Teaching Evaluations and Tone

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So last semester I did very well in a class on computational theory, and got offered a job as a teacher assistant, which I accepted. This is the first time I've worked such a job, So I got my first evaluation for the students today, here is the feedback:

"From all the reviews, here are some suggestions we can all consider:

Always be willing to help. We received several comments that TAs were annoyed when they were asked for help. Your job is to help students--it should be your main priority.
Watch your tone. The difference between a positive and negative encounter is usually tone. Try and remain patient, positive, and encouraging rather than being condescending. Watch the tone of your voice and the way you say things. After all, every single one of us had to learn these topics at some point.
Be on time: If you have office hours, please try to be there. Don't cancel your office hours at the last minute unless it's an emergency."

I don't recall every actually being annoyed when someone asked for help (though a few times I've gotten annoyed with people for other reasons) and I do enjoy helping people, but there is just the problem of task switching from when I was doing something during idle time, usually homework because I don't have much other time in the day to do it and also sometimes for technical work, and that might come across as annoyance. This really bugs me, and I can't think of an adequate solution. My may concern is done, because I have no idea how not to sound like a jerk. I've heard recordings of myself I realize sometimes I do sound much more dickish than I actually intended, but if I don't realize I sounded like a jerk, how do I fix it? With the office hours I've gotten much better as the semester has gone along, though there is still the problem that some of my hours are immediately after class so I'm a few minutes late, and a bit of a larger problem on Thursday hours because it starts in the morning. I think there was only once or twice I actually canceled last minute, and that's because there actually was something that came up at the last minute that prevent me from being there. I also have to leave early most the time to get to class, and I still end up being late to class.

The aggregated feedback distribution from strongly disagree to strongly agree was 1-2-3-2-1 for good attitude, and 1-2-2-3-1 for effectiveness, which I guess means overall my attitude is seen as completely neutral, while I'm apparently somewhat effective.

Specific comments about me:
"Did not explain why, only told what. When asked why, only said the same thing multiple times. Disagreed with teacher on multiple counts
-
Great job!
-
In general, his tone of voice is disrespectful.
-
When other TAs are present, he seems to be the last on to respond to questions. (Only when a new person enters and the other TA's are busy)."

With the first one, that is not accurate, I try very hard to explain the why for something, and if someone doesn't understand one approach I try to another. I assume that was based on one bad experience on a day where I was particularly tired and stressed out. The second part of it is though, but it's not my fault. It's because I was taught by a different professor, I got absolutely no training for the job, he rarely sends out information to us, and I mainly go by the book and occasionally he does something different from the book.

Second person must have got me on a good day.

Third it's probably true that it comes off that way, this is where I'm mainly for help on how to improve.

With number four, it's true I'm typically the last respond to new people coming in, but when questions are asked to the open I'm usually one of the first to respond. I realize it probably looks like I'm the to respond because I'm reluctant to help, but it's actually because I'm submissive because I feel the other TAs do it better and then I'm just shy and the other TAs are more assertive with asking if people need help.

"Here are the general improvements we received when we asked students to rate CS 252 TAs as a whole:

· The comments on returned homework is messy and sometimes unreadable.
· It could be nice to have help sessions to go through difficult concepts like different examples and the pumping lemmas, or different theorems we'd need to know.
· Explaining in a clear and patient manner.
· It's almost exclusive to this class that the TAs often act like it's a chore to help students. It's almost like they hope to go a shift without having to. And I've only gone in for help 3 times this semester. Their backs are always turned to the door and their explanations have a "gotta get through this as fast as I can so I can get back to playing agar.io with the other TA"
· Not very excited to help.
· Please be more detailed in explaining why our solutions are wrong, instead of just marking it with an X (which has been my experience for the most part).
· For the TAs who do the grading: There have been instances where the answers on the homework have been graded incorrectly, also the partial points are extremely harsh. Partial point means that you look at the answer all look for ways to give points on correct or slightly correct things--not to stop all point giving after finding one problem with the answer. As for the TAs that do not grade things: I feel like there is a miscommunication between those who grade and those who do not grade things. When I go in to ask questions and get clarifications there is not much help given and always something wrong with the help given when I apply them to the homework. The TA’s normally are not very helpful with help on homework problems. They just go through examples that I've gone over five times before in class and on my own. Overall I'm glad there are TAs for the class, but virtually every time I go in for help, I leave with not a lot answered and not feeling confident with the concepts I needed help with.
· Just be there during hours."

First note, I do not do any of the grading, set TAs are assigned for that, I just do help people with questions. I agree help sessions are a good idea and I think I suggested that to the other TAs once. Regarding the agar.io thing, the TAs for the other class in the room are to blame for that, they keep playing it there. I think I played it once while there as another TA was playing it and it was a last hour and usually no one shows up, a flood of people then came not for questions, but to turn in homework, even though usually they aren't even allowed to turn in homework to the TA office. Also, I have absolute no communication with the TAs who do the grading for the homework. There is a shared answer key, but I didn't know about it at first, and sometimes it's actually wrong and all us helping TAs agree on that.

So that's the feedback, I'm wondering what I as someone on the spectrum can do to improve.

Sounds like you're doing pretty well for a beginner, and probably with very little supervision or training.

My one recommendation is this: People learning new things are often sensitive about being wrong or appearing stupid. When you help someone, try to make the first thing out of your mouth a positive remark of some kind, and then move on to revising/correcting the student's work.

"Is this answer right?"
"No, that's wrong!" <-- Don't say this; say something like this:

"Is this answer right?"
"Let's see, you've got most of the components; now we can check to see if they fit together right."

OR

"Hmm, this looks like a valiant effort, but it may have gotten off track at the beginning -- let's take a look."

OR

"Excellent -- now that's the first half, but don't forget this additional part that goes along with it."

(P.S.: See how my first sentence at the beginning of this post is an example of my advice?