Feedback on Homework Assignments: Getting the Important Stuff Right

As part of the feedback that I once gave to Teaching Committee (to be passed on to the lecturer) on some of the mathematics material in Oxford, I once wrote: "dynamics: The Roadrunner's name is incorrect on homework sheet 2."

You've got to get the important stuff right.

(My submitted feedback also included more substantial comments.)

I also told the lecturer about this in person, of course. :)

#fbf

What Happens in Lake Como Stays in Lake Como

Today I'm flying to Italy to participate in the second Lake Como School on Complex Networks. I'll be giving a tutorial on mesoscale structures in networks.

Demonstrating Moments of Inertia

I have my first tutorials with the new Somerville freshers tomorrow.

I have just prepared my copy of "Somerville for Woman" to use for tomorrow's demonstration of moment of inertia and stability.

(I don't want to mess up my copy of the book, but the dimensions of the book are good for this demo and I can't think of that many books that it would be funnier to use tomorrow. A copy of the OED would be funnier to use for this, I suppose, but I don't have one and I don't have time to get one before tutorials tomorrow.)

Celebrating Number 34

Yesterday was my 34th birthday (with 10:50 pm UK time the time where things turned over, according to my birth certificate), so I had a bunch of friends over to celebrate. We played some games, ate some cake, and generally hung out. The main party started at 7pm, and just before that I went out to dinner with my best friend among the locals.

Now it's very quickly back to the old grind, starting with marking quantum mechanics homework tonight. (My students who are taking this have told me that this is the hardest problem sheet they've seen in the 1.5 years that they've been here. I hope I'm not going to have to do all of these problems from scratch tonight---I'd greatly prefer a calmer marking period where I can wing things. We shall see.)

"Trivial" is the new "MacBeth"

There was an amusing incident in tutorials last week that I forgot to mention in this space. It occurred on Wednesday, which was mostly sunny except for a quick torrential downpour for about 15 minutes in the morning and then an even more torrential downpour for maybe 20-30 minutes during one of the afternoon tutorials. It had started to rain pretty hard, and while I was explaining a problem, I mentioned that a certain part was "trivial". With exquisite timing, we immediately witnessed our first thunderclap of the day as soon as the word got out of my mouth. It was loud enough that it startled me, which I suppose helped make the whole incident even more memorable.

End of Term!

I had my last tutorials of the term today, and now that my lecture and tutorial teaching for the term are both over, I feel like an incredible load has been lifted. I still have some admin to do, but that falls off the table as well with the end of Week 8. (We count the term of term by the week number. The main weeks are 1-8, but Week 0 usually has a lot of work and Weeks 9 and 10 often do. This time around, most of the non-research stuff is done for me. I have seen people refer to labeled weeks as low as -3 and as high as 13.) In celebration, I had a party at my flat tonight.

Now I'm going to concentrate on some paper-writing and research. I'll be mark up a student's draft tomorrow---she's writing her first journal article with us (this is a three-headed monster DPhil advising team) and she just finished the rough draft---and I also have other papers at stages where I am going directly through LaTeX files. (My student's paper is not yet at that stage.) Physical Review Letters just bounced one of my papers without review because it apparently doesn't count as physics (except for the fact that it is). My vote is to attempt to submit it to PNAS instead (with only adjusting things for the format and to add the type of polished cover letter that this venue requires), but we'll see what my coauthors think.

Additionally, when I did my last asymptotics lecture of the term on Tuesday, I got applause from my audience. Many students at Oxford will applaud their lecturers for classes that they feel are well-taught. Thus far (with my admittedly-limited sample size), I always get applause when I teach the asymptotics course and I never get applause when I teach any other course. I'll keep you posted on whether this trend continues.

New year and new students

Last week was "Week 0" of "Michaelmas Term" (fall term... in U.S. language, we're on the 'quarter system'). Somerville's awesome new mathematics students arrived, and we tried to give them a bit of a preview of what they're in for in the first formal dinner ("Fresher's dinner") and the ice cream/cookies/setup tutorial meeting the next day. Today they each had their first tutorial sessions with me, so if they didn't know what they were in for before, they sure as Hell are now. ;) I think they went quite well, and hopefully the feeling was mutual.

Today was what I believe (and hope!) will be my roughest teaching day of the entire year. I am teaching a course that has 6 hours of lecture this week that counts for an entire half course. Yesterday, I taught two of those hours as well as an hour of asymptotics. Today I taught an hour of asymptotics, three hours of tutorials, and two hours from the aforementioned half course. I taught the last 5 hours consecutively, with only a 5 minute break to walk from Somerville to the Mathematical Institute. I am now brain-dead.

Naturally, I made lots of snarky comments in my tutorials and my lectures. I think that's why my students like me. :) Spending time with me is sort of an experience in its own sake---maybe not one that most want to duplicate, but an experience nonetheless.

Tomorrow I have an Examiner's meeting and a Governing Body meeting, but at least I won't have to talk very much. I need the rest.