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).

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!