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This course gave students a lot of independence and responsibility for their own learning. Those who didn’t want to do any work didn’t have to, and those who wanted to challenge themselves could. [On the other hand, if a student wanted to do the work but had trouble…I don’t know what resources were available. We had no textbook, and I’ve heard the university’s Math tutors weren’t much help.]
I wish we’d had a proper syllabus—this class was structured differently than most of the others I’ve taken, and it took me a third of the semester to figure out what was expected of me.
The lack of tests and graded assignments makes it difficult to gauge how well one is doing in the class and puts a lot of pressure on students at the end of the semester. I don’t know how our course grades will be calculated or what to expect on the final, since it will be the first graded assignment we’ve had.
I did enjoy learning the material and working through the proofs on my own, but the actual classes were often tedious, as the class sat silently watching one person put up a proof on the board. Several students worked crosswords, read, or did homework for other courses during class. I don’t know at what stage in the UH math sequence students learn the fundamentals of writing and presenting proofs, but many students in the class seemed not to have a firm grasp of these, which made class frustrating at times.
The class did improve significantly over the course of the semester, after Dr. —— switched from going down the roll to asking for volunteers to present proofs of their choice. He also gave us hints and suggestions on a few proofs as well as a list of easier problems to try, which I found helpful. Dr. —— clearly knew the material well and was able to tell us exactly where a proof had gone wrong.
We were not allowed to discuss the problems with other students outside of class. If we had been, I know that I would have gotten a lot more out of this course, and I think many other students would have, too. We might also have made more progress as a class, as I think allowing us to help each other and study together would have cut down on the number of obviously incorrect proofs presented and would have allowed some of the students who never participated to ask questions and present their ideas in a less intimidating setting. I understand the need to evaluate each student’s individual work, but I think tests or graded homework would have been a more effective way to accomplish that.
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UPDATE (12:13 AM): I was just feeling all proud of myself for not having to rush to post before midnight tonight . . . until I remembered I’d forgotten the link. Again. So here you go: names are fascinating. To see where all those graphs came from, check out the NameVoyager. It’s nifty. So nifty, in fact, that I’ve probably blogged about it before.
November 29th, 2006 at 12:19 am
“The lack of tests and graded assignments makes it difficult to gauge how well one is doing in the class and puts a lot of pressure on students at the end of the semester. I don’t know how our course grades will be calculated or what to expect on the final, since it will be the first graded assignment we’ve had.”
This person should not go to law school, since that is how it works there. Altho I do feel his/her pain and can sympathize.
November 29th, 2006 at 12:30 am
Hi, I’m a her. =)
I was thinking about how it was like law school (or what I’ve heard of it, anyway)—the prof even told us the class would be taught “by the Socratic method.” I don’t know much about the details of said method, so it’s hard for me to say whether what we did fit the bill. Okay, I guess it was very different from law school in that we had no texts at all to work with, just the few theorems he gave us and occasional proofs copied from the board.
I dashed this off in a bit of a hurry, as I’m currently writing a paper, and, rereading it, I wonder if it’s too whiny and presumptuous. Who am I to say how the class ought to be taught? What right do I have to demand that professors make classes interesting and fun every second I’m in the room? Sure it’s nice if they make an effort to make things easier on students, but in the end it’s still my responsibility to learn the material, not the prof’s to teach it to me.
It would be nice to know, though, what material I’m supposed to be learning. I think if I were to rewrite this, I would focus more on the lack of a course outline or any apparent plan—the prof seemed to be making the course up as we went along. I have no idea whether I’ve achieved the objectives of this course, because there were none.