I'm deeply ambivalent about our military
I thought this sentence was going to end, "but I love a man in a uniform."
I'm not sure I trust this guy Bill's intentions toward you, heebie.
So 800,000 muslim children had to die just to make it easier for you to do your job. You admit it.
In Obama's America, your so-called math loving "heroes" are being replaced by drones. Drones that kill babies. But nothing like that is important to our free-thought-hating educational bureaucrats so long as one person makes a comment in the classroom. This is the face of education today, thank you for making it clear.
Halford is bob? I guess I'm not totally surprised, though I do worry more about those dogs now.
Oh, drones are great in the classroom. Dreamy.
drones are great in the classroom
In some classrooms, they've been there for a long time.
I do have a lizard-brained positive reaction to most of the military/ex-military people I've met. Nothing particularly subtle, I think it's mostly good posture and nice manners. I noticed it on my niece the Marine: I thought she was just great before boot-camp, but in a semi-surly teen/twentysomething kind of way. Now she's developed this sort of pleasantly authoritative air that's very appealing.
6: No the real true bob just links to Buffy and Phil and sheds a silent tear
Oh, drones are great in the classroom. Dreamy.
Teaching is, like, difficult. I say that after one week of the world's easiest teaching assignment. Those little bastards are so unforgiving of mistakes, too. Like, can't you listen to what I meant instead of what I actually said? Maybe we need to get some veterans in here.
It's easier when the kids are scared of the material and you get to swoop in and be Good Cop.
I've found my veteran students to be better, too. Not always the brightest, but at least functional at basic tasks like reading the syllabus or remember deadlines or doing the homework.
9
I do have a lizard-brained positive reaction to most of the military/ex-military people I've met.
Most of the military and ex-military people I know are middle management in my office, and my office is fairly sclerotic, and therefore they are pointy-haired in the Dilbert sense in addition to the literal sense, so I can't bring myself to feel too well-disposed towards them.
14: I used to think that was correlating with veterans, then I decided it was just correlating with "having done anything prior to this that required being half way adult"
True. Non-traditional students tend to be on the ball, at least in terms of being better organized and responsible. It's nice.
And a la 15, the ex-military math adjuncts we hire are generally a total disaster. Boot camp algebra does not work.
Drinking with ex-Marines is fun.
Ones that have been stationed in dry countries?
I have exactly the amount of contact with military people as my degree of SWPLetude would lead you to expect. The woman who rented me an office in her house for a while had a housemate who had served in Afghanistan. He was perfectly friendly (and an avid burner), but I didn't ever get much in the way of stories from the front from him. And I can't think of anyone else I've met recently.
As my mother, a veteran, points out, there are a lot of people in the military, so it usually doesn't make sense to generalize too much. However, it seems to me that Basic Training is going to be a pretty good sort mechanism for the set "able to sit in class quietly and pay attention".
Did I mention that I did not know until last summer that the VA is totally not a part of the Defense Department? It kinda makes sense, but of course most journalists don't underscore that point in their reporting.
17: I've been told that the term of art is 'former marines' as an ex-marine is one who has been stripped of their status due to some dishonorable thing or other. The person who told me this was a former marine himself but also a bullshitter, so I have no idea if it's accurate or not.
Oh I figured there was likely to be some "once a Marine, always a Marine" thing that operated, but as they are not here, I'll just say whatever. Also, the ex-Marines I'm thinking of were pretty down on the whole Marines thing, so they probably wouldn't have stood on said ceremony.
stood on said ceremony.
I've mentioned my father's cat, Ceremony? "Please, don't stand on Ceremony!" "Roowwwr."
Boot camp algebra does not work.
see also
Teaching is, like, difficult.
16: I teach at a place that is mostly non-trad. Non-trad itself can cut either way; usually they're more grown-up and need less hand-holding, but school tends to be fourth on the priority list and with that comes the occasion problem in the classroom.
Speaking of teaching: I don't ever remember having a professor in a math or physics class begin the lecture by writing down a outline of the things we were going to cover in that class. For that matter almost all the math professors just dived into a long string of definition-theorem-proof without ever pausing to explain what they were doing at all.
But after my first class three different students told me that I need to do this. In the second class I did, and people seemed to like it. This time I forgot, and afterwards a few students-- not all the same ones who approached me after the first lecture-- approached me to tell me that I should have written an outline at the beginning. Is this a thing that everyone does now? (I did say in words, several times, things like "now we've finished covering [X] and we're going to move on to [Y], which will lead us to [Z]", but apparently the outline must be written.)
Crap, thought I was correcting and in fact misread my own sentence. I need a nap.
As a general public presentation rule, I believe in the
tell 'em what you're gonna tell 'em;
tell 'em;
tell 'em what you've told them
approach. IME, people absorb information better that way. But I can't say whether that holds for formal, ongoing classes.
30: I've also never seen that. Also, I've never had students ask for it.
33: See, I was kind of doing that, but in words, not in written form.
Maybe I'm just uniquely poorly organized and they're trying to clue me in. Around here, that seems unlikely.
I don't know if it's standard practice or not, but the written outline thing is generally a very good idea for any presentation IMO.
In today's lecture, we will be discussing:
1. How to
2. Blow up
3. The moon
Yes, assume that your audience can read but barely understands the language that you are mumbling and digressing in.
When I was teaching philosophy,* and certainly when I was/am giving presentations I tend to go for the approach in 33. When being taught philosophy, maybe not so much, although at early undergraduate level we usually had some sort of handout in advance that provided a structure for the lecture. So it was sort of:
[Paper outlining shit that will be said]
Lecturer says shit
Lecturer summarises shit
Lecturer points to bit on paper outlining the shit he'll say next time.
When I had maths classes at college they did tend to just go for the 'enter into incomprehensible screed' approach.
* only for a couple of years, so I'm hardly the king-of-experience
Although I had one lecturer who rarely stuck to the outline. Lectured for 3 weeks [of a 9 week course] on one small problem in Hume. Dropped heavy hints that this topic would form a major part of the exam. And then examined everyone on an area that he'd basically dismissed in a few minutes on one lecture.
I find it hard to imagine giving a lecturer feedback on their teaching voluntarily. Sulking and catty remarks on end-of-term forced evaluations were more my bag.
I never had a math teacher provide a daily outline, but I always do so myself because I'm AWESOME, BLOSSOM.
Don't let the students push you around, essear! Not even should you not provide an outline, stand facing the board and erase as soon as you write! Gotta show 'em who's boss.
barely understands the language that you are mumbling and digressing in.
Aww, I don't think I'm, um, really mumbling or digressing or, um, but then maybe I, um, hey, did I mention I started reading that book about Bell Labs that came up here before? But um as I was saying, there's...
I think most of my teachers/professors took a "today I/we will talk about X"/"today we talked about X" approach, but not everyone had handouts.
Also, the worst math teacher I had pretty much lectured independently of any other part of the schedule for the class. It was like one long lecture for the whole semester and if he happened to be a week or two ahead of the homework/midterms he just kept going. At least, I think he did. I nearly stopped attending lectures altogether after the halfway point, when he was at least a week ahead of the syllabus. I also didn't do a great job on the second midterm or the final. There might be some causal relationships there.
Actually, I shouldn't be too hard on the guy. I was sick for a week around the time of the final and when I explained that I couldn't take an incomplete because it was against the rules of the program I was in, he let me take the final a few days later even though he knew I had friends who'd taken and seen the final already.* I ended up doing the test by myself in an office with an incredible view.
*He asked me if I had friends in the class and I said yes. I didn't realize until much later that he was probably trying to gauge whether I could cheat by getting questions ahead of time.
Oh, I don't provide a handout. I just write the outline on the side board. Just a list of 3-4 basic topics.
I am the feared Professor Essear. I am sure you have heard of me. Boo! Look to your left. Look to your right. By the time the semester ends, most of those before you will have returned home, crying and broken, into the cheap comfort of their mother's warm embrace. You may, if you choose, become such a failure. It may well be your destiny to rejoin the pathetic multitude, as many have before you. But if you listen -- truly listen -- to what I have to tell you, if you do all that I demand, without question and without hesitation, and if -- above all -- you have the fortitude, guts, and passion to survive, I can offer you power beyond compare and knowledge of physics beyond what you can possibly imagine.
I had an econ professor in grad school who wrote his entire lecture out in complete sentences as he delivered it, filling chalkboard after chalkboard after chalkboard.
48: Your mother's embrace offers cheap comfort.
49 is mind-boggling. At least you could gamble on how many times certain phrases would appear. Maybe "ex post," "ex ante," "underneath it all," and, of course, "at the margin."
You guysss while we're on this topic can you tell me whether I should stay in this class or not? It seems to be aimed at grad students in essear's discipline, and while the math seems doable so far, it looks like it might take me an awfully long time that I should probably be spending doing research. I don't know what to doooooooooo guyssssss.
Honestly, I don't. I don't know why I think you all will help, either.
I do not have good advice, other than to ask what you think you're going to get out of it, at best.
Today a student asked to do a guided summer research thing with little old me. I am feeling flattered and pleased.
49: I had a physics professor who did that! He got through almost no interesting material in a quarter, predictably.
Oh, the course material is actually fantastic, and will likely be very useful to me. The problem is that I need to take a class for elective credit, and pass it with a B+. I imagine that's probably doable with this class, but I'm just worried about the cost/benefit of the time it'll take.
Maybe essear will do my homework for me.
Take the class and pose the homework problems in comment threads! Then we can all collectively figure them out.
The professor who made me a math major lectured one long lecture all term, fake accent; really one subject, as I recall it. (Start by defining the empty set, end with multivariable calculus.) No notes when he walked in; just said 'We had demonstrated that N [or Q or R or C] is closed under.... What if we...?" and kept going. What's even more startling in hindsight is that he had two sections of this and we weren't quite in sync because there was a lot of question-and-answer.
With a little work, 42 could be a Mayim Bialik joke.
58 would take considerably more work.
My favorite professor at law school puts an outline on the board before class starts and uses it to guide his presentation; it's also really helpful for students taking notes, and even more helpful when you're making an outline at the end of the semester as part of studying for the exam. This outline-making (by students) is something I've only ever encountered in law school, but it might be helpful in other classes where you're covering a set amount of fairly stable doctrine.
I think one of my big weaknesses as a teacher is that I never took notes, which means that I don't know how to give lectures which are good for students who are just taking notes.
Students have a really difficult time developing a birds-eye view of the material. Ideally, well-organized notes on the board help your weaker students get ahold of their map of the material. If that helps.
Well right, I do put a lot of effort into keeping the big picture in sight, but I don't think I do so in a way that it's clear to people who aren't really paying attention to the lecture but instead are reading their notes afterwards.
I think one of my big weaknesses as a teacher is that I only taught on class in my whole life.
it seems to me that Basic Training is going to be a pretty good sort mechanism for the set "able to sit in class quietly and pay attention".
That's why PD's usually give some preference points for vets who left in good standing. Someone else has already broken them into the "it's time for you to shut up and get some instruction" role.
I could see 58 working for some professors. But I also had a history prof do a similar thing and it was my least favorite history class. So it's possible I'm not the right kind of student for it.
Ugh, the "big picture". The only thing I really care very much about conveying is the big picture, but it's clear that I'm not getting it across. Today I lectured on something they've seen before from a very top-down "here's the theory, let's derive its consequences" kind of way, and I was coming at it from a "let's start from the bottom up with basic consistency conditions and show why this was the only theory that could have made sense", and from talking to people after class I don't think much of anyone got it and they thought I was just repeating what they already know. One undergrad math major who's taking my class totally got it and asked awesome questions and I thought that meant I was getting the point across, but it sounds like the rest of the class wasn't really following.
And even when I try to stress the big picture I'm going to have people saying "didn't you drop a minus sign there?" and drilling down to the distracting details. Which I'm really bad at getting right, especially when people in the back of the room start snickering and whispering to each other whenever I miss one.
Would it help if you pictured the class in their underwear?
My professor handles that pretty well today by saying "gooood! Please correct me when I miss something!"
It although took the edge of although he had little mistakes here and there (that he eventually found).
Just be careful not to picture the class in your underwear. That would be upsetting.
Oh, drones are great in the classroom.
WHAT-HO!
(The Drones Club is really going to have to rebrand if the face of modern war continues to change like this.)
68: I have friends who have complained about this--this feeling that students are waiting to mock you for little mistakes as evidence that you're not really qualified to do your job, when, at least in the case of my friends, the professor is thinking, "You don't even understand the big outlines of this thing; can you really be so petty as to care about trivialities?" I have suggested the possibility that it might be worthwhile, on occasion, to present to your students an example problem from your own research (or at least from a professional paper). The point is not to humiliate them, but to show them how these smaller tasks they're in the process of learning are building toward a larger set of skills. They're caught up in your silly mistake on the board because they don't understand what the problem *means*. Everyone gets tired in class and makes weird errors, but if the students feel like they can see how it fits into a bigger theory or applicable skill, they'll call your attention to mistakes in a more generous spirit. (I am constantly pulling this shit, BTW. I'm ranting for 5 minutes about something in English history and suddenly someone alerts me to the fact that I've been saying the wrong king's name or whatever.)
The friend I'm thinking of who is struggling with this most is teaching a highly technical and mathy course that has historically been taught in an abstract, toy-model way. I sat in on a class and watched his students nearly nitpick him to death, turning what should have been a 15-minute presentation into 10 minutes on each slide with hands in the air the whole time. We've been talking about ways to restructure the class time so that there is a clear divide between the presentation part (hold questions to the end) and the discussion part. I don't know if that would help you.
I remember a calc prof of mine in college who got a lot of shit for making constant errors in his blackboard work, but once we got him to talk about his own research, everyone stopped giving him shit. Dude was a freaky genius; who cares if he can't add?
The point is not to humiliate them...
The point doesn't have to be to humiliate them, but there's not any requirement that you don't humiliate them.
Is there an effective-manager way to tell a new coworker that I'm supervising to not ask me so many questions? I think she's afraid not to ask me questions when I really want her to be afraid to send me more than two emails a day.
when I really want her to be afraid to send me more than two emails a day.
BF Skinner had some ideas.
She gets really upset when she doesn't understand something exactly but I really don't expect her to understand everything exactly just yet. I expect her to stumble around on her own until she figures out this very complicated piece of work and to let me thing about other stuff while she's working on her own.
"OK, here's this new piece of work I want you to take on, and, so that I can judge how much of our processes you've managed to come up to speed with so far, I'd like you to try and do it with as little intervention from me as possible."
I suppose. Usually people avoid me without prompting.
"one thing that would help me do a better job of helping you is if your emails had a list of all the things that you'd tried before emailing me, so I could check all of those off first. Don't be afraid to try things that might not work, and once you've explored all of those possibilities, come to me with a summary and we can go from there."
80. You don't have to stay in character when you go presidential.
76: "The last one of my employees to ask me so many questions got reassigned to Alaska. Now he has drug addicts knocking on his door first thing in the morning. You don't want to go to Alaska, do you?"
More seriously, "I get that this is complicated and you're trying to get up to speed quickly, but constant e-mails aren't a good use of either of our time. Why don't you send me one e-mail at the end of the day collecting all the assorted issues that you haven't managed to figure out on your own?"
64: but I'm specifically saying your notes need to serve that function. Things you say out loud only stick with the kids that are right there with you. You want someone who just copied what was on the board and can't remember anything you said to be able to get a sense of what's a detail and what's a big structure, from your board work.
68, 74:
About half the time an instructor does something that looks like a mistake, it turns out that they just skipped a (correct) step. I don't know which is which unless I ask.
76: [After giving her morning instructions for the day] "Let's plan on touching base at 3:30 this afternoon for a half hour so that we can see how you're coming along and I can answer any questions you have. Until then, I'm going to be heads down on some other matters. If you have questions between now and then, just work through them as best you can and we'll try to resolve them when we meet face to face. Also, remember that your peers are a resource [assuming she has any]. Everyone here appreciates that new people will come to them with questions. They were new themselves once."
I've given a version of this speech a gazillion times. If she comes to a roadblock and freezes up completely, she might not be cut out for the job.
I found you had to craft the message to the individual personality. My favorite was when I launched into an impromptu talk on the the theoretical information-processing efficiency of hierarchies, and specific examples of things that might negate that like your standing here in my office door for the nth time today.
It's such a wonder that I no longer supervise people.
Tweety's is clever. The downside of Knecht's is that then you have to appear busy the rest of the day.
The downside of Knecht's is that then you have to appear busy the rest of the day.
It gets easier with practice.
A buzzword I rather like is "parking lot" - keeping a running list of issues/questions for the next meeting. Helped my relationship with my boss a good deal.
My relationship with my boss is fine. He sends me less than two emails a day.
re: 78
This is a problem for me with one of my staff (which sounds like I have loads, but I have a grand total of two plus the odd bit of contractor time). I am very much a 'stumble about and google shit' person. She, otoh, very much wants to be told in microdetail what do do, and will then hit a block sometimes if she doesn't know.
Usually I don't know, either. But it's the work of five minutes to find the answer. She could do this herself.
She is a generally smart person, and when she's working on stuff she knows, she does good work. So her total inability to be self-supporting in other ways drives me crazy.
I heard a different punchline again to that feminist lightbulb joke:
4. One to change the bulb, two to discuss the violation of the socket, and one to secretly wish she was the socket.
A couple of really stupid ones.
5: One to hold the bulb and wait for the world to revolve around her. (something like that)
6: None. They can't change anything.
7: None. They just start a discussion group called "Women Living with Darkness".
How many European finance ministers does it take to change a lightbulb?
Austerity!