Evals! Oh happy day! February 6, 2012
Posted by mareserinitatis in education, engineering, teaching.Tags: evaluations, students, teaching
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I had to make a run down to campus and, while there, I picked up my evals from last semester. Apparently there were no comments on the evals because I just received a sheet for each class summarizing my ‘grades’.
I had been dreading this day for quite a while. I had a couple of cranky students at the end of last semester. I was also worried. When teaching geology labs, it seemed like I got some very pissed off students who left simply nasty evals. (I discussed this on my old blog a couple times.) Compared to some of the other TAs, my evals usually came out worse. A lot of this had to do with the perception that I was a harder grader. In reality, I graded more easily on labs and more harshly on exams, so my averages were about the same as everyone else. But that’s not what the students think.
Anyway, so I sat down with my numbers and discovered that some classes had better or worse perception than others. For instance, my first Thursday class gave me the lowest scores (3.6 out of 5 for a couple questions) while the class right after that gave me the highest scores (4.5 of 5). My Tuesday classes were somewhere in between. The smallest class was the happiest, but the largest class wasn’t the unhappiest. I’m not sure what happened with that one Thursday class, though, as it was a lot lower than the others. Maybe I need to make sure to regale future students with my huge stack of nerdy science jokes.
They said the average for the department was around 4.2…but I realized that they were talking about the University Studies department, not engineering. (The class is listed under University Studies, but some departments choose to have their own teachers for the class, as was the case for the sections I taught.) I’m actually relieved that my scores were on par with the rest of the University Studies department given I heard many complaints about how much more work my students had to do relative to other sections (which weren’t being run by engineering). Despite the fact I “worked them to death,” they were still okay with it.
That’s good because it’s not going to get any easier for them.
It’s looking,therefore, like last semester went as well as could be expected, especially given it was my first time teaching it and the whole thing was an experiment. I wish there was some way to see if the kids really did get anything out of it to help with their long-term academic goals, though.
Am I missing something here? January 27, 2012
Posted by mareserinitatis in education, engineering, science, teaching.Tags: grades, homework, teaching
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Like everyone else, I came across the article on why college students leave engineering.
I was reading it with my jaw hanging open. Specifically this:
The typical engineering major today spends 18.5 hours per week studying. The typical social sciences major, by contrast, spends about 14.6 hours.
My first thought was: Where the heck can you go to school and study for 18.5 hrs/wk and still manage to pass enough classes to get an engineering degree?!
My second thought was that it explained something that has been puzzling me. Last semester, my students complained about the amount of homework I assigned for my 1-credit class. There was about 1 homework assignment per week, and I figured this meant they’d be spending an average of 1-2 hours outside of class on assignments.
When I started school, the rule of thumb was that 3 hours per week outside of class PER CREDIT was required for an A, two for a B, one for a C. This meant that if you planned to go to school full time (which was 12 credits per semester) and get an A average, you needed to be spending about 36 hours per week just on homework in addition to your 12 hours of seat time in a classroom.
I also learned that, for some classes, this was a significant underestimate (usually math, engineering and physics classes) while for other classes, it was an overestimate. I remember one senior-level sociology class that I took where I spent, on average, three hours per week on homework and still came out with one of the highest grades in the class. This is why I always felt it was a good idea to have a nice balance between technical and non-technical classes: it would even out the homework load a bit.
My understanding of a typical homework load is obviously a couple decades behind. (Although I am not sure I plan to change my tune any time soon.) However, I did feel good about one point in the article:
STEM fields (science, technology, engineering, mathematics) have also had less grade inflation than the humanities and social sciences have in the last several decades.
Apparently you can study less in engineering than you used to have to obtain a degree, which I have to admit bothers me a bit. However, it’s still harder than humanities and you’re more likely to actually have to earn those grades. Despite the fact that we’re probably pushing STEM fields more than we really need to, I do hope employers take that into consideration. STEM students have to be more committed to make it through their fields, which are also more technically challenging. I’d think that should be worth something.
Outnumbered January 5, 2012
Posted by mareserinitatis in gifted, math, teaching, younger son.Tags: math, teaching, younger son
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Today I’m going to be working with the elementary students again. This will be interesting as I completely switched gears from what we were doing before. The stuff we were doing before was fun, but as we move through the book, it looks like they need a lot of multiplication and division…which most second graders don’t have.
Today, we’re going to learn about other number systems. In particular, I’m going to have them pick a number using Indo-Arabic numerals and ‘translate’ into other numbering systems – Egyptian, Roman, Babylonian, Mayan, and Chinese. This will give us an opportunity to talk about different bases, positional numbers (i.e. the concept of place value), and how many systems don’t have a zero. (Although, there’s debate in some cases.)
After doing the prep, I’m SO glad that we don’t use the Babylonian system. Base 60?! No wonder my math professor got annoyed when we used degrees.
Thanks to the MacTutor History of Mathematics Archive for the picture!
Lessons learned: teachers need organizational skills, too December 19, 2011
Posted by mareserinitatis in education, teaching.Tags: classes, grades, grading, homework, teaching
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I have now developed a greater understanding of a strange professorial quirk that I observed over the years. I had at least one professor each term who would get visibly annoyed if you tried to give them an assignment at any time other than the first thirty seconds of a class period.
My understanding is due to that fact that I have recently become eligible to join the Super Secret Society of Teachers Who Have Lost a Student’s Assignment. (I’m suffering from a cold, so I was unable to come up with a snappy acronym. Please feel free to make an effort on my behalf.)
*headdesk*
When I was teaching geology labs, I was usually teaching four sections each week in a different building. I found that the best way to keep track of student work was to have four plastic filing envelopes. Each envelope was a different color, and I always knew which one to grab before each class. At the beginning of class, I’d hand stuff back. At the end of class, it would all get filed away in my envelope. This was straight-forward, and I never lost any homeworks this way. The labs were done in class and handed in at the end. If they had to hand something else in, it went into my mailbox, which was in the same building as my office (but different than the labs).
This semester, I had 90 students in four classes, in three buildings. My mailbox was in a different building than two of my classes, and all of them were in different places than my regular office. I usually had two of my envelopes with me (two classes were on Tuesday and two were on Thursday). Students also had the option of submitting homeworks online, as much as I hate grading those.
What I hadn’t anticipated was running into students who would randomly hand me homeworks between classes, leave them at the department with the admin staff, or all sorts of other unexpected things. And, as it happens, I ended up misplacing some homework. In fact, I went through and filed everything on my desk, and still never found it. I believe it has ended up in the same place that unmatched socks end up…except that paper always ends up falling back out and will likely be found in the spring of 2013 or some similarly odd time.
If I end up teaching this class again, I think I’m going to make it a policy that homeworks be handed in online. Sadly, this means that I can’t use the stair distribution when grading:
(Thanks to Concurring Opinions for the image.)
I hate grading in front of a computer screen, but I have to admit that it significantly reduces the organizational demands required to keep track of all the assignments. Lurking in the back of my mind, however, is the idea of having to teach a very large class where homeworks simply must be dealt with the old fashioned way. (And no, I’m not talking about burning them.)
The Crying Game December 14, 2011
Posted by mareserinitatis in education, engineering, science, societal commentary.Tags: emotions, students, teaching
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You know that stereotype about girls always being the ones to cry in the professor’s office?
Not true.
I’ve had two criers this semester, and both of them were men. I’m getting more comfortable with this. If a woman cries, you offer her a tissue, empathize a bit, and then set down what needs to be done. Most of the female students were relieved that I didn’t blow up at them for something or another, although I think I had one who despised me for noticing. However, with the male students, I’ve learned that they don’t want you looking at them when they’re about to have an emotional breakdown. They remind me of ostriches, looking for a way to hide themselves, but lacking one, can only refuse to make eye contact with you. Worse yet is acknowledging that this is happening in any way, shape, or form. Best to just pretend things are fine and talk about how to deal with the problem at hand. And did I mention not to look at them?
I wish these things were confined to crying, but they’re not. In general, I seem to get more emotional behavior from male students than female, although the most extreme behavior seems to be representative of the gender distribution of the class. In one particularly bad year, I had a student who gouged out her hand during class and another (male) who had a series of offensive behavior, including showing up drunk to a make-up lab. The chair of the department asked me why I get all of the difficult students.
The student who was the hardest to deal with, however, was one who I caught cheating more than once. One day he came to my office, and the way he started yelling at me made me wonder if he was going to get violent. I was particularly happy my officemate and the prof next door were both in. This student kept it up for an hour, going from trying to intimidate me to giving me a sob story.
The worst thing about dealing with this student is that it became apparent that his really obnoxious behavior was confined to me. I was a TA for the class, but there was one other TA and the instructor, both of whom were male. When these problems got to the point where they were impossible, he was switched to the other TA’s section and had to deal with the instructor. He was immediately caught cheating again, but when confronted by the other TA and, later, the instructor, his attitude was completely different. There was no hint of belligerence in his interactions with them.
It’s made me realize that a lot of students are apparently more comfortable around me than my male counterparts, and thus feel it is alright to be more emotional in my presence. I think it doesn’t matter if the emotion is frustration, sadness/depression, or anger: whatever filter they put in place for other people, particularly if those people are male, seem to disappear when dealing with me. Not that I’m saying they know this; I suspect most of them don’t realize there is a difference in their behavior.
This semester has been one of my better semesters as far as dealing with emotional students. I can handle a couple of students who are obviously having a tough time, especially when there are medical issues involved or other situations where the students are dealing with stressors that are out of their control. I do sort of wonder, however, if I’ll manage to get through one semester without some sort of emotional outburst.
The end is nigh December 10, 2011
Posted by mareserinitatis in engineering, teaching.Tags: engineering, teaching
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I’m through the ‘grading semifinals’: that is, I have no more grading until after the “all assignments are due” date on Monday. Unfortunately, I have a bad feeling about how this is going to go with some students. I have several students who handed in last minute assignments. It also appears they didn’t read the criteria for the assignment carefully and will not be getting credit for some of those assignments unless they redo them before Monday and submit them again. Some of these assignments are the required assignments.
I had structured the class so that there were six required assignments and 9 optional assignments. To pass the class, you had to do all required assignments. These included things like a personal essay, filling out a curriculum sheet so that the students knew how to plan what classes to take, a presentation on a subfield of engineering, how to keep a lab notebook, and how to write a lab report. The optional assignments involved a lot of metacognitive items like homework and test wrappers, a couple things on learning styles, a library quiz, and the dreaded Matlab assignments.
A couple weeks ago, I gave everyone a little piece of paper that showed what assignments were outstanding and what their current grade was. Realistically, this has always been available on blackboard. However, it was very disconcerting to see how many people were failing to turn in certain required assignments and thus were failing the course. This also led to an onslaught of homework that needed to be graded. What’s disappointing, however, is that a good chunk of these assignments were poorly done and didn’t fill the criteria outlined in the assignment. I had more than one student who handed in a lab report that was three paragraphs in essay form. No sections, no data, no cover page, etc.
I’ve never had to fail too many students in the past. In fact, the only one I can really recall was someone who did dangerous things during lab and then showed up to a makeup lab drunk. I guess facing the prospect of failing a large number of students (>5) is rather disconcerting. It makes me even more glad to get this over with, although I’m going to be very disappointed every time I have to put down an F.
You know it’s a bad meeting when… December 6, 2011
Posted by mareserinitatis in education, teaching, work.Tags: classes, meetings, schedule, teaching
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I don’t know if it’s the sign of a teacher who enjoys her job or if it’s a sign the meeting is really boring.
I’ve not been able to make a regular meeting at work because it was at the same time as one of my classes this semester. Last week was the last meeting of that section, so I made it to the work-related meeting for the first time since August. As it turns out, twenty minutes into it, I wished I was in class instead.
Now I have another reason to miss teaching this spring.
I can haz schedule, pleez? November 18, 2011
Posted by mareserinitatis in education, teaching, work.Tags: classes, meetings, schedules, teaching
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I’ve only got three more weeks of classes, and while I’m enjoying the class, I’m looking forward to having a schedule back.
I’ve never been lucky enough to teach a class that meets at the same time multiple times a week. Instead, it’s usually a situation like I have now: Tuesday morning is hosed because I have class and then office hours, Tuesday afternoon is hosed because I have class in the middle of the afternoon, giving me very little time to accomplish things at either end, and Thursday afternoon is hosed because I have two classes a half hour apart. Oh yeah, and since I’m at the opposite end of campus, I lose about a half hour riding the shuttle down and back…three times a week.
The only time I felt like I really did have a schedule was the one semester where I had three labs in a row. It ate up my entire day and left me devoid of consciousness at the end. On the other hand, it left me with four other days to be productive.
The other problem is that now I am working at a job, on top of classes, so I have meetings. Of course, these have to be scheduled for Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. So on the days I am at work for a reasonable amount of time, that time gets sucked up with meetings. And, of course, meetings, like classes, are scheduled mid-morning or mid-afternoon to just perfectly mess things up so that I have no longer than 1 1/2 hours to focus on anything.
I have to say that I’ve managed, this semester, to have the worst of both worlds.
And now we’re heading into the holidays.
Just three more weeks…
“Why is this the hardest class?” November 17, 2011
Posted by mareserinitatis in engineering, teaching.Tags: engineering, geology, hardest class, teaching
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I’d like to know why I keep getting this question: “Why is your class the hardest?” I got it again today.
Okay…so I’m teaching a freshman skills class to engineering majors. In fact, the department specifically asked to have it’s own sections. If my students are thinking my class is hard, I have to wonder what’s going to happen when they really hit the hard ones.
I got this when I was teaching geology labs, though. My evals came back frequently with comments about how I graded much harder than I needed to, I expected too much for an introductory science class, etc.
The coordinator for the course actually went through and analyzed how each of us graded. It turned out that I had the most lenient lab grades and graded more harshly on the exams. (Honestly, if you read and understood the labs, all you had to do was regurgitate your answers for the lab.) It ended up that my grading resulted in the same average as the other TAs.
I’m trying to find out if I just look mean and intimidating because I don’t get it. I know I demand a reasonable amount of work, and I try to help the students as much as possible so they don’t get frustrated.
But apparently my classes are hard.
I also blog at Engineer Blogs, home away from home to some of the best engineering blogs.
Why are the women so good? January 21, 2012
Posted by mareserinitatis in education, engineering, feminism, teaching.Tags: feminism, sexism, sexist comments, students, teaching, women in engineering
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I’d been thinking about writing this post last semester. However, it slipped my mind until some trollish comments showed up on EngineerBlogs today. I think that Chris, Gears and Katie gave the troll a good smackdown, but one comment bothers me:
I’ve heard this before (pretty much since I started as an undergrad). However, after teaching my class last semester, I have to wonder what the hell these people are talking about.
I had 90 students last semester, 5 of whom were women. All five of those women were easily in the top 25% of the class and were more likely in the top 10% of the class. They were the students who repeatedly handed in assignments on time and seldom (if ever) had to redo any of them. I will say that none of them chose to do the programming – but that is likely because they had turned in all the optional assignments required for an A before the matlab assignments were given.
If anything, what I saw was puzzling to me. The women seemed the most prepared to meet the demands of a college class, were able to communicate well both in written and verbal form (and one of them was a non-native English speaker), and contributed well and frequently to the class. It was almost strange how they were on top of things when the majority of their male classmates were struggling.
I’ve heard it argued that the women most likely to be in engineering are generally those who are in the top of their classes. Women who may be good at math but not outright brilliant will be swayed to go into other careers. From what I could see, this was true.
If you listen to trolls on the internet, you get the impression that women are incompetent engineers, however. The women in my class were some of the most competent and motivated students, but I admit that they were more passive than the male students, which I still think leads the male students (and probably later on, male professors) to believe that the female students don’t know anything. But it’s interesting to hear this comments after witnessing the exact opposite of what everybody “knows to be true”. I can only think that people who make these comments are really overestimating their own abilities or wrongly judging what it takes to be a good engineer. Maybe both.