bring back corporal punishment!

[sobo]

I think it's disrespectful to come to lecture and listen to your ipod and play Solitaire. Stay home instead.

 

Agree wholeheartedly! But can't you require that they put that shit away for an hour? I have no doubt that the profs at VA Tech would have run me outta class if I had tried any of that kinda shite.

 

Chirst, when I went (back) to school (2nd time), I had my entire life/career hanging in the balance. Graduating with a decent GPA meant the difference between remaining blue-collar or getting into a white-collar profession. Went to class every day, did all the homework, sat up front and asked pertinent questions if I didn't get it, and sought out the prof in his office during student hours (sorry if it sounds like a diss on TAs, but I figured I spent the $$ for a top quality education, so I figured I was owed the prof's time at his convenience) if I really didn't get it.

 

And of course, I was at least five years older than every one of my classmates, so they all thought I was a nerd for doing what I was doing...

 

Fuck 'em!

[selkirk]

Thinks like sleeping in class, or not paying attention may be a bit disrespectful but it seems to me they end up being their own punishment. If your not getting what you need in the lecture but can absorb in other ways so be it. However I still think showing up is important if for no other reason than to keep abreast of assignments, changes to the syllabus etc.

 

So long as it they aren't disrupting the class and are keeping up with the understanding/work I could care less what they do during the lecture. Though I must admit, I was awfully annoyed the first time I had a student fall asleep in class. But then I remembered that i've probably fallen asleep at least once in just about every class i've ever had and it had nothing to do with how dynamic the lecturer was, how important the material, or my sleep schedule. I was just blessed with a 15 min attention span and get bored easily.

 

One thing that's worth noting is that some current research points to the fact that if your lecturing, your students really aren't learning. There's an interesting self-enforcing dichotomy between how the people who tend to become profs learn, and how the vast majority of students (specifically engineering students learn.) Most students need to be actively participating to learn (working through problems, deriving formulae, applying stuff, etc) and absorb very little during lectures which are typically passive. While the people who tend to become prof's tend to learn by "conceptual mapping", where they focus on the ideas and how they interact and fit relative to each-other, so for them lectures aren't as bad. So... they more knowledge they "produce" as opposed to you giving it to them, the better they'll learn.

 

2nd big tip is to remember that the average persons attention span is 15 to 20 minutes (I know mine is right in there). Watch a class sometime, that's when a significant number of people start to drift and nod off if it's pure lecture. If you can change the rythym, and break them out of the passive mode, even for a couple of minutes it helps immensely and they'll stay much more focused.

[Gary_Yngve]

Yep, when I do powerpoint slides (I'll likely be shifting frequently between powerpoint and overhead), I plan on including some "And now for something completely different" stills, e.g. rubber duckies being smoked out of a pipe.

[sobo]

Thinks like sleeping in class, or not paying attention may be a bit disrespectful but it seems to me they end up being their own punishment. If your not getting what you need in the lecture but can absorb in other ways so be it. However I still think showing up is important if for no other reason than to keep abreast of assignments, changes to the syllabus etc.

 

Indeed, it may be its own punishment, albeit I still find it highly disrespectful. They should just not show up, then, if it is so important to listen to their iPod. They can get the changes/assignments from their friends that do manage to get to class and pay attention.

 

2nd big tip is to remember that the average persons attention span is 15 to 20 minutes (I know mine is right in there). Watch a class sometime, that's when a significant number of people start to drift and nod off if it's pure lecture. If you can change the rythym, and break them out of the passive mode, even for a couple of minutes it helps immensely and they'll stay much more focused.

 

I seem to remember being a little drowsy during some lectures that were required but not in my major, but I was right there when it came to my CE coursework. Mebbe I was blessed with interesting and dynamic profs? Truth be told, I was.

 

Thanks be to VA Tech. Hallelujah. Amen.

[ivan]

favorite sleeping in class moment:

2nd year at university of virginia

introduction to astronomy

i have a huge head cold

i take cold medicine before leaving for class

realize a few minutes later it's night-time shit

i make it to class

the professor w/ the total pink-floyd accent speaks softly

he turns off the light for a slideshow on stars

energy rushes out of my ears at near the speed of light

i awake 75 minutes later, feeling like the floor of a taxi-cab

drool and yellow snot have soaked through 30 pages of my notebook

i outline the stains and make an amusing cartoon out of them

i have a source of comic relief the rest of the semester

[sobo]

...drool and yellow snot have soaked through 30 pages of my notebook

i outline the stains and make an amusing cartoon out of them

i have a source of comic relief the rest of the semester

 

You Yahoo, you!

[Double_E]

I never liked teachers or schools that factored attendance into the grade... I think it's bullshit, personally. Control-freakery and education do not (er, should not) mix.

 

For my first two years of high school, I slept thru a good portion of my first- and second-period classes. And I remember some teachers not giving a damn, and some getting visibly offended/perturbed/etc by it... I always wanted to say "WTF, jackson?? You ain't volunteering for this shit. You're getting PAID... and I'm not disturbing the class, I'm just not participating."

 

OK.. that was high school. Fast forward to college, when I did actually start doing work. As it happened, I was never the type who was able to cut classes and still get good grades... I had to come to every class, stay awake, listen carefully to lecture, take lotta notes, ask questions, etc. But I did have some friends who were able to cut class a lot and still do well... and more power to them.

[SemoreJugs]

Yep, when I do powerpoint slides (I'll likely be shifting frequently between powerpoint and overhead), I plan on including some "And now for something completely different" stills, e.g. rubber duckies being smoked out of a pipe.

 

MY 2 cents: I used to get really pissed at teachers that relied on powerpoint presentations. Especially the wordy ones. ITs one thing to use poweppoint to present graphs and stuff...

 

Be careful. I found it impossible to stay engaged when powerpoint replaced the art of the lecture... You realize there is no point in coming to class at all, when the teacher somply posts the lecture contents on the class webpage.

 

Its like a teacher reading straight from the textbook. I feel incredibly ripped-off by the quality of education delivered by my IT-dependant professors from college. $28,000 to have a text-book read to me by a human, multiple-choice tests that really didnt test my mastery of the basic concepts but merely if I could recall trivia facts that you could simply look up, professors that would cancel rougly 10% of the classes that I paid for, etc.

 

Gary, please bring back some respect to the teaching profession!!!

[SemoreJugs]

Yep, when I do powerpoint slides (I'll likely be shifting frequently between powerpoint and overhead), I plan on including some "And now for something completely different" stills, e.g. rubber duckies being smoked out of a pipe.

 

MY 2 cents: I used to get really pissed at teachers that relied on powerpoint presentations. Especially the wordy ones. ITs one thing to use powerpoint to present graphs and stuff...

 

Be careful. I found it impossible to stay engaged when powerpoint replaced the art of the lecture... You realize there is no point in coming to class at all, when the teacher simply posts the lecture contents on the class webpage.

 

Its like a teacher reading straight from the textbook. I feel incredibly ripped-off by the quality of education delivered by my IT-dependant professors from college. $28,000 to have a text-book read to me by a human, multiple-choice tests that really didnt test my mastery of the basic concepts but merely if I could recall trivia facts that you could simply look up, professors that would cancel rougly 10% of the classes that I paid for, language teachers that encouraged me to write run-oin sententces (its my "voice"), etc.

 

Gary, please bring back some respect to the teaching profession!!! Don't forget how important it is to seduce a young co-ed at least once per quarter! Sounds like you will have you pick of the litter with those hot, deoderant-free CS babes!

 

I LIKE THE FOOD IDEA. COOL. OWN THAT CLASSROOM, BE A HARDASS. tHEY WILL CURSE YOU NOW, BUT APPRECIATE AND RESPECT YOU FOR IT LATER IN LIFE WHEN THEY TURN THEIR SHIT IN ON TIME!!!

[Gary_Yngve]

Yes, my rule on powerpoint is to minimize use of words and bullets. Powerpoint is for graphs, pictures, and *meaningful* animations.

 

When deriving algorithms ior writing code I'll use the old-fashioned overhead.

 

I agree with you completely that you're disrespecting the students and their tuition dollars by reading out of the textbook.

[ivan]

 

Its like a teacher reading straight from the textbook. I feel incredibly ripped-off by the quality of education delivered by my IT-dependant professors from college. $28,000 to have a text-book read to me by a human, multiple-choice tests that really didnt test my mastery of the basic concepts but merely if I could recall trivia facts that you could simply look up, professors that would cancel rougly 10% of the classes that I paid for, etc.

funny, this describes the original colleges - in the olde days, in the middle ages of europe, before the advent of the printing press, proffesors did essentially just that - read the only copy of a book available on a subject very slowly while all the students copied as fast as possible.

 

confucian scholars were doign essentially the exactly same thing, only worse, as they strove to commit to memory thousands of pages of text in order to be able to regurgitate it back in highly formalized essays in identical language - all for the glory of getting a government job.