Thoughts on being a student

I've frequently thought that everyone becomes a better student after they have had to teach something.  Now I am thinking that the converse is true - being a student might help me be a better teacher.  Unfortunately, I'm not sure how much my students will want to hear about my Italian lessons this fall.

I started a new batch of Italian lessons this week, which will continue through March for 30 hours total.  This is much more structured than my previous lessons, with daily homework!  Not only am I committing quite a bit of money to this, but I am also getting up at 6:15 in order to make it to the 7:30 AM lessons.

While I am only a few days in, a number of aspects of the learning process are very clear to me:

A teacher is needed to organize the knowledge.
Part of why I started with short term lessons was that I thought I could learn Italian on my own.  I had a pile of books and some baseline knowledge - I spent time every day reviewing flashcards, completing some exercises, and/or learning new words.  But this clearly wasn't working - these bits and pieces weren't helping me go out and actually talk to people.

Sure, I can memorize things on my own.  But I wasn't necessarily memorizing the most important things.  I could work on exercises that are "deeper practice" than simple memorization, but I was jumping around in the book.  I was picking and choosing what seemed interesting and skipping ahead, rather than ensuring my foundation was strong before moving on.

A teacher is needed to provide feedback
As a Novice, I am not capable of distinguishing what is the most important things to work on.  I couldn't necessarily recognize all of my own mistakes.  This is obviously a big challenge in language, where my ear cannot even hear the difference between some of the sounds.  But even when I could recognize my errors, I was not able to distinguish between major errors (that changed the meaning) versus the small errors that many people might make in normal speech.

The learning process is primarily based on the student doing things.
This was something I already deeply knew, but this experience continues to reinforce how fundamental this is.  In my current lessons, I am spending the majority of my time reading aloud and speaking.  This is hard!  It is fairly easy to listen to the instructor - but that doesn't make the knowledge stick.  There are a number of grammatical topics that I think I "know", but I make mistakes constantly in them when I speak (which goes back to the previous two points).  Without speaking, these mistakes (and subsequent corrections) wouldn't be obvious.

Learning requires more work than the student wants to do.
I did my homework for today, of course.  But, my instructor also told me I should be watching Italina TV.  I, of course, insisted (in Italian!) that I don't have free time to watch TV - I work at home in the evenings.  However, I did turn in the TV and set it to the news channel.  I ended up hearing about the NASA discovery announcement in Italian!  It is true that more exposure to Italian - and really focusing on it - would help me improve.  Of course, I'd have to put more time into it.

Being a novice is awkward and frustrating and learning does not happen as fast as one wants.
I knew that my Italian wasn't great before I arrived, but I think I envisioned going home semi-fluent.  This is nowhere near reasonable!  I have made excellent progress on vocabulary and becoming familiar with a variety of new grammatical rules (and additional conjugations).  However, my ability to quickly form sentences is about as good as it was when I took Italian about 6 years ago.  I really want to wake up and be fluent in Italian, but it just is not going to happen.  I can see that I am making progress, but I also see how slow I am when speaking and how few things I can easily say.

In the end, I don't know how this experience will change my teaching.  Much of this agrees with the pedagogical principles that i have already used to guide my teaching.  Will it help to share this experience with my students?  It seems like some of them think they will master physics if I just say the right words to them in the right way - but this is of course not true.  I'm sure that they will quickly get sick of hearing me talk about Italy and my leave, but maybe my class atmosphere can be a bit different if they know that my teaching techniques are influenced from my own experiences - and challenges! - as a student.

First Test!

I've been incredibly swamped the past 2 weeks. I got a bit behind, because I was sick. Then students started coming for help very often due to the first homework being due in 2 classes... and tomorrow is the first test. I had a lot of grading from the homework, on top of my normal course prep and frequent grading (reading quizzes, electronics labs).

The test is actually helping give me a bit of a breather. I won't have a homework to grade this weekend and I didn't have a lecture to prepare for tomorrow. Because the test is half multiple choice, it won't be too bad to grade. The test is given in a 50-minute class, so it is quite short! I'm still behind in grading for two of my classes, but I have the next homework ready for intro, as well as the solutions. I learned from the first homework: I *must* do the homework before posting it so I figure out if the questions are unclear or impossible. I almost assigned a problem that required a non-analyticallly solvable differential equation. Oops.

I have mixed feelings about the test tomorrow. I've tried so hard to make it not hard. The 2 calculations are very similar to things the students have seen multiple times and can be done in about 5 lines of work each. The 4 multiple choice questions are closely related to clicker questions and workshop problems. I think I have made a test that is closely matched to the content and skills that have actually been stressed in the class so far!

Many students have come to my office this week. They've been working on the practice problems that I assigned, as well as the practice test I posted. Unfortunately I only posted the practice test yesterday and the solutions today, so it may not have been as useful to as many students as I would have liked. Additionally, the practice test sucked (confusing and a little too hard) compared to the real test.

So far, I don't have a lot of information on the preparedness/skills of the students in my class. I have one homework to go off of, the reading quizzes, and my interactions with them. I think that the students who are coming to my office might be some of the stronger students in the class. Most of the international students don't come, and I have a hard time telling whether they are learning - they sometimes have problems due to English comprehension (or understanding expectations), but seem to be really strong at calculations.

I'm really hoping the average will be high on this test - perhaps 80%. However, I might be vastly optimistic. Since there are so few questions on the test, each questions counts for a lot. Some of the multiple choice questions require deep understanding of the material, which makes me think that students could easily miss 2 of them... bringing their grade to a 75%. I'm expecting that the better prepared students will finish within 20 minutes. I'm hoping that helps them gain some confidence! However, if almost everyone finishes within 30 or 40 minutes I will be able to add more questions to the next test.

I expect some students will get less than a 50%. I don't want it to happen, but if a student misses 3 multiple choice questions and struggles with the calculations, it will. I like to be generous with the partial credit, but when the calculations are so simple, it is hard to give a lot of partial credit. Many of the students need to improve their arsenal of problem solving tools - drawing a diagram, sketching a plot, etc.

I really hope that the students who have come to me for help do well. They are putting in so much effort - it must result in learning! Many are in need of a confidence boost, and I worry that their lack of confidence may hurt them. They frequently do not commit to the easy "obvious" approach that they understand (and is right), but instead overcomplicate the problem. They've demonstrated the ability to explain certain concepts to other students - I hope that results in a correct answer on the test!

I'm trying to come up with some ideas of what to do if the test score are really low. Perhaps some meta-cognitive "let's think about your learning/preparation" sessions? Tied to extra credit? I don't want to give A's to every student for the sake of getting A's, but I feel that it is my job to provide every student with the opportunity for success. If they have taken every opportunity that I have provided, and still aren't successful, then I need to do something different!

When I don't remember learning...

I remember when I struggled with many physics topics. I don't remember high school (AP) physics particularly well, but I can recall my experiences in Introductory physics as a freshman at MIT. I remember the feeling of looking at homework and having no idea what to do. I certainly remember my struggles in upper division courses - I was frankly surprised that I was even capable of teaching E&M at the advanced level, since I didn't think I had learned anything about it in the 5 years since I had taken it.

I try to recall these experiences as a way to empathize with the students and to structure my teaching. It isn't enough to teach students the physics concepts and calculations, I must also teach them how to determine what concepts are important for a given problem. I also try to assure them that it is normal for them to struggle with this material and find that it is never perfectly clear. This is especially true with something like quantum mechanics. When I cover QM in a few weeks, I'm sure some of the students will find it upsetting that they can't quite wrap their head around it. At this point in my life, I have taken 6 quantum mechanics classes. I understand it much better than the first time (or second or third) time I took it, but I also have learned to accept that sometimes it doesn't make sense.

I heavily rely on these memories of struggle, but it turns out that I don't have (useful) memories of struggling with math. I certainly struggled with some math at MIT, but they were upper division courses - not the sort of thing that is used in Introductory physics. I don't remember learning Calculus for the first time, or vectors. I certainly can't recall a time when algebra was challenging for me.

Some of my Intro physics students are struggling with vectors, which I did not fully anticipate. It is a much bigger challenge than I expected. I spoke with a math professor (who is teaching Calc II to many of them) who said that many of them haven't encountered vectors in college math. They may have seen them in high school, but they would only see them here in Calc III. So what I assumed would be a 'review' for the students might be the first time they are seeing it.

I want to make sure they understand vectors before I blow ahead into the next section of material, but I'm not sure that another 50 minute lecture on vectors will help much. Additionally, when we get to 2- and 3-dimensional motion they will get more practice with vectors. The 'physics' way of using vectors can be quite different than the 'math' way of dealing with vectors, so I'm not sure that spending lots of time on vectors as an abstraction will actually be useful scaffolding. The current compromise I decided on was:

• Post lots of tutorials (video/text) on vectors that the students can choose to utilize
• Have some 'hands on' practice with vectors (from a math point of view) in Workshop this week
• Not put vectors on the first homework
• Make sure I drill vectors when we get to physics applications of the vector
• Think hard about how this can be improved for next year

I wish I remember learning vectors, but I don't. This week we will start using calculus, which I know will be a challenge for some of them. The derivatives they need to do are relatively simple, but many of them are learning about integration for the first time in Calc II right now. We'll start applying it to physics on Friday! I also don't remember learning Calc for the first time...

What grade do I expect in this class?

I've read that it is helpful to have students think about (and report to the instructor) what grade they expect to earn in a given class. The phrasing can be chosen to remind the students that they must work for the grade. It is helpful to know what students are going for a 'C' - talking to the student could reveal a lack of confidence (which could be addressed), or an incredibly busy semester (which might just need to be accepted).

What grades do I expect to earn this semester? In K-12, a large part of my identity was connected to my grades. (Perhaps too large a part of my identity is still connected to my grades from K-12.) In college, my GPA was far from perfect, but I knew that I was taking hard classes. In some cases, working my butt off was barely (or not even) enough to pass. In grad school, I knew that grades and classes were nowhere near as important as research. I survived writing my dissertation by telling myself it didn't need to be "A"-level work. It needed to be done, not perfect. I succeeded - it is done, but certainly not perfect!

Unlike my dissertation, my teaching this semester will actually be evaluated, though I won't receive a grade, per se. Am I aiming for an "A"? It feels like I am. However, it also feels like an unrealistic goal. I'm teaching 3 different courses, and I should also be doing research. Can I get an "A" in all 4 of my tasks? It doesn't seem possible. I'm trying to set up a good syllabus and pull in many pedagogical techniques that have been shown to be effective. I'm also trying to structure the courses in a way that will be sustainable all semester, with regards to prep and grading. Unfortunately, I've already hit conflicts between "reasonable time commitment on my part" and "good teaching".

I want to use pre-lecture quizzes. This is not a technique that I have used in the past, but is supposed to be effective in a number of ways. Some instructors use online quizzes to make sure the students are doing the reading before lecture. This is what I had planned to do. However, I started read a book on "Just in Time Teaching" and there are faculty who report varied success with this technique. Apparently, multiple choice questions result in unhappy students... I was hoping to do multiple choice questions, as a way to minimize my grading. Instead, the book stresses using "essay" type responses. This is a much better way to assess student understanding, but it will take longer to "grade" and compile the results.

Do I go ahead with my multiple-choice 'reading quizzes', or do I switch to a system of 'pre-lecture questions'? One is much easier - the online system can handle the grading, and I can pull multiple choice questions from the instructor materials included with the book. However, these types of questions might not be effective at doing anything other than annoying students. Switching to the "better" questions will require a number of changes. First, I'll have to find sources of good questions for my class. Second, I'll need to change the frequency and time-window that students can take do 'pre-lecture questions'. Third, I'll need to change the syllabus. Finally, I'll have to make sure I have time to actually read through the responses and prep lecture!

One of my priorities is to keep to my syllabus. So if I say that there will be 2 pre-lecture questions due the night before every lecture, I want to be able to hold myself to that. Likewise, I don't want to specify that there will be multiple-choice questions once a week and then see that they aren't working. Sure, flexibility is important. But I like to think of the syllabus as a "contract", and proof of the plan that I have for the semester. If I'm not sure about something, I'd rather leave it somewhat flexible on the syllabus than change it during the semester.

This job is hard. I knew that it was going to be, and I'm still really excited about being faculty. I'll be even more excited when there are students! But what do I think I can actually achieve this semester? "A"s in teaching, and a "C" in research? With my experiences at MIT, I think it might be possible... as long as I barely sleep, don't socialize, and de-prioritize my health. MIT taught me (ah, junior year) that I can pull of such amazing feats for one semester. Is it worth it? The only other option I see is to accept that my teaching might be at the "B" level. I know there will be room for improvement no matter what, it is just very difficult to create a plan for the semester that has obvious flaws in it.

Finals Exams

I hated taking tests as a student. I would get terrible test anxiety and forget everything I knew. Sometimes new "knowledge" invaded my brain and I would end up doing all of my cross-products on an electromagnetism test wrong. Fine. At a certain point, I accepted it. I needed to do well on the homework and study - but I wasn't going to get an amazing test score. It isn't so bad when you accept it.

Now I know there is something worse - giving an exam to students. In a class of 40, I can identify/name about 30 of the students. Close to 15 have consistently come to my section. I told them on the first day of section - my goal was for them all to get an A on the exam.

I tried to find great activities for section. I posted notes and clarifications and alternative solutions. I wrote a practice exam for the final and wrote 15 pages of solutions - explaining the approach, as well as ways to get partial credit. I prepared a 2 hour review session where I focused on conceptual material, with 8 clicker questions and some other example problems.

And then I saw the final exam.