Disaster Strikes

Posted on September 21, 2011 by Laura Zirbel

So my trusty MacBook has been on the way out for a week or so. While on vacation, I got the modern equivalent of a sad mac face, the question mark of doom.

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Dissonance in the Classroom

Posted on September 11, 2011 by Derek Smith

I’m currently TA for two sections, one at 12:30 and another at 2:30. The other day, the students had a midterm from 11-12. They didn’t yet have a new homework assigment, so the instructor asked me to answer questions from the exam and preview upcoming topics. I also decided to use a few minutes of this section to perform an experiment. For some reason, the mood in the first class is much different from the 2:30 section. Participation is much lower, which tends to put me a little on edge, which probably has the effect of lessening participation even further. There are far fewer students in the second section–10 as compared with 20–which probably contributes to the difference. But how? Asking a question is on some level an admission of weakness. When a student works up the courage to actually ask a question it is often the case that a new fact appears to contradict what they thought they knew. Unforunately, it seems more likely that a student will suppress any such contradictions versus risk being seen by other members of the group with their hand raised.

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Student Oral/Take-home Exams

Posted on September 6, 2011 by Brian Katz

by Katz

If I had to condense my teaching philosophy into one phrase it would be something like the following:

The practice that students do and the evaluation of their progress should match
the context of the goal skill/attitude/behavior as closely as possible.

The challenge then becomes determining the goals and their contexts. Almost every reason I can think of for an undergraduate to take a math class ends with them taking time to produce nice written and oral versions of their work to communicate with others. I believe that I create appropriate contexts in the classroom, but I have not been happy with my exams for several years. Recently I have experimented with removing in-class written exams entirely in favor of a combination of a take-home exam and an oral exam.

I see huge advantages including allowing more useful and immediate feedback for the students and a more pleasant experience grading. I also see some obstacles including initial fear from the students, complex administrative requirements, and a slightly different focus while evaluating. In what follows, I will share my thoughts on the benefits and costs of this different exam structure.

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The Glory of Starting Over

Posted on September 6, 2011 by Melanie Laffin

After finishing a Master’s program in Discrete Mathematics last spring, I moved onto a PhD program in a (completely) different school. Whereas the Master’s was very focused on very esoteric fields of math, the PhD program I’m in has a very standard beginning and then you specialize later on. I’m grateful for this, because as I started this program I realized I have absolutely no idea what I want to do. When I was working on my M.S. I was #1 combinatorics girl. But watching friends and colleagues struggle in the job market in this area, as well as just general fatigue of the area makes me not so in love with the area anymore. Other areas seem much more lucrative, but I feel that is partially because its something I am NOT doing.

So as I start my grad school experience with a fresh plate, what is some advice you have? Should I specialize in something that is more likely to land a job and research what I want after I’m gainfully employed? More generally, what would you have redone during your grad school career if you could? What advice do you have for a “first-year” (more like third year) graduate student who has lost her focus?

P.S. The main goal for this year is passing the qualifiers 😉

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The virtue of verbosity

Posted on September 3, 2011 by Luke Wolcott

Doing math has trained me to communicate concisely, tersely even.  As I became more and more socialized into my math department, my email correspondences became shorter and denser.  At some point, friends in other departments (e.g. Gender Studies, Communications) started to comment on the Robot Luke that sent them emails, and I started to wonder if I should intentionally increase verbosity.

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