Elayne Stecher

Elayne Stecher

PhD Candidate at UCLA

Teaching

Current/Upcoming Courses

Associate Instructor, UCLA:

Previous Courses

Associate Instructor, UCLA:

Teaching Associate, UCLA:

Teaching Assistant, UCLA:

Select Teaching Evaluation Feedback

GLBLST102

“I really loved learning with Elayne. Her humor and down–to–earth personality really helped me feel comfortable in this class, especially because the content was a little daunting to me throughout. Additionally, it really felt like Elayne connected with her students a lot more than the average TA, so I always felt comfortable asking for clarification and sharing out during class discussions. I also appreciated how she gauged our interest about certain activities she had planned for section and how she was willing to change the class plan to accommodate our preferences. Overall, Elayne is awesome, and I was very surprised to find out that this was her first time TA’ing for this course.”

“I feel like the TA knows a lot about all topics discussed and she explains everything in a way so that everyone understands. She makes her section very informative and engaging. People feel comfortable to speak in class and share their ideas. She also responds very quick to emails. I have nothing bad to say. Overall, a great TA.”

“Elayne is an amazing TA who put in so much extra effort to make the course material digestible. Not only is she knowledgeable, but she cares about how her students feel about the material and their mastery.”

IASTD1

“Overall, I found great value in these discussion sections and believe that it was a large aspect of success I had in the class. The TA was amazing at explaining the material, showing students different methods of looking at and understanding the material, integrated questions and key points thoroughly, and allowed me to understand the readings and examples more in depth. Assignments for participation were also greatly relevant to what was directly learned, and allowed me to prepare for exams and think about the material learned. TA also provided excellent review sections, notes, and discussion boards which allowed me to learn from my peers and have good discussions with them.”

“Overall, fantastic T.A. experience! She was extremely knowledgeable the entire time and actively led discussions among the students, while always having insightful comments to ensure that we had a proper learning experience. Moreover, she really highlighted that she cared about the students the entire time, always making sure that we were okay and that we were doing well in and out of the class.”

PS169

“Professor Stecher is an extraordinarily engaging lecturer. She manages to make class fun and makes me actually want to do the readings. I typically never do the readings and still get A’s, but in this class I actually read just so I could discuss with her. She also tries really hard to not push her perspective/opinions on you… She encourages you to form your own opinions. Also, this class was not that easy but I still liked it. Usually I hate hard classes but this was a rare instance where I enjoyed a somewhat difficult course. I think what made the difficulty rewarding was that we got to have class discussion so often and she was always very personable.”

“I think for the natural challenges that come with teaching an online class, Elayne was able to work around them really well. She made sure that we facilitated productive and nuanced conversations in our breakout rooms. She kept class discussions going at a good pace. She made it very clear that if we were having any issues her email and office hours were available to us. She seemed to genuinely care about our ability to understand the content and valued our insight. I also appreciated that she allowed the class to disagree with each other. We discussed complex topics with often no right answer, so I liked that she emphasized that we could disagree respectfully with our classmates opinions and with her own.”

PS200B

“Your help was very useful and I learned a lot of side materials and knowledge that I wouldn’t learn from main lecture. Also hybrid session and R markdown based learning was helpful.”

PS156A

“Elayne was genuinely the best TA I have ever had. She was approachable, friendly, and exceptionally knowledgeable about the course material. I happened to really enjoy attending section all quarter long because she fostered critical thinking skills and familiarized her students with strategies to help make the content more digestible. In addition to her great explanations and simplifications of difficult concepts, one of Elayne’s strengths is how well she fostered a collaborative learning environment. She encouraged us to work with our peers and diversify our knowledge of the material we were learning, all while allowing us to do so in an inclusive and even fun setting.”

“Elayne is simply an incredible TA. On top of all else that she does, she dedicated her time to make sure we succeeded in the class. The structure of her discussion sections consisted of a combination of small group work and large group discussions. I felt this perfectly allowed everyone to feel comfortable speaking out to the whole class, and I felt like my understanding of the readings always expanded with discussion with my peers. Outside of this, she was always understanding of our workload and tried to help us as much as possible by giving us reading and studying techniques. In my opinion, she is also quite a funny and enjoyable person, she always made discussion section light despite it’s late time in the day.”

PS179

“She was very good at explaining code and breaking it down and made it very understandable. Walking into this class, I was very intimidated, as I had never coded in my life before. R studio was entirely new to me, and I was very nervous to take this class. After the first discussion, I was a lot more confident because she explained everything so well and was very patient when we did not understand something. She was willing to explain code until it was clear and if we did not understand, we always knew she was available for office hours. Elayne was very approachable and I felt very comfortable asking her for help because even when I was really confused, she never made it seem that being confused was a bad thing.”

“Stecher was an incredible guide in helping my classmates and I formulate our experiment proposal! She provided useful feedback while supporting our collective creation. I would say that would be one of her greatest strengths, because in a class of 20 students I wouldn’t have expected collaborative work to run that smoothly. Another strength of hers that I must include is her patience and ability to explain things in multiple ways when my classmates or I didn’t fully understand something the first time.”

PS129

“Elayne is awesome. She is so knowledgeable, but very approachable and explains things in an extremely digestible manner. She has improved my course understanding so much. I really value how she constantly challenges us to improve our thinking, but never in a harsh or discouraging manner. She is definitely one of, if not the best, TA I have ever had.”

“I really liked the way that Elayne explained things. She managed to make the readings very easy to understand and was very accessible as a TA. I went to one of her office hours once and I left feeling like I understood everything a lot better. She was also a fair grader and really took the time to put meaningful comments on each of her student’s midterms. Her optional review sessions also helped me do well in the class.”