Grading

Ever since I was a kid I have watched my parents, who were both professors, grade the exams of students by taking great pains to understand what they meant to convey through their answers even though they might not have written down the exact correct thing. I guess I took heart after that. I always try to keep in mind the intention of the student behind writing that particular answer instead of their direct action in writing it. Often it so happens as in the C.S. course I am teaching this semester that a trivial mistake like ending a brace prematurely may disrupt the entire flow of the program. But truly that is not an issue to be harsh about, and reduce the grade of the student. Because in the obvious sense he was writing far more important things which on the other hand happened to be perfect and he sort of overlooked this tiny thing. The fact that he changed the entire result of the program did not make him a bad performer since writing a program without a computer is almost similar to trying to win a war without an army.

In other aspects I sometimes do grade out of instinct and then I go so far as to talk with the concerned student to understand his motivation behind writing it. I have often asked such students whenever I get a chance to meet with them that if they wanted to change one thing about the piece of code they have written, what would it be? That says a lot. Now in other cases like suppose I have already graded a class and found out some common mistakes I go over it in the next class/lab and indirectly lead them to find out their own mistakes. I try never to tell it to them myself. I guess this is another old practice I learnt from my peers. Somewhat unsurprisingly I find students learn more that way rather than spoon-feeding them by directly stating their mistakes in class/lab.

Since one part of my work in grading this semester is grading quizzes, homeworks and another is the lab grading part both of which has a different bunch of students the first thing I try to do is to associate the names of the students with their faces. That way when I return the graded answer sheets back I can let them know about the small things they missed. Usually I grade quizzes and assignments out of a total of 100 marks and split up the entire total into smaller subdivisions so that even if it is one single program I have marks allotted for comments, program correctness, compilation errors, modularity etc. In the case of the labs I always make sure to have a one on one sessions so that I get a clear understanding about their approach and I assign a part of the grade here. It helps because I know where the student is headed and if they are moving in the wrong direction I have an opportunity to bring them back. Also another part of this is I get to take notes on which parts the student needs to improve on before they submit the final version of the lab and I later I can check if they have indeed worked on the changes promised.

I distinctly remember the first time I was grading and I clearly was a novice then. I surely did not have much of an idea regarding grading. I remember turning up at the professor’s office who was teaching that course more than often to understand what it takes to be a good grader. I always had a million questions then most of which I can solve myself now. But is guess that a lot of effort in this has made whatever I am now and that is surely a good thing.

Learning Styles

After I completed the Felder and Solomon’s learning inventory I found out that I am very well balanced between being a reflective and active learner. I absolutely agree to that. I like doing lots of hands on as well get engaged in brainstorming sessions. Everybody gets thrilled when they have a new thing to play with. But when it comes to understand a concept I would rather sit down quietly and think through it. When I requested some of my friends and students to use the inventory I found some have a tendency to be on the active learner side whereas most tend to be reflective by nature when it comes to learning processes.

Also I found out I stand in the exact middle when it comes to being judged as a sensing or an intuitive learner though I must admit that I am more of the latter then former. Sometimes I do not like to memorize facts, I am horrible at general knowledge and I do not like plug and chug problems. And so when few of the graduate students that I know also opted for being an intuitive learner it was kind of unsurprising because graduate students usually have a tendency to think intuitively rather than going over the facts they have learnt in class. Undergraduates on the other hand depend heavily on fact based learning. As a graduate student myself I must say I do not really mind if I have to work something out from first principles in the exam rather than memorizing the final formula, probably which brings out the intuitive side of me and often other fellow graduate students.

In visual vs. verbal learning, I am definitely inclined towards being a visual learner considering that I always associate a name with a face, and I do not remember many things that I hear. However when it comes to music I can remember most songs that I have heard. Even then I would say that my visual learning capabilities are better and I would sincerely persist on the fact that we need to have a lot of visual learning techniques in class because almost everyone remembers a picture better than a thousand words that are used to describe it.

A different case exists for sequential vs. global learning. It usually depends mostly on the specific problem. However, if possible I like to get a clear notion of the broader philosophy before thinking of the details. So all in all, I think that the Felder and Soloman's learning inventory did a reasonably good job of determining my learning habits.

I think that as far as classroom teaching is concerned, learning habits of individual students can make a considerable impact on the teaching style. Particularly for large classes, teaching methods should only make sure that students with all kinds of learning patterns can benefit from the course and use their own particular learning method to their full advantage. That means as a teacher I should make sure that I am aware of the learning methods of my students.

First Day of Class

I met the faculty member I was going to observe, in his office about fifteen minutes before the class was scheduled to start. He was going over the material he was going to teach in class that day and putting in some final touches to it. He asked me regarding my teaching experience and I told him that I had been a T.A. for this class before but under a different professor. He also gave me some background information on the structure of the course, specifically the evaluation scheme which involved bi-weekly home works and quizzes, and also on class composition.
After I entered the class I made my way to the back of the class, because my intention was to observe the teacher as well as the students. The professor greeted the students and formally introduced me to the class and he was all set to go. He presented great positive ideas from the very beginning of the class by suggesting that he will go over review material from the previous Computer Science courses specially C.S.1401. That way the students could recapitulate from the past and not find themselves lost. So he started off with 1D arrays, a topic that has already been covered and forms the base for the 2D arrays he was later on going to teach. I found his method of teaching to be highly appreciable because I could see from my view of the class that the students were gradually becoming interested and starting to listen.

I was also pleased to note that even though I was at the far end of the classroom I had no trouble whatsoever in being able to hear the professor, nor had any difficulty in following the material. His ideas were well constructed, relevant and tangible, and he made an excellent job of presenting the material which held almost everyone’s attention. There were quite a few questions from the students which he answered and conversely a few questions from him which the students also had no problem answering. I noticed that his handwriting was legible even from the last row.

Almost halfway through the class the professor wanted to test how much the students were familiar with the material he was going to teach. So he gave a short quiz on “Writing a method to finding the average of some numbers” and allowed the students a few minutes to give it a shot. At this point I noticed that quite a few of the students frankly did not take the trouble to give it a try, rather they waited for him to put the solution on the board.

I found the professor's method of teaching effective and his delivery impressive. He employed pitch modulation while delivering the lecture, which kept the students attentive. The lecture was well-organized with nice real-world scenarios and examples. There was enough interaction with the students to make me happy, and collecting the answers from the students gave me an idea that I can look into. Observing someone instructing a course in the first day of the semester was a very interesting experience for me and one that undoubtedly is going to help me become a better teacher in my future endeavors.

Grad 6100 : Reflections

"Reflection" about teaching in general brings back a little bit of the question - What is the purpose of teaching and why do I want to teach in the first place? Apart from the multitude of questions that exist about teaching and the prevalent methods I would probably like to concentrate more on the thought that wants me to be a part of this noble bond that many share across the world.

The first reason for me is probably hereditary, if you believe in such things. Both my parents were professors in physics. Ever since I could count I have been helping my parents cross check the additions in their students exam paper total marks tally.

Apart from the heritage, I believe I definitely have a trait that likes to help people. Not help them from a distance, but to get up, "close and personal" and help them as equals, and in the process help myself. In fact, on second thoughts it seems "assist" is a better word for what I want to do - assist people pursue their dreams by imparting knowledge, information and understanding. And that is what teaching is all about. But like everything else, there is an effective and a not so effective way of going about achieving this goal.
The best way to answer that question is to draw upon my own experiences as a student and think about all the excellent professors I have studied with, and try to guess what it is about them that set them apart from their not so illustrious counterparts. Let's break up these into:

1. Knowledge and Content

2. Organisation

3. Delivery

4. Approachability

5. Fairness

6. Personality
The first session at this course allowed me a glimpse of all the above that we are trying to achieve. Even though I was unable to attend the seminar sessions at the beginning of this course the one hour lecture brought to light where we can help the community as Teaching Assistants basing our skills on the mentioned counterparts.