Originally Posted by britb

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).

Don't worry those people are mostly gone after first year.

Its not just in Science tutorials. Its a wide variety of first year tutorials. In first year there were so many stupid people in my various tutorials I would be left shaking my head and rolling my eyes almost constantly.

Not surprisingly I never saw most of those people after first year and there is a not so shocking lack of stupid people in upper year tutorials. I imagine those other people failed or dropped out.

I figured as much. I didn't want to talk about the others since I've never been.

Originally Posted by britb

I figured as much. I didn't want to talk about the others since I've never been.

Oh you should go to a history tutorial one time.

I think this one girl in my Peace Studies tutorial in first year was one of the dumbest people I've ever encountered in my life.

The number of factually incorrect and just completely nuts things I've heard claimed about historical events is nuts.

I have history 1bb3, but most of the tutorial is just figuring out what the hell the articles were about, not too much debating.

LOL, remember anything she said? Sometimes it's funny to read.

Originally Posted by britb

I have history 1bb3, but most of the tutorial is just figuring out what the hell the articles were about, not too much debating.

LOL, remember anything she said? Sometimes it's funny to read.

I wish I remember exactly because she was hilarious. The only thing I vaguely remember was something completely off-base about Hitler and the Nazis.

Originally Posted by sew12

I think this one girl in my Peace Studies tutorial in first year was one of the dumbest people I've ever encountered in my life.

SAME. Not sure if it's the same girl though. 1B03. She couldn't even write a grammatically proper sentence on the board...I was literally in awe at how...low her intelligence was.

Originally Posted by TTHX

SAME. Not sure if it's the same girl though. 1B03. She couldn't even write a grammatically proper sentence on the board...I was literally in awe at how...low her intelligence was.

Mine was in 1A03 (I dropped 1B03 after hating 1A03 so much). I imagine it could have been the same girl though. I won't name names because that would be cruel but for real.

Originally Posted by ramirez.a

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.

I'll be honest, those numbers seem kindof weird. In general my labs have had more people than my tutorials (and still ran just as effectively) and seem to require less direct attention from the TA. Why is the number so low for labs? Is it the marking?

In general most of my tutorials have been pretty good. I might have had one that was above 25 (again with the obvious exception of first year calc where they run tutorials as an extra lecture from the prof).

Originally Posted by A.Marlowe

I'll be honest, those numbers seem kindof weird. In general my labs have had more people than my tutorials (and still ran just as effectively) and seem to require less direct attention from the TA. Why is the number so low for labs? Is it the marking?

In general most of my tutorials have been pretty good. I might have had one that was above 25 (again with the obvious exception of first year calc where they run tutorials as an extra lecture from the prof).

My tutorials all seem to be under 25 too and I don't have labs but I assume different faculties might have more problems with over crowding issues.

My labs for last year and this year have all been with about 4 or 5 people per TA and most of the time they just come in every like 20 or 30 minutes to check to see how we're doing.

Originally Posted by sew12

Mine was in 1A03 (I dropped 1B03 after hating 1A03 so much). I imagine it could have been the same girl though. I won't name names because that would be cruel but for real.

there was this girl in my astro class that asked "is the earth a star?" and the next day she asked the prof if the moon was a star...lol...

I would really like to have the class sizes capped. I haven't had too much of an issue with it this year, but I know that last year it was a big problem for me. I was trying to teach a coding class, and I had more students than computers.

Originally Posted by michelle

I would really like to have the class sizes capped. I haven't had too much of an issue with it this year, but I know that last year it was a big problem for me. I was trying to teach a coding class, and I had more students than computers.

I think this is something that would need to be looked at on a case-by-case basis. Frankly in my 4 years here, I haven't had any issues with lab or tutorial size at all, and I'm not the only person in this boat.

It's obviously a problem in some places and not a problem in others. Instead of trying to make sweeping policy changes in this situation, it would make more sense to treat each individual case.

This won't affect Fall Preview Day, will it?

I mean, they won't be protesting on Saturday, riiiight?