Sorry for negligence...

So with job applications, research and teaching, the blog has been neglected. So here is my attempt to catch up with 1.5 months of blogging.

1) Classroom Management
So I've had some success with just being a bit bolder in calling out students who are being disruptive. I've also come up with some ways of managing the class better for next semester. First, I am going to assign groups for group work instead of letting them pick their own. This will allow me to control some of the off topic chatter because students will not be with their buddies. It will also provide the opportunity to pair students doing well with students not doing as well. It will provide teaching opportunities for the students as well as provide explanations from their peers that do not come with the same background knowledge that go into my own answers (less theoretical and more practical). I am also going to do name tags. This will allow me to take attendance as well as learn the students names more quickly. Knowing who has been missing class frequently will also allow me to send out reminder emails to students who I haven't seen in a while to nudge them into attending class. I may also assign seats, though I am not set on that yet, but I would like to be able to move the students around the classroom more to improve and encourage participation (front rowers tend to be more engaged).

2) The second test is over and done with. I was rather shocked at how poorly the majority of the class did, though the material for the second class is much more difficult than the for the first. I still feel the test was fair and there were several students who did quite well. I think, in some ways, it was good that certain students did poorly because they were simply coasting before and now they are more active, are asking questions and showing up to class. I'm trying to prepare them for the final with some little quizzes on both new and old material (focused on questions the students often got wrong on the tests) so that they know what to study and to encourage them to start studying now.

3) I've been observed teaching twice now and I have critiqued a video of me teaching. I've gotten mostly positive reviews, with some critiques of management of the back of the classroom (which I mentioned on the blog before I believe). I'm still having problems with students texting and I am not sure how to control this without getting really mean, or having the students turn in their cell phone at the begging of class. My classroom setup is especially hard to manage because I can not easily maneuver between the desks and the classroom is so long, it takes me a while to get to the back of the class. If I have the same classroom next year, I might try to do more powerpoint and less writing so that I can more freely move about the room while I teach. That seems to get the back row to pay more attention when I'm near them (proximity is very useful in management, but most classrooms are not designed to make it easy to move around). Anyway, lots of lessons for the next semester. We still have a capstone project to work on, which is what my next update will be on. This is a three day in-class project that will allow the students to synthesize everything they've learned this year and apply it to a real problem.

4) Video will be posted of me teaching when I can get it to work.

Week 6

So the test is over and done with. The students did not necessarily fair well... the mean and median were both around 78, but I still maintain that the test was fair. It did help me better understand, though, where they were not getting things. Specifically, they are having a difficult time fully understanding the concept of the sampling distribution. Why is it important to know that a sampling distribution is Normal and to define both the mean and standard deviation of the sampling distribution. So many people argued with me that since they said it was Normal, that should be good enough, but knowing something is Normal doesn't help much if we don't know the mean and std. dev... hopefully I can reinforce that concept as we move on.

The other aspect I am truly surprised at is, given that not everyone did so hot, how many of them chose to not ask questions about their test, to not try to figure out where they went wrong. I guess I need to let them take responsibility for their own grades. If they don't care enough to improve then I can't do much to help.

One of the areas of teaching that I'm really struggling with is classroom management. Specifically, there are a few students who always start to talk when I'm answering questions and I have not figured out a good way to shut them up. I've tried several techniques, but still no luck. I'm half tempted to split them up because it can be very disruptive. I am also having a heck of a time getting students to participate. I have a few new techniques I'm going to try this week, I'll update you on how they go next time.

The other thing I've been running into lately is problems with time management. I never seem to have enough time to get through the entire lesson. I guess I'll have to continue to feel that out, especially after I get better at assessing when and where the students will struggle and have extra questions.

Well, till next time.

Week 4

So coming up is the first test. Truth be told I'm a little nervous... as many activities and homework assignments and such that they have, I'm still never quite sure if they are getting it. Sometimes they look at me with such strange faces, sort of a mix between deer-in-the-headlights and "she be crazy". I suppose we'll see. I did an activity with them this past week to motivate sampling distributions and the central limit theorem. Overall it went well, but I've noticed that a few groups tend to slack off instead of work on the in-class assignments. I've also noticed significant drop in attendance the last few weeks. Perhaps people are sick (I was last week) or perhaps they think they can do it on their own or perhaps 11am is just too early for some people. From what I have been told, this is normal for an undergrad class of non-majors. Fortunately, the ones who stay are willing to participate and keep class lively.

Central Limit Theorem Activity Review (someday I will learn to post pdfs here):
I think this is overall a good activity and I will use it in the future.

Pros:

• It used a previous and relatable data set on NFL player weights
• Took them through step-by-step calculations for mean and std. dev. for each new distribution of the sample means of size n.

Cons:

• I think I went a little heavy with the notation in the worksheet, need to eliminate that
• Histograms should keep the same binwidth and x-axis because apparently undergrads don't look at the x-axis values (a lot didn't realize the data range had become smaller because the histograms looked to be the same, but with different x-axes.
• I really wish I could do this in a computer lab and have the students do the samples and such using software. I think getting their hands dirty in how the data are collected will help make the concepts more concrete.

Next post will be after the test and grading of the test... dun dun dunnnnnnn. I will review my first test writing/giving/grading experience (I've graded and given before, just not my own test).

Why?

Heard today at a symposium:

"There is no greater obstacle to learning than the illusion of understanding"

Essentially, if you don't know "why?" you don't know jack

Week two...

So my first full week of teaching is done. It was mostly good. I had fun using a dataset today of the Steelers' Preseason Roster. Got some nice insight on a histogram of weights from one of the students who obviously has a significant knowledge of football. Anyway, here are some brief reflections on the week:

Monday: In-class activity
I created an in-class activity on sampling methods using the concept of a tree farm with different stands that I needed to sample in order to determine if I should harvest the trees or not. Overall I think it went well. The students turned in their reports and with the exception of a few groups still not quite getting the concept of parameter and statistic, they seemed to understand how to choose the proper sampling technique for the situation.
Areas of improvement: Although I would use the activity again, I need a better introduction to it. There were a few points to the project that I did not do well explaining and some refinement to the setup of the problem would improve the project. The other thing I would change, in retrospect, is my interaction with students during the project. While I was available to answer questions, it would have been better for me to mingle among the students more, try to learn more names and ask some leading questions to the groups. The classroom space made it difficult to do this so I might ask the groups to spread out more so that I can mingle among them more freely.

Wednesday: There was a lot of administrative stuff I had to take care of before I could begin lecture. This kind of threw off the flow of the class in general. My lecture was also not my best either. I think it was a mix of being slightly underprepared and a slightly boring topic (pie charts, boxplots, and frequency and relative frequency (still not sure everyone gets the difference). I'll have to come up with a better activity to make the topic more interesting next time.

Friday: This was a pretty good day. The kids did well with the activities and the topics (descriptions of sampling distributions and graphic representations of quantitative variables). This is where I used the Steelers dataset. I had the kids write a one-minute paper at the end of class (which I haven't read through yet) about the distribution of the weights of the Steelers' Roster. We'll see if they got how to use the vocab and such.

Next week it gets more mathy so we'll see how it goes. I'm still trying to come up with some good activities for the normal distribution... we'll see how it goes.

First Week of Teaching

So I made it through and I have to say I thoroughly enjoy teaching and continue to be affirmed in my decision to focus my career on teaching and university education and curriculum. Although in general things went well, there were a few minor glitches:

1. I need to keep track of time better, or shorten my lessons slightly. I'm not going horribly overtime, but a few minutes makes the students antsy and they stop paying attention
2. Because of my overtime ways, I continue to forget end-of-class reminders. I think I am going to try posting a sticky note on the computer screen to remind me to remind students of things at the end of class.
   

I've enjoyed the lesson planning aspects of the teaching, but the time required to create each lesson is a little more than I can spare at this moment (I keep feeling my neglected research breath down my neck...). Hopefully it will get faster as I get better at it. Plus, I need to start borrowing more ideas from others for activities instead of trying to create my own.

One highlight of the week was that Jon Stewart decided to teach five minutes of my class for me. I was teaching about bias in polls and surveys and he provided an excellent analysis on where bias occurs in polls an why.

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Poll Bearers
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Healthcare Protests

Next week we start to get into the more meaty topics like numerical summaries of data. A whole new slew of vocabulary for my students to learn, but the upside is they get to make pretty graphs!

CAUSEweb

Consortium for the Advancement of Undergraduate Statistics Education

A national organization whose mission is to support and advance undergraduate statistics education, in four target areas: resources, professional development, outreach, and research.

Hopefully I will be able to publish some of the curriculum I develop over the next year through this website.

Philosophy of Teaching

Below is the philosophy of teaching essay I submitted when I first applied for the PtP program. It will be interesting to see how my teaching philosophy evolves over the next year...

Effective teaching consists of three components: foundation, exploration and reinforcement. The foundation is often a lecture component that reinforces basic concepts and general ideas. The exploration is a hands-on activity that provides a guided exploration of a concept. The exploration component may be an in-class activity, a project or a homework assignment done prior to the lesson. The reinforcement component of the lesson continues to instruct and reinforce the concept after the instruction ends. Usually, reinforcement is in the form of a problem set or exam, but may overlap with the exploration component in the form of a class project. The three component lesson allows a teacher to effectively teach basic concepts, provide real-life application and promote retention of the concept. The three component lesson also allows a teacher to appeal to different learning styles.

The Preparing the Professoriate program will provide a platform for me to develop into a more effective teacher. Each aspect of my program outline will provide a means to develop all three components of effective teaching. Through the use of Faculty Mentor evaluations, student surveys, and self-reflections, I will track my advancement in each area throughout the PtP program. In addition, I will focus a large part of program on development of exploration activities for statistics education that I will implement and evaluate throughout the year. The project will culminate in a collection of best practices for statistics education that will provide the necessary tools to encourage graduate teaching assistants to incorporate the constructivist style of teaching.