This was a very challenging recitation to teach. The students who take this class generally lack elementary mathematical skills. As such I would find myself explaining concepts like rounding and adding fractions. My main responsibility was guiding the students through weekly labs. These labs were standardized across all recitations, so I had little control in what my students did during recitation. I did make sure to make time at the end of every recitation to answer students’ questions about the class material, and was able to help these students start to understand the concepts.
The only materials I used for these recitations were the standard labs for the course that all recitation instructors use. In addition to these lab worksheets I would write step by step instructions so that students could move through the procedural minitab portion at their own pace and get to the analytic questions. This also allowed me to spend most of my time walking around the room and trouble-shooting with students.
For these recitations I had no control over the assignments or grading of exams. In all other categories students seemed relatively pleased. I did receive some average marks regarding effectiveness of communication. Statistics was not my specialty when I began teaching this course, so when I first led recitations I was still trying to figure out how to explain these ideas to students. After leading recitations for this course (and teaching it the following summer) I have really improved my explanations of this material in particular. Moreover, as I gained teaching experience, my general explanatory skills have improved a lot.