Remember the movie, “Stand and Deliver?” Definitely one of my favorites. Jaime Escalante is a high school teacher in a rough neighborhood in East Los Angeles and he struggles to inspire his students to embrace learning and mathematics in particular. [One of my favorite lines is: “It’s not that they’re stupid.
Author Archives: administrator
Gaming the Course Evaluations
Okay, let’s admit it. We are all aware that it’s time to hand out our course evaluations. It’s our turn to squirm while our students circle bubbles on bubble forms and scribble furiously.
The Downsides of Assignment Extensions
‘Tis the Season for extensions
Our students are overwhelmed with the amount of work piling up now. Long-term projects are coming due. Senior thesis deadlines have arrived.
April is the cruelest month
Finally!
After a long winter, the air is warming, birds are chirping, the snow has melted away! For some reason, this winter has seemed longer than usual. Probably because that’s what everyone’s been saying and after a while we tend to believe it. Winter was the same length as usual, of course.
Can we give assignments that aren’t too time-consuming to grade? Part II
Last week’s blog post gave a few ideas of kinds of assignments we could give our students that are challenging for them, but perhaps a little less onerous for us to grade. Here are a few more ideas. I think the key factors for me are variety, brevity and student ownership.