- Instead of a tiresome lecture about the finer points of sequences and series, I made a worksheet of problems, some from the book and some I wrote myself, and suggested that the students work together and discuss them at their tables.
- If I hadn't mentioned it before, the classroom is arranged so that there are square tables. Four students sit at one table, and each takes one side. As a result, two students per table almost always have their backs to me, during class.
You have no idea how much that bothers me .. \: - But it worked out: the students were still rather quiet, but they discussed the problems, and I wandered around and lent a hand when a team had trouble with a particular concept or computation.
- Working this way almost makes me a disbeliever of large-scale teaching. I know it bothers me when I have to lecture in front of 30+ students. It's not because of nervousness, but because I have only a small sense of whether they actually understand what I say.
It's easy for me to feel that the lecture is boring and pointless and nobody's getting anything out of my careful method of explaining this or that. If that happens then it's a waste of everyone's time.
What's the point of that? - This also raises another question: how do diligent, thoughtful students become that way? I like to think that I'm not that lazy and confused student in the world ..(and at the least, people do say that I take good notes)
.. and how do students become maths students? I've seen enough of my friends and familiars to realize there is a rich variety and diversity in personality and manner when it comes to one's approach to academics ..
.. yet there seems an intangible invariant: "mathgradness," as Jo so clearly put. What is this special quality, and what drives us to do maths and keep others from experiencing this coolness? - I'm not sure if that was a rhetorical question. It needn't be. Any takers?
- Let me not go into nature and nurture arguments, and I'm happy to know why I like mathematics. Some days I can actually explain why, too. q:
Monday, October 31, 2005
teaching today, and on the nature of "mathgradness"
So I finally got around to it, today: I decided to shut up.
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2 comments:
I enjoy teaching my 70-student section more than the other section with 44 students (same class). Perhaps this is because the classrooms are of the same size, and lecturing to empty seats is no fun.
It seems your classroom was designed for active/cooperative learning, guide-on-a-side enthusiasts. Maybe this approach will work better for you. But as for me, I fancy myself a drill instructor in boot camp. :)
hear, hear! as a quasi-control freak who learned under many forms of drill instructors, i find that system more comforting than the "touchy-feely" methods. as they say "the first system produced such a fine mathematician as me, it can not be all bad." ;)
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