs. Powerpoint, etc.
Encouraging Class Participation
Office Hours
Making up homework assignments, exam questions, and solutions
Review Sessions
Proctoring examinations
Grading
Web Pages
Teaching with Technology
Academic Dishonesty
Social Relationships with Students
Workload issues and time management
Union issues
Student psychological services