Pearls of wisdom dripping from the professor's mouth
As an undergraduate, I took two classes taught by my research advisor. That was in the early days of Blackboard. I still like to tell a couple of stories about some of the things he said and taught.
He was inclined to put way too much text on his Powerpoint slides, and then when we would all be frantically trying to scribble down every single word from the slide, he would stand in front of the projector, blocking the beam to try and get us to listen instead to the pearls of wisdom dripping from his mouth (as he put it) rather than mindlessly copying the slides.
Oh, he also wouldn't post his slides on Blackboard for us. Or rather, he would tell us that he wouldn't post the slides, and then often he would relent very shortly before the next exam came up and we would be left scrambling to reconcile our haphazard lecture notes with the slides. He was always pretty clear on why he did these things and his reasoning was reasonable, if annoying.
For some classes, we were also supposed to come prepared with written-out summaries of the journal articles we would discuss during that class period, following a specific format. He would also often threaten to collect up and grade all of our summaries, which was usually sufficient motivation for us to ensure we got them done. He never did collect them up, though.
-
By this point, it's just amusing to look back on these memories. He was a decent teacher, overall, and I did learn a lot from him, even if some of his methods were annoying at the time. Annoying, but effective, let's note.
In retrospect I wish I could have been one of the students who just stopped taking notes and just sat there, leaned back in the chair with my arms folded, listening. I was never that cool (or foolish).
Especially amusing because right now at this time of the semester it feels like I have students rappelling down the side of the building and crawling through the ductwork to reach my office, morning, noon, and night, to get my specific feedback on their scientific papers, mine and mine only.
This is largely just because I'm the person who gives them grades, never mind my particular philosophy about grades. But it's also because they have come to realize that 5 minutes with the professor can save them 2+ hours of squirming and hand-wringing and head-scratching on their own.
They just can't ever quite fully understand how their 5 minutes multiplies out when there are so many of them, and just one of me.
.
Time to go feed the crickets. This entry was originally posted at https://rebeccmeister.dreamwidth.org/1421008.html. Please comment there using OpenID.
He was inclined to put way too much text on his Powerpoint slides, and then when we would all be frantically trying to scribble down every single word from the slide, he would stand in front of the projector, blocking the beam to try and get us to listen instead to the pearls of wisdom dripping from his mouth (as he put it) rather than mindlessly copying the slides.
Oh, he also wouldn't post his slides on Blackboard for us. Or rather, he would tell us that he wouldn't post the slides, and then often he would relent very shortly before the next exam came up and we would be left scrambling to reconcile our haphazard lecture notes with the slides. He was always pretty clear on why he did these things and his reasoning was reasonable, if annoying.
For some classes, we were also supposed to come prepared with written-out summaries of the journal articles we would discuss during that class period, following a specific format. He would also often threaten to collect up and grade all of our summaries, which was usually sufficient motivation for us to ensure we got them done. He never did collect them up, though.
-
By this point, it's just amusing to look back on these memories. He was a decent teacher, overall, and I did learn a lot from him, even if some of his methods were annoying at the time. Annoying, but effective, let's note.
In retrospect I wish I could have been one of the students who just stopped taking notes and just sat there, leaned back in the chair with my arms folded, listening. I was never that cool (or foolish).
Especially amusing because right now at this time of the semester it feels like I have students rappelling down the side of the building and crawling through the ductwork to reach my office, morning, noon, and night, to get my specific feedback on their scientific papers, mine and mine only.
This is largely just because I'm the person who gives them grades, never mind my particular philosophy about grades. But it's also because they have come to realize that 5 minutes with the professor can save them 2+ hours of squirming and hand-wringing and head-scratching on their own.
They just can't ever quite fully understand how their 5 minutes multiplies out when there are so many of them, and just one of me.
.
Time to go feed the crickets. This entry was originally posted at https://rebeccmeister.dreamwidth.org/1421008.html. Please comment there using OpenID.
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