Some Things
Students Like about the Course (and the Way that I teach it)
"The Web Page" – This is perhaps the most commonly liked aspect of my course. The approach in this course is a hybridization of an online and real-time course: the online course materials are sufficiently complete to support an online course, but the course employs in-class, real-time instruction.
"Hands-on Teaching" – With the exception of a handful of sessions, I avoid traditional lecture methods, and when possible, I use practical, hands-on casework. I find that actively engaging students in the learning process helps students to stay engaged in learning the course material.
"Case Studies" – My teaching approach centers on the use of case-studies, little blocks of concepts delivered via active learning within student groups.
"Dice, Marbles" – In teaching probability, I cannot rely on the actual mathematics required for the task (Calculus), so I use simple experimental models involving dice and marbles. This approach is simple, hands-on and allows me to teach probabilistic concepts while avoiding excessive mathematical anxiety in my students.
"Samples" – I post my old tests on my website; pretty much every test that I’ve given in recent history is available to my students. The intent is to clearly indicate what is expected in terms of testing performance, and to give students the basic materials needed to successfully prepare for tests.
"Tool-sheets" – I permit the use of student tool-sheets on my tests.
"Groups" – In my classes, I engage small student groups in active learning. I do not use the usual lecture mode in my classes.
"Clear Requirements" – I do my best to state clearly what is required of my students, both administratively and academically.
"Applied Examples” – When possible, I employ examples in practical settings. Given my personal professional focus, that means biological or medical examples.
"Fair Testing" – My goal is to provide a transparently fair process for testing in this course. Towards this end, I provide extensive sets of past tests, with keys. I also allocate a full day of student-driven open review for each hourly test, and several days at the end of the course for the final examination. I also provide supplemental information to aid in preparing for tests in my class. Testing coverage and dates are clearly stated well in advance of the test dates.
“Drop Score” – The lowest of the three in-class tests is dropped from the course raw score. However, the final examination is comprehensive, so a very low score in one of the in-class tests may predict problems on the final.
“Fair Grading” – I try to keep the testing and scoring as transparently clear as possible, via posted keys that allow the student to understand the standards for performance before they take the tests.
"Presentations" – I provide and use extensive supplemental materials in the daily course sessions, including numerous PowerPoint presentations. When practical, I provide detailed, step-by-step examples of essential case studies.
"Relief from Excessive Note-taking" – I provide written summaries of our in-class work, as well as fully-keyed tests and finals. While the session summaries are not replacements for in-class participation, the summaries allow students to focus on learning during class sessions, rather than noting everything.
"Streamlined Workload" – I designed this course with a specific student population in mind: the working student. This approach minimizes the amount of work associated with the course.
“Clarity” – I’m rather bluntly direct in my expectations in this class, and I tend to be rather forcefully clear in my presentations.
“Review” – I’ve built explicitly review-friendly features into the course: posted keys, open review days, advise on preparation. I expect students to be proactive in their preparation, and support active student learning in this regard.
Some Things
Students Do Not Like about the Course (and the Way that I teach it)
“Better Communication” – My in-class communication style is direct and streamlined. I expect a certain amount of self-sufficiency in my students.
"Abrasive/Abrupt/Mean" – My in-class teaching persona is direct. This directness translates, on occasion, as abrupt, abrasive, or mean to some students. To others this directness translates as eccentricity or dry humor. As a teacher, I fully intend to engage my students in a direct manner.
"Less Scary" – See the above. I am not intentionally scary, but I am not inclined to add gratuitous fluffiness or cheeriness to a college-level mathematics course.
“Lighten up” – See the above. I’d rather maintain an active emphasis on work in the class and come across as being a bit mean rather than tread too lightly and promote too much slack.
"More Step-by-Step" – I use as much step-by-step work as is practical. Sometimes part of the student’s job is to figure out what the steps are in solving a case; rather than simply following instructor-provided steps.
“I Think There Should Be a Book” – There is an official textbook, and my course pages explicitly link to it. I also provide a linkage between my course page and the corresponding chapters of the book.
“I Think it May Have Helped When Missing a Class to Refer to a Book” – Each course session is fully documented on the course page – the session summaries comprise a complete summary of class time. And as indicated earlier, there is a linkage between my course pages and the official textbook chapters.
"Condescension", "Be Nicer About Questions" – At times, students will show a lack of preparation, or a lack of due diligence, or both. There is a clear distinction between a legitimate question from a student acting in good faith (including questions arising from honest confusion), and questions arising from willful laziness or lack of care. I will generally deal compassionately with questions from students acting in good faith, and reasonably tactfully with questions of the latter type. Questions from students are welcome, and are essential to the learning process. Exercise discipline and effort in studying what I make available, and most of your questions will be answered by your own efforts. Make a good faith effort to answer your own questions first, and ask them if you cannot find a sufficiently good answer yourself.
“Answering questions” – Part of the adult learning models required for success at the college level is the understanding that much of the learning is student-driven, and that increasingly more of the learning needs to be driven by students thinking about things.
“Toolsheet” – The toolsheet option is popular. The toolsheet is most useful as a study aid – the preparation of this sheet can help structure the organization of the content. Editing the sheet can help make the information in your head more coherent. Ideally, the sheet’s value is purely symbolic – the preparation of the sheet is sufficiently effective in supporting student thinking.
“Yet More Condescension” – I minimize the level of mathematics used in this class for three reasons: the mathematical prerequisites for this class are minimal, the typical mathematical interest among the students in this class is low and the mathematics required for the course topics is modest. If you want a more quantitative approach, take the more advanced courses. This is a core course aimed at primarily non-mathematically-inclined students.
"Too Much Writing" – Students write in college courses. The required writing in my coursework is non-negotiable, and is supported generously in my materials. There is a modicum of technical writing required in this course. If you have some sort of documented problem with writing, I can refer you to an alternate testing process where said problem will be accommodated. If you find the amount of required writing in my class to be excessive, then you'll find yourself in dire trouble in other classes where writing is the central focus.
"Be More Patient" – I’ll be patient with you, if you’ll be patient with me. This is a required mathematics course, and a number of students have long-standing issues with mathematics. While my course is streamlined in terms of its mathematical content, the remaining mathematics is essential, and must be endured. My first priority is to teach statistics to those with proper mastery of the required prerequisite courses.
"Cover More Cases in Class" – I balance quality of coverage against quantity of coverage in my courses. The place for drill is outside of class, and my summaries and sample tests permit ample drill by students – just not in class. My in-class sessions focus on learning fewer cases at greater depth. Drill is about reinforcing what you've learned. Class time is about the initial learning. I provide the initial cases and instruction, and you reinforce that learning by drilling yourself through the provided cases.
"Playing with Marbles and Dice" – We’re not “playing with marbles and dice,” we’re verifying that the theory actually works, by directly sampling the process. This approach is novel in that, when possible, student samples drive the learning. The cost of this approach is the same as the cost of sampling in professional statistical practice – real samples are expensive, both in cost and in time.
"More Hands On Learning" – Not everything in the course can (or should be) taught with simple models like dice or marbles. I try to balance the simple stuff with the more realistically complex stuff.
"Too Complex, Simplify?" – I’ve simplified what I can simplify – the rest is appropriately complex. I do reconsider things on a continuing basis, though, and balance simple examples for teaching purposes versus realistically complex examples.
"Needs Better Tutor Support" – The tutors should be able to work my stuff out. Most mathematics tutors at KSU do not focus on statistics, but rather on algebra and calculus. As the statistics program (both the undergraduate minor and the MS degree) grows, however, the statistics tutor population should grow in both quantity and quality.
"Put Course on WebCT" – Posting the current website where it is should be sufficient. I typically update or modify my webpage two or three times per week during an active semester. Maintaining current content on two platforms is too much work.
"More Reviewing" – I allocate a full review day per hourly test, and several review days at the end for the final examination. Given the complete posting of sample tests, students should have plenty of time for test preparations. The key is to study for single cases over time, rather than trying to study for everything at once.
"Tests are Too
Long" – A few students have one or more issues with test taking, with
prerequisite mathematical skills and with writing skills. If these issues are
documented, then accommodations can be made. Writing four cases in 75 minutes
is not unreasonable, given appropriate preparation.
"Tedious Lectures" – I only lecture in a handful of sessions. The rest of the sessions are dedicated to active learning in student groups, using case studies. Having said that, the purpose of a lecture is the delivery of information – entertainment or flair is not relevant in a lecture, and part of the skill base acquired by successful university students is the ability to apply mental focus in a variety of situations (including boredom).
"Too Many Big Words" – This is a university. We use big words here. The correct student behavior when encountering “big words” is to look those “big words” up in a dictionary. A successful student’s knowledge base will increase in university. Building vocabulary and expanding knowledge are part of university life, and is expected behavior in literate adults.
“Intense Vocabulary for a General Education Course” – My basic premise regarding students in my course is that they are likely not strongly interested in either hard science or mathematics as a major, but that they are quite capable of learning the core concepts of statistics. My primary concession in my course is that I refrain from beating my students about the head with calculus. “Gen. Ed.” course content need not be “dumbed down” or gratuitously over-simplified.
“I had to teach myself all of the material” – That’s the point. You teach yourself – it’s called learning. At the college level, we’re guides, advisors, referees, … we’re here to define the scope of the work, and to evaluate the quality of your work.
“He doesn’t like
stupid questions, so it’s hard to ask a question” – There are stupid/lazy
questions that could and should be resolved by a student thinking about the
issue, and there are questions that persist despite good faith effort on the
part of the student. I welcome the latter type.
“The tests are very
hard and take a long time” – Welcome to college. Part of your preparations
should involve careful work involving the actual posted tests – also, the
length of the classes are clear, and part of your preparation should involve
getting a sense of testing strategy. Being surprised by the difficulty and/or
time reflects inadequate preparation, or problems with fundamental skills or
pre-requisites.
“Exercises/Practice/Drill” –I will not reduce this course to Skinnerian conditioning. I teach the course in a series of case types, which I link to the keyed tests. You can learn by working through the tests, one case type at a time. I favor comprehension and quality over quantity.
“Unapproachable/Scary” – If you think that I’m mean/unapproachable/scary/not as nice as your favorite teacher from wherever, then I’ve got some very bad news: we get worse, more-so as you start your upper division courses. Get over style or user friendliness, and focus on substance.
“More Group Work/Less Group Work” – Group work is a mixed bag. Some students love it, some hate it. I refuse to use for evaluation purposes, but find useful as an in-class learning tool. While group work can be useful, it is essential that you learn and work on an individual basis.
“Not Open to
Questions” – Well, at least to the lazy/careless/stupid questions (the ones
you’re supposed to handle with a modicum of thinking). The other kind, the ones
that persist after you’ve attempted to answer by thinking about them or by
looking them up, those are fine. Some students find merit in asking questions –
questions are a tool in the learning process. So is thinking. I
like the questions that are driven by thinking and by effort. I do not like
questions that reflect and/or enable volitional stupidity or laziness.
“Repeats Information” – Yes, I’ll repeat information. Repetition is good, up to a point, and necessary when different students ask similar questions.
“Does not Use
“Lacks ‘passion’ or ‘interest’ in teaching” – I’m not here to meet some sort of romantic, clichéd, theatric role of the exalted teacher. I’m here to help students learn (to teach themselves, under my guidance) the required material in this required course.
“More on Questions” – Yes, there are stupid/lazy questions. No, I will not attempt to make you feel good about asking questions, especially if they’re the kind reflecting laziness or a lack of effort. At this point in the student process, you’re here to learn and to think, and sometimes that means going through a few iterations of thinking before you ask a question. And there are questions that you should answer yourself by thinking for yourself or by looking things up. Learn these approaches in your core courses, so that these skills will be available to you in your upper division courses.