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Teaching is a slow process of becoming everything you hate

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Re: Teaching is a slow process of becoming everything you hate

#281

Post by kevinventullo »

yodsanklai wrote: post #168
kevinventullo wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ha! As a pure mathematician-turned-software engineer, Theory of Computation was one of the few classes I took that remains even remotely applicable. At the time I thought it was really cool, and probably made CS a little more appealing. Conversely, in my current role as a backend/systems/researchy person, a JS class would broaden my horizons a bit like a literature class might, but I think both would be equally usefu…

In what sense theory of computation is applicable to your current job?

My current role involves analyzing and understanding customer-provided SQL. Although vanilla SQL is not Turing complete, in the past I’ve definitely decided to deprioritize thinking about certain approaches due to growing complexity and because they “smelled” like the Halting problem.

Going farther back, I’ve seen a handful of instances where someone was looking for help trying to solve a graph problem, until it was pointed out that it could be reduced to an NP-complete problem. Unfortunately I can’t recall the details.

Re: Teaching is a slow process of becoming everything you hate

#282

Post by gonehome »

bee_rider wrote: post #261
legobmw99 wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In CS courses, I always appreciated when we were given access to the grading scripts/unit tests used by course staff. It made that feedback loop immediate, and unless you were intentionally doing something weird you usually knew exactly what grade you were getting for your submission. As a TA, it was funny to see the ways a few students would overfit those tests. In one extreme case I literally saw a student replace…

I'm currently dealing with a kind of similar situation, and honestly I find it a little odd -- I get questions from students which I'm pretty sure are honest and asked in good faith, but they seem to think they are very close to having solved the problem, despite having just over-fitted most of the tests. It is possible that the problem is poorly written (I'm just a TA, I didn't write it, and it looks pretty clear to…

My guess is CS1 is often the first time a student has been given a problem they have to actually reason about to solve (rather than follow a script).

This is hard to understand and adapt to and stresses out students that have been trained (for years) to learn the expected script.

You eventually get to this level in math, but only way later in post graduate work (unless you’re exceptional).

I think there’s likely a benefit in explicitly tackling this directly for young/new students, it might help them see the bigger picture. At least the earnest ones struggling to do well anyway.

Re: Teaching is a slow process of becoming everything you hate

#283

Post by sul_tasto »

Forgeties79 wrote: post #93
warner25 wrote: post #10

I've often thought the same thing about becoming an adult, especially a parent, in general. There are so many choices that I harshly judged older people for making (how to allocate their time and money, where to live, what to allow or not allow the kids to do, how to behave at work, etc.) that I now find myself making as a married guy in my mid-30s with four kids. It makes me sad, but on each point I'm like, "Oh, now…

On the other hand (as a father of two) I find myself thinking about how my dad handled situations, comparing how I just handled it, and going, “wow did he have that backwards” haha. Not all the time of course and like you I have definitely come to appreciate how tough it is to make the “right” call, but we certainly have learned some things. One thing Boomer parents were really bad about - at least in my experience -…

I wonder if that mentality was a residual aspect of a time when empty calories weren’t so prevalent and food costs were a higher percentage of the monthly budget.

Re: Teaching is a slow process of becoming everything you hate

#284

Post by portpecos »

commandlinefan wrote: post #233

> every word of the assignment creatively misinterpreted OTOH when I took operating systems I got an assignment that said “implement a job scheduler, using FIFO, LIFO or round-robin job scheduling”. So I picked FIFO, got it working and I had time left over so I thought, “what the hell? I’ll do LIFO too”. So I did, and I still had time so I took a crack at round-robin, but I didn’t have time so I turned it what I had,…

That’s pretty sad. As a CS Professor, he should understand the distinction between a conjunction and disjunction.

Re: Teaching is a slow process of becoming everything you hate

#285

Post by ihunter2839 »

commandlinefan wrote: post #233

> every word of the assignment creatively misinterpreted OTOH when I took operating systems I got an assignment that said “implement a job scheduler, using FIFO, LIFO or round-robin job scheduling”. So I picked FIFO, got it working and I had time left over so I thought, “what the hell? I’ll do LIFO too”. So I did, and I still had time so I took a crack at round-robin, but I didn’t have time so I turned it what I had,…

I have to say I think it's quite possible and comical that the professor interpreted your work on two of the three questions as additional evidence that you did know it should be an "and", since I would guess relatively few students would attempt any more than _one_ permutation if the assignment only asked for one.

Damned if you do, damned if you don't.

Re: Teaching is a slow process of becoming everything you hate

#286

Post by wisty »

lumost wrote: post #19
beebmam wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I was a TA, I convinced my professor to stop giving graded assignments. it was obvious on tests who had done the assignments and who hadn't.

After just starting a grad program after 12 years in industry. I'd have to disagree. While a large fraction of homework is busy work designed to give the illusion of challenge and rigor - tests simply estimate whether someone has memorized the material sufficiently for a short 1 hour exam. In CS, a ~4-20 hour project is vastly more representative of how well someone understands the material and could apply it in a re…

I disagree, but at least you didn't use the word "regurgitate".

I always find it funny when people say that tests are just about "regurgitating" information. It's such a cliché that just gets regurgitated in every argument over testing, as though it's visceral imagery actually gives it any real weight.

Tests can assess whether the student learnt the material covered in class. They can also test problem solving abilities.

Assignments test conscientiousness, and the ability to make good design trade-offs when working with a single customer who is buying 100 different custom products and doesn't really care about any of them.

Re: Teaching is a slow process of becoming everything you hate

#287

Post by punnerud »

Ardon wrote: post #251
punnerud wrote: post #239

I feel the same with Wikipedia, the Norwegian articles are often better than the English ones because they often are shorter and to the point. I don’t want to read 2000 words for something that could be explained in under 100. Have been thinking of a 200word limit per article version of Wikipedia.

I'm not sure that's really in the spirit of an encyclopedia, unless you really could get all the information you had in those 200 words. I think this would be a valid imposition on the summary sections of most pages though, they can be a little unfocused I find.

You get to put all the information there, but have to place it in a sub-article. That way you force the writer to have a more faster introduction.

Re: Teaching is a slow process of becoming everything you hate

#288

Post by isbvhodnvemrwvn »

r_hoods_ghost wrote: post #65
jjj123 wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You could call it unwilling to work hard. Or it could be difficulty prioritizing work, or ADHD, or disorganization. Are those traits what we’re testing for, or are we testing for knowledge of the subject?

I know this is harsh but if you have ADHD, difficulty prioritizing work or are disorganised to the extent that you can't perform academically at the required level to complete a degree then you shouldn't be wasting your money and time going to university and should instead look for something that better suits your talents.

People sometimes get diagnosed with ADHD in their 30s. It's not that they are incapable of doing things, depending on the kind of ADHD they have, they might just not feel any drive to do it, or have no sense for deadlines whatsoever. It can take years to get into the habits which help you overcome it.

Re: Teaching is a slow process of becoming everything you hate

#289

Post by golemiprague »

djoldman wrote: post #153

Theres much to talk about here. A lot of this is sensitive to context. Students in high school, college, and grad school have different levels of maturity. There are also different incentives for each setting. I would say that high school and college students are more similar than grad students though. Perhaps more important is the fact that the power the teachers have in each setting is different as well: high schoo…

No post body was provided.

Re: Teaching is a slow process of becoming everything you hate

#290

Post by [deleted] »

sanderjd wrote: post #81
finexplained wrote: post #6

This perfectly describes my experience as a TA in graduate school. At first I didn't understand why my advisor insisted on being so precise in assignment instructions. Then when TAing with him I saw how students could creatively misinterpret instructions, even when I could not imagine how to make them more precise. An exception for the new case would be added to the next iteration of the assignments. I only understoo…

I thought the article was fairly strong except for in the two points you highlighted here. In the first case, I still don't understand why you don't just mark their answer from creatively misinterpreted instructions wrong and move on with life. And in the second case it seems like just not worrying about cheaters and letting it be their own funeral (or not) is optimal. I remember who the cheaters were in my classes a…

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