I don't think these "striking" TAs care much about us students who are going to suffer...all they care is that CUPE should be a student body with a goal and the university does not like that goal

Originally Posted by Charbs

tutorials are vital to my program right now, my Psych one is the only reason I actually understand half the stuff.... and is 10% of our grade
as well... Anatomy, we do a presentation worth marks...and two essays worth 10% each... in class... how are we supposed to do this when there is no tutorial... I WISH I could say my tutorials don't matter....

Perhaps other upper year students, and macinsiders-ers can help you

now, if we get marks for all the missed work due to strike...that would be worth everything

I've seen a couple responses on this thread. saying that tutorials are useless. I full heartedly disagree with that. I'm in two classes right now and if it weren't for the TAs, I'd be very lost because the prof's for those classes give poor lectures. Sure, some tutorials aren't great because of the poor TA, but a great TA can make all the difference of how much you get out of the class. So I'm very worried about this strike because I seem to learn the most from my tutorials.

Originally Posted by smiles

I'm not trying to denigrate TAs. There ARE good TAs out there, I'm sure, but the tutorial setting of 50-60 people isn't going to help you learn any more than a lecture. I can't say for political science, but at least that's how it seems to be for math/science, etc.

I agree... a 50-60 student tutorial does not help any more than a lecture. That is why one of the primary issues of this strike is CUPE's proposal to CAP tutorial sizes to: 25 students per tutorial, 15 per lab, and initially proposed ratio of 60 students per T.A./R.A.

... however, our university administration does not believe that this CAP to tutorial sizes is relevant in enhancing the quality of our education as they have made very clear that they REFUSE to address any likelihood of tutorial cap sizes.

You don't have to be pro-union, or in fact pro-CUPE to realize that this action alone illustrates that our quality of education is not a priority to the McMaster administration, while they simultaneously continue to increase our tuition (this past year by the maximum lawful amount: Undergrad 4% - $7.2 million revenue, and Graduate 8% - $2.2. million revenue)... and WILL BE INCREASING TUITION AGAIN NEXT YEAR, yet they continuously slash our services...


... just food for thought

I agree... [] 15 per lab[]

this.

15 / lab would enhance life alot.
and I completely support under30 / tutorial.
psych was the only class I can think of that reached under 30 and it made a big difference, both for the students learning and for the TAs to connect and genuinely car. it cant be easy to track 50 students in a class and hope to help them individually.

that being said, I very much hope a strike does not occur, it will be a logistic, marking and workload nightmare for all involved

I’m not sure about how possible some of the things you mention would be, but there is one setting that may interest you, if you haven’t seen it already
:c ocacolatin:

I never found the tutorials to be of much use in Biology because most of it was just to give presentations, I never felt that lecture material was adequately addressed during the tutorial and therefore kind of seemed like a waste of time other than the 10-30% riding on the presentations. Not true for all of the tutorials but quite a few in my opinion.

The thing about tutorials is it depends on TAS as well as the other students. An idiot with a big mouth can totally destroy even the best TA's session.

Humanities tutorials are good, from what i've seen, esspecially after the first essay/major assignment. But then again, both of those had less than 20, maybe less than 15 each.

Science tuts are kinda pointless, you seem to get a lot of idiots in there. Esspecially in chem. There was a girl yesterday saying that she didn't know the difference between ionic and molecular compounds (for anyone not in chem, that is LITERALLY the first thing they teach you.) Maybe the TA go over it for like 5 minutes. Oh, math has problems too (but the concept is good), but that might be because it's 1ls3 (aka, loser math, lol). Someone didn't know bedmas (I won't explain that, since it's like 4th grade stuff).


Anyway, I do small tutorials would be much better, but it's not worth a strike. Or a (bigger) increase in tuition.

Originally Posted by JeffB

I never found the tutorials to be of much use in Biology because most of it was just to give presentations, I never felt that lecture material was adequately addressed during the tutorial and therefore kind of seemed like a waste of time other than the 10-30% riding on the presentations. Not true for all of the tutorials but quite a few in my opinion.

Bio 3P03 tutorials were incredibly useful. I also liked the biology 2C03 ones as well.

Most of the biologies that I've taken don't really have tutorials.

The Chem 2OB3 tutorials were great as well.

Science tuts are kinda pointless, you seem to get a lot of idiots in there. Esspecially in chem. There was a girl yesterday saying that she didn't know the difference between ionic and molecular compounds (for anyone not in chem, that is LITERALLY the first thing they teach you.) Maybe the TA go over it for like 5 minutes. Oh, math has problems too (but the concept is good), but that might be because it's 1ls3 (aka, loser math, lol). Someone didn't know bedmas (I won't explain that, since it's like 4th grade stuff).

That's because with most first year science courses there's a large range of abilities due to a lack of standardization with high schools. For example: you'll have an idiot who thinks that a person walking at "5x10^-2 m/s" is walking backwards (true story). It's not that tutorials are useless, but the people in the tutorial sessions that make it unbearable.

Wouldn't the issue with having such small tutorials be that they might not have enough TA's available for the tutorials? They don't have an infinite supply of students to be TA's.

Yes, I was going to post that, actually. Hence, we have an issue between getting more TAs and a maximum amount the university is willing to dish out to pay all of them.

If we want smaller sizes, we need more TAs and more TAs mean they'll have to make less money each. Granted, 15 students is significanlty less work than 22, esspecially for things like essays.

Isn't there an equation or something we can do for a situation like this, max amount of profit for least amount of work (# students)? I remember doing crap like that all through grade school.

Originally Posted by britb

Yes, I was going to post that, actually. Hence, we have an issue between getting more TAs and a maximum amount the university is willing to dish out to pay all of them.

If we want smaller sizes, we need more TAs and more TAs mean they'll have to make less money each. Granted, 15 students is significanlty less work than 22, esspecially for things like essays.

Isn't there an equation or something we can do for a situation like this, max amount of profit for least amount of work (# students)? I remember doing crap like that all through grade school.

Currently only about half of graduate students are TAs, so combined with the pool of undergraduate TAs, there are lots of available workers. One of the reasons why the class size proposal is affordable is that we're proposing it in conjunction with a wage freeze for graduate TAs. The current money the administration has put towards wage increases for graduate TAs (that we've said we don't want) could address the majority of the project cost of the class size proposal.

I'd like to voice my opinion on terming people "idiots" because they don't know something.
Yes, we're in university and we should know these things, but some of us don't. I never knew how to deal with fractions properly until grade 12. But I can finish 50 Calculus problems in a day. I am not an idiot.

An idiot should be better defined as a person who refuses to learn because of their own arrogance. Coming to university and asking for clarification on a topic is not an idiotic thing to do. It takes a good amount of guts, knowing that asking a seemingly "simple" question will have most of your class angry at you. Unless they're being blatantly inconsiderate, asking a question should not result in ostracization and penalization.

Perpetrating these intolerant viewpoints and opinions simply makes some of us who struggle with the smaller things feel dumber than we actually are because somebody dared to judge us without knowing us.
Chances are, if we don't know the small things, we had to work even harder than the kids who "got it", and focus really hard on those small things to grasp the bigger ones and to make our way here. We just have lapses. Let off.

It was actually infuriating to read that. Getting here, provided we've earned it through dedication and hard work, is an accomplishment. Do not term people stupid because they forget. It is insulting, disgusting and not why we pay over $7000. I didn't ask for judgements, and no other person brave enough to ask a question did. I did not see that on my Payment Agreement.

I do not ostracize the kids who can't keep their mouths shut during lectures or ask questions irrelevant to the material just because they were curious about how toxic chlorine gas affects humans and couldn't type their question into a scientific database. I also don't pick on the inconsiderate people who think spouting derivatives outside an exam is a smart thing to do, knowing full well that they're putting every one around them at unease. I don't call them idiots, I call them inconsiderate. There is a difference and there is a fine line. If that line can't be distinguished and a dictionary cannot be consulted, then let's not say anything at all.

I, that idiot and the rest of us "morons" have equal right to be here. We will ask our Goddamn questions and if we're too stupid, then the door is open for any intellectual to leave through.

Originally Posted by goodnews.inc

I'd like to voice my opinion on terming people "idiots" because they don't know something.
Yes, we're in university and we should know these things, but some of us don't. I never knew how to deal with fractions properly until grade 12. But I can finish 50 Calculus problems in a day. I am not an idiot.

An idiot should be better defined as a person who refuses to learn because of their own arrogance. Coming to university and asking for clarification on a topic is not an idiotic thing to do. It takes a good amount of guts, knowing that asking a seemingly "simple" question will have most of your class angry at you. Unless they're being blatantly inconsiderate, asking a question should not result in ostracization and penalization.

Perpetrating these intolerant viewpoints and opinions simply makes some of us who struggle with the smaller things feel dumber than we actually are because somebody dared to judge us without knowing us.
Chances are, if we don't know the small things, we had to work even harder than the kids who "got it", and focus really hard on those small things to grasp the bigger ones and to make our way here. We just have lapses. Let off.

It was actually infuriating to read that. Getting here, provided we've earned it through dedication and hard work, is an accomplishment. Do not term people stupid because they forget. It is insulting, disgusting and not why we pay over $7000. I didn't ask for judgements, and no other person brave enough to ask a question did. I did not see that on my Payment Agreement.

I do not ostracize the kids who can't keep their mouths shut during lectures or ask questions irrelevant to the material just because they were curious about how toxic chlorine gas affects humans and couldn't type their question into a scientific database. I also don't pick on the inconsiderate people who think spouting derivatives outside an exam is a smart thing to do, knowing full well that they're putting every one around them at unease. I don't call them idiots, I call them inconsiderate. There is a difference and there is a fine line. If that line can't be distinguished and a dictionary cannot be consulted, then let's not say anything at all.

I, that idiot and the rest of us "morons" have equal right to be here. We will ask our Goddamn questions and if we're too stupid, then the door is open for any intellectual to leave through.

lol kind of dramatic but agreed... people seem so arrogant when they go posting about how other people are idiots.