Something new

A student at the exam I did not recognize.

Less is more

The less material I try to cover, the more the students understand, and the more  I enjoy it.  Almost true.  I need to work on my delivery and speaking style for it to be completely true.

Lots of stuff makes them think that they are getting their money’s worth.  Too slow and simple, and they just aren’t getting all that they paid for.

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Teaching questions

A mish-mash:

* How far in advance should you prepare? I have done it all ways, with varying success. Too early, and the lecture loses some edginess, brought on by sheer panic caused by last minute prep. If I do it a the last minute, the jokes are always better when I am wound up before class, although it’s a bit tense right before class.

* How to correct students when they enthusiastically give a wrong answer to the cold call question. How to be firm but nice?

* How important are the slides, really? I have given great lectures with bad slides and terrible lectures with good slides.

* How many jokes? I have had too many, and the students think I am a joker. I have had too few, and the students thing I am too serious.

* What fraction of the students should like you? Or more importantly, what fraction should dislike you?

* What is the best way to unwind after a long class—-I always need a beer or a run. Depending on the time of day that the class ends.

* Homework assignments are for the students to learn. Too few points, and they don’t take them seriously. Too many, and they will cheat, and complain when they are too hard, even though they learn the most if there is hard stuff in the homework.

Alums

One of the best things about teaching is seeing the students a few years after they graduate and realizing that at least some of them still find the courses worthwhile.

The ‘Punk-o-matic’

might be a nice way to wake up some sleeping undergrads one day. You can only use it once a term, though.

Punk-o-matic

via: digg
(where else would I find such a link?)

Test post

using the firefox extension ‘performancing.’  Seems OK so far.

A week or so until classes start; syllabus time.  I see a lot of differences in different (successful) professors’ syllabi (sp?).  Some are terse.  Some are dense.  Some are scary fully of warnings.  Some are nice.

I wonder what is best?  Each year I tweak mine, and still have not completely figured it out.

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I decided to play around

with my header. It was fun.

My summer grading is done. I am down to just a few referee reports. And I resubmitted a paper recently. It’s time to start a new project. But what? And with whom? Solo or with a co-author? What topic? I think that I will work with a good PhD student, if I can be convince the student to do so.
All pleasant things to ponder over a long weekend.

Also, time also to get back on track and do my GTD review.

I had a PhD student come by worried that someone else was working on a similar problem to the student’s thesis. I had trouble convincing the student that it is a good sign, not a disaster. Usually people come up with different papers, and if the student’s work is good, then there will be interest. But I could not convince the student.

Spam

A huge amount of spam comments today. All caught by wordpress, and deleted with a push of the button.

Almost done with summer teaching—and it has been worthwhile. I have learned some neat things that I would never have learned otherwise. You never know when they will be useful in a research problem.

In the past, I have got some research ideas from teaching. No reason for that to stop.

It is an applied course, and so it required me to catch up on some of the advances in a sub-field in which I have only done a few research projects. A reminder to myself about the pleasure of understanding something new, and playing with the resulting ideas. Also a reminder of the power of a deep understanding of the basics; I can figure the new stuff out pretty quickly once I relate it back to the basics and can understand some of the required tricks. Neato.

Exams and in class work

are going to become more important for student evaluation. And ‘selling’ the material to the students.

from: BBC NEWS | Education | Student cheats contract out work:

Research suggests universities need better detection
Students are outsourcing coursework in a phenomenon dubbed “contract cheating”, academics have found.
Researchers at Birmingham’s University of Central England found coursework being put out to tender on the internet and suppliers bidding to finish it.

<snip>

I might rethink exactly what I expect from the students, I guess.

I can’t think of any other way to deal with this.

summer teaching

Don’t do it.

(Although the student are great, I want to be concentrating on research every work day, not just some of them…)