Lately I have been getting worse and worse at reflecting on time. And I've paid the price. The valuable memories, the memories I should have been reflecting on, they've disappeared from my mind one by one like temporal butterflies.
These experiences are so very valuable - you only get two a week, and it's not like you can just click "Play again" if you screw up.
Start with dot points. Always start with dot points. Even if you forget, the dot points will be your valuable link to the past event that you've so easily forgotten.
Tutorial
- Class Rep did a review by himself. Last week I asked him if he wanted to do the presentation, but forgot to find a partner for him. As a result, he prepared the presentation by himself. Impressive by all means.
The presentation had really cool content. He had demonstrated three separate ways of solving the same problem, which I thought was really cool.
- I offered an enthusiastic congratulations for finishing the first assignment. I'm not really sure if they took the congratulations all that seriously, but I did put some energy into it, and I felt alright about it. At least they were paying attention during the congratulations, I suppose.
I think it's really important to keep reminding people that they're doing well. If they think they're doing well, they're more likely to put more effort into the course and improve themselves. I think that mediocre feedback causes people to do mediocre work. It's only when people are at the far extremes of positivity and negativity, that they are motivated to do work. Work requires an emotive motivation, which can be positive or negative. Personally, I prefer positive, because I think people should be happy. I think people should enjoy learning, not learn because the alternative is failing a course.
From an objective stance, perhaps negative motivations may be equally effective, or even more effective. But I simply can't justify including it. I can't account for the people who will be sent into a depressed stasis from the constant stream of negative feedback.
Additionally, positive feedback works better on dogs, and if it's good enough for dogs, it's good enough for people, too.
- Went through highlights from some of the mid-portfolio reviews. I thanked people for commenting on the page. Not only does this provide the positive reinforcement described previously, it also gives me license to remove the mid-portfolio listing from the class page. The task has been thanked, released, and liberated, so to speak.
I think the highlights section of the tutorial is something I will never give up. It's just so positive, easy to capture people's attention, and serves as a motivational tool. In a course such as this, with work worth little marks, motivational tools should be at the core of all the tutorials I teach.
- Talked briefly about the end-of-course portfolios. The students had a lot of questions about the portfolio, which was not surprising. The portfolio is quite vague in its specifically. I told the students quite emphatically that the portfolio was a demonstration of everything they had learned over the course.
Pi Guy asked me whether it would be harder for advanced students to demonstrate that they had learned stuff. I gave him a slightly convoluted response telling him about things he could learn outside in the course. He didn't really look satisfied, which made me feel uncomfortable, but he cheered up during the tutorial. He told me to look at his poetry submission, which I will do now.
I took a look at the poetry servers. They are amazing! I should spend more time looking at my students' work. They're all pretty damn awesome.
- People with prior experience have SO MUCH ADVANTAGE holy crap. Never forget.
- Reflected on doomsday and demonstrated using arrays. Joked about making the students suffer as part of the learning experience. This part had no engagement problems but I think I was pretty tired by that point and just didn't feel good about it.
- Basic strings example. I got them to work out string results in pairs, which on reflection perhaps may not have been such a good idea. Some people don't like working in pairs, which causes them to be just disengaged. People don't like talking to other people, when there are already people they are familiar with.
While some people participated well, some people just ended up sitting there and trying to work it out themselves. I suppose that's ok, but I can't help feeling like they're getting less out of the exercise. Additionally, the exercise wasn't terribly motivating - you were just doing random letters and there was no real purpose to it. Ideally I would have been able to build up to the group pairs printing exercise, but I just couldn't do it. I didn't prepare well enough. That's something I will change.
Lab
- Some disengaged people prefer not to work in pairs. Notably, there were two students that avoided engaging with other people
- There was a new guy that recently joined the course, he must have moved in from the icecold course. I told him to pair up with Class Rep, and ask him if he had any questions. In retrospect, I think this was a good decision. They were constantly talking with each other during the tutorial, and it looks like they both finished the half() function.
- The class appears to be divided into two sections: the people that are friendly and talk with each other, and the people that prefer to solo absolutely everything.
Next tutorial
- Highlight the poetry servers! They are amazing for class spirit and motivation.
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