Teaching

I have been very fortunate to work alongside wonderful instructors and engage with a diverse group of hard-working and brilliant students as a full-time/part-time Instructional Support Assistant (ISA) for eight semesters across five different CS courses (CS116, CS136L, CS137, CS138, and MATH642) at the University of Waterloo. This page is to share feedback that I have received from students - both the accolades and the constructive criticism. I greatly appreciate their sincere and kind words to help me reflect and further improve my teaching.

I also want to thank the Instructional Support Coordinator, Scott King, for collecting and providing me with this valuable feedback at the end of each term.

CS 137 - Programming Principles. Fall 2023:

• Thank you so much for your time, you were incredibly helpful.
• She is the best, most passionate, and most capable teaching assistant I've ever had.
• Helen was extremely helpful and very knowledgeable throughout the course.
• Helen is extremely hard working.
• Helen helped me pass the course.
• Helen was an incredibly dedicatd TA, spending many hours in office hours individually helping us all!

CS 137 - Programming Principles. Fall 2022:

• I am very thankful to have Helen as my TA. She helps me in every assignment, and clears every doubt I have.
• I enjoyed her tutorials, however the material could have better prepared us for assignments if it was more difficult.
• Helen was always approachable and willing to help. She was always able to quickly identify problems that my code was having and helped me fix the issues. Helen's tutorials on Tuesdays were also really helpful as they helped me apply the concepts onto problems so I could understand them. I truly appreciate her dedication to the students as she was always there on Friday evenings for many many hours helping all the students finish their assignments. Helen was a huge part of why I learned so much during this course.
• Thank you Helen for helping me so so so many times!! Definitely the most responsible TA I've ever met. Glad to have you as my CS TA. Yougoated🐐
• best TA ever
• Helen is an angel descended from heaven. She stays hours over time and comes on extra days to help us with challenging units and assignments especially in the post-pointer era. She helps us figure out weird bugs in our code even if it means her staying up past midnight... She explains hard concepts extremely well and uses great examples and gives us just enough hints and let us figure out things on our own. She prompts us to think harder to discover things on our own. She always brings back our smiles when we were on the verge of crying. She is so patient, so encouraging, so detailed, and always goes above and beyond. It is truly our pleasure and luck to have her as our TA. I will be eternally grateful for her.
• Helen went so far above and beyond. She stayed up late to help us, and she made CS tutorials by far the best of any of our courses. Not sure if these messages get passed along to the ISA/TA's, but if they do, thank you Helen for everything you've done this term.
• Helen is so supportive and helpful! I wish she was my TA for every single course. I have learned so much from her, not just from her computing skills but from her disposition, helpfulness, and sacrifice of her precious time for us as well.
• Thanks for the super extended office hours!
• goated TA
• Helen is genuinely such an amazing, approachable, knowledgeable presence in our class and has always gone above and beyond for us. We are so thankful to have her!
• Helen has been very helpful. Always available to give help. Her help is very appreciated. Thank you!!
• I LOVE Helen!!! SHE IS SO NICE!!
• I am beyond grateful to have a ISA like Helen.
• Below is a review on UW Flow CS137’s course page and is located under the “Professor reviews” tab. This site is designed for students at the University of Waterloo to review their courses and for future students to view the reviews to see which instructor to pick and gain a better understanding of the course design (workload, time commitment, etc).

CS 136L - Tool and Techniques for Software Development. Spring 2022:

• I assisted two instructors in developing the course, which, during that term, had no student enrollments.

CS 116 - Introduction to Computer Science 2. Winter 2022:

• best ta ever
• Helen helped me a lot!! I will give her a 10/10.

CS 116 - Introduction to Computer Science 2. Fall 2021:

• Helen was a great ISA/IA. She was helpful and I could tell she cared about the success of the students. She helped me learn and was very knowledgable.
• Helen helped me after another ISA was unable to and Helen was amazingly patient, kind, and helpful.
• very nice
• Before coming the course I had imposter syndrome and was unsure I could problem solve and code effectively. Helen helped change my way of thinking and gave me much needed confidence. I believe any future student would be blessed to have her as an ISA.