- What is the purpose of recitation in your course? What does it offer students that they can’t get during regular class time?
- How should students prepare for recitation? How will you communicate those expectations to your students, in the syllabus and in person?
- What skills would you like your students to practice during recitation? How will the sessions be structured so that every student is actively thinking and engaged?
- How will you incentivize attendance and participation? Is attendance mandatory? Will students be completing assignments in recitation? Will those assignments be graded?
- What is the role of the TA, and how will you communicate the role of the TA to students? How will you prepare your TAs to lead recitations in a manner consistent with your guidelines?
22Feb’22
What is the Value of Recitation Guidelines?
Most undergraduates enter college without knowing what a recitation is or why it is useful for learning. Explaining why recitations are important, how students should prepare, and what they are expected to do during recitations can help students get the most out of these smaller sections.
Questions to Consider
Policy Examples from Penn Professors
NRSC 1110: Introduction to Brain & Behavior, Large Lecture
Recitation sections will meet every week unless otherwise noted on the syllabus. Attendance at each session is mandatory. During the Recitation, your TA will provide a brief review of the material covered during the previous week’s lectures, go over problem sets, and address any questions you may have. If you have a conflict with the recitation/lab due to curricular or extracurricular activities, personal obligations, or religious holidays please let your TA know as soon as possible to make arrangements to make up the recitation/lab. If you have to miss a recitation for missed for last minute excused absences, such as illness, please let your TA know AND submit a Course Absence Report. **Please note that you may only attend Recitation on the day/time for which you are registered.
ENVS 1000: Introduction to Environmental Science, Large Lecture
Recitation is designed to be a workshop where you will apply lecture content to help develop quantitative skills and a deeper understanding of the course material. Each week, you will work in small groups on the key elements of the recitation assignment and how it relates to lecture material. Please bring your calculator and/or laptop to every recitation because we will be accessing online data sources and using Excel frequently in class. Recitations are where you will develop your data literacy skills (and thus fulfill your QDA requirement). The problems addressed in recitation will be lecture-relevant but will be larger and more complex. The skills you will develop will include:
- data acquisition: find and download real-world (sometimes real-time) data from online sources
- data processing: "cleaning" data to put in usable form and remove unnecessary or incorrect items
- data analysis: manipulate data using statistical analyses to answer specific questions
- data visualization: represent data in meaningful visual forms (e.g., graphs, tables)
Weekly recitation materials will be posted on Canvas the week before recitation. You are expected to review the recitation materials before coming to class. Recitation will serve as a "workshop" for you to begin the week's assignment. Assignments are due at the beginning of the following week's recitation period, unless otherwise noted. No late assignments are accepted. All students are expected to comply with the Code of Academic Integrity.
BE 2000: Introduction to Biomechanics, Structured Active Learning Course
Recitations are held on a weekly basis. One excused absence a semester is given for any reason (you don’t need to tell anyone beforehand). All other sessions are worth participation points. If you are sick, please let your TA know BEFORE class that you won’t be attending (like you would for a job). These sessions are opportunities for you to ask questions and see more problems. Some notes on recitations expectations include:
- You are expected to attend for the entire length of the session or until you have the right answer with work as confirmed by your TA.
- All work should be completed during recitation. If you are working diligently but run out of time to finish the problem(s), it’s ok to upload the incomplete work for full credit. Check with your TA before the session ends if you’re concerned.
- It is up to the discretion of the TA to determine participation versus “physical presence”. You must be actively participating to receive credit for the session.