The PDP teaching philosophy is aimed at creating a certain very specific type of classroom atmosphere in the Intensive Sections. It is easy to describe what this atmosphere ISN'T: it isn't the TA at the board explaining material, working problems, and answering the occasional question. A good atmosphere involves a careful and subtle balance among lecture, individual work, and group work. The measure of whether a good atmosphere has been achieved is the degree to which students are actively participating.
"Lecture" is defined as the TA at the board talking to (or at least toward) the whole class, possibly writing on the board, and possibly involving student participation from time to time.
"Group work" is defined as students working actively together in a group on a problem by discussing it with each other. To be a "group" there must be at least 2 but probably not more than 5 students involved.
"Individual work" is defined as students at their places working alone on a problem by reading (from the text or the worksheet), writing, or thinking.
There needs to be an explicit discussion, led by the TA, in one of the first section meetings dealing with these issues about what an intensive section Œatmosphere" is going to be like.
The major place lecture should occur is after the students have been working on a moderately difficult worksheet problem in class for 10 or 15 minutes. This is a perfect time for the TA to give a short lecture that focuses on the problem, on approaches to its solution, and on the theory behind it.
An important time for the TA to resist the temptation to lecture is when students come in to section saying they don't understand topic XYZ. This will always happen, and TA's and students tend to collude here: the students want the thing explained to them, and the TA's love to explain it. But this subverts habits that in the long run are more effective. What are these habits? First, students should read the text. Since at first this is a strange and foreign act for many students, they have to be taught to read the text (slowly, line by line, and between the lines). Second, they should go to lecture (after reading the text), and should ask questions (or at least appoint a brave colleague to ask questions for them). Third, they should go to office hours (the lecturer's, the TA's, and the UGA's. These are all active and effective ways for students to wrestle with understanding difficult material. They are all better than sitting while the TA takes up valuable section time with a lecture.
The other important time for the TA to resist lecturing is when students want to have homework problems worked out on the board. (The TA working a problem out on the board counts as "lecturing" according to the definition we are using.) It is not that this must never be done. Sometimes, for a difficult and important homework problem that almost everyone had trouble with, it is appropriate for the TA to discuss the problem in section. But hopefully this discussion will be more creative than the scenario of the TA "doing the problem at the board" often implies. Also, there needs to be selectivity here, since, otherwise doing homework problems on demand will fill up the section time.
There is much that can be said about particular ways to have students work in groups. Done well, groups are the key to success of the intensive sections. Done poorly, groups can foster chaos and breed frustration.
There are also some examples of longer projects you may wish to assign the students. TAs in the past have made the Math 98 unit credit contingent on the student's performance on the project, which really gets their attention. These projects should be assigned and discussed near the beginning of in the semester so students don't get overwhelmed by work later in the semester around their midterms. (PDP TA Reference Handbook, 8-23-96)