2016 CRA Mentoring Workshop Teaching Margo Seltzer, Harvard Univ. Dan Grossman, Univ. Washington February 22, 2016

Introduction Us: Two experienced faculty who passionately love teaching –Have improved methodically over time You: A range of experience and passion –From deeply apprehensive to exuberantly eager –Workshop aimed at all of you Focus and approach: –Assume “conventional” undergraduate courses, but much applies more broadly –“Practice what we preach” Activities and interaction -- not lecture Explicit learning objectives… February 22, CRA Mentoring Workshop: Teaching

Objectives After this workshop, you should be able to: 1.Identify the learning objectives for any courses you teach 2.Teach according to the rules established by your university 3.Experiment with techniques to increase student interaction 4.Prepare for “teaching challenges” and discuss trade-offs with colleagues Alas, 45 minutes is laughably short: –Also motivate you to spend a lifetime improving February 22, CRA Mentoring Workshop: Teaching

Warm-up #1 Rules governing teaching at your institution? February 22, CRA Mentoring Workshop: Teaching

Take-aways There are rules: Violating them creates unnecessary crises Go learn what they are and why they exist February 22, CRA Mentoring Workshop: Teaching

Warm-up #2 How are your students different than you? Background, interests, abilities, goals, … February 22, CRA Mentoring Workshop: Teaching

Take-aways Essential to know “where your students are coming from” –Technically and personally Likely < 1 / year will follow the career path you have 50% are going to receive the median grade or lower February 22, CRA Mentoring Workshop: Teaching

Group-exercise #1 Logistics: –Groups of 5-8: organize quickly –8-10 minutes of discussion –5 minutes of full-group scribed synthesis Topic: From each group member: –3 things you’ve seen a teacher do you want to emulate –3 things you’ve seen a teacher do you want to avoid Objective: A concrete list of tactics and pitfalls –About any aspect of a course (classroom, homeworks, grading, office hours, …) February 22, CRA Mentoring Workshop: Teaching

Take-aways (We will make the list available) Learn from your experience – and others! A lot of simple tactics go a long way Margo’s #1 tactic: __________ Dan’s #1 tactic: Never give a homework/exam problem you do not already have a written solution for February 22, CRA Mentoring Workshop: Teaching

Lead-in to group-exercise #2 Have you written a syllabus? How do you describe the course? February 22, CRA Mentoring Workshop: Teaching

Example: Sorting Topics: –Learn insertionsort, quicksort, mergesort, … –Study the algorithms and complexities and trade-offs Learning objectives: –Distinguish between O(n 2 ) and O(n log n) sorting algorithms –Implement an efficient sort routine –Use the libc qsort function February 22, CRA Mentoring Workshop: Teaching

Why learning objectives? Outcome-oriented Makes clear to you and students what to assess Does your homework help achieve your objectives? February 22, CRA Mentoring Workshop: Teaching

Your turn: In your small group, create sample learning objectives for 2-3 of these topics Hash tables Finite automata Dynamic memory allocation Classes/Objects Big O notation Turing machines February 22, CRA Mentoring Workshop: Teaching

Take-aways No “right” answer: depends on the course and your goals Learning objectives are about what students can do –And can be evaluated February 22, CRA Mentoring Workshop: Teaching

Group-exercise #3 Teaching involves challenges you need to manage –Difficult situations with no perfect outcome Out of time, so discuss 1-2 of these over lunch and enter your ideas on our Google Poll –(Responses available to all) February 22, CRA Mentoring Workshop: Teaching

Challenges: It’s week 8 of a 14-week course and based on the last homework it seems clear 25% of the class is totally lost (can’t do stuff from week 2) and 25% of the class is bored because they’re finding everything easy. 2.Group-project break-down: 4-person team in your office screaming at each other about who caused the failure and everyone worrying they’ll fail 3.Students fomenting a ‘mutiny’ to insist you start teaching the course the way it was taught last year before you arrived without all the “modern ideas” you insist on injecting 4.Student doesn’t show up to final exam and resurfaces 3 days later to say they need to pass to graduate 5.One-third of your class collaborated on the last assignment and essentially turned in the same work. 6.A student comes to your office hours and breaks down in tears because he feels he is failing all his classes. February 22, CRA Mentoring Workshop: Teaching

Wrap-up Much you need to learn that we didn’t discuss: Designing a course schedule Holding effective office hours Assigning grades … Find good mentors for this stuff ! We focused on bigger-picture ideas… February 22, CRA Mentoring Workshop: Teaching

High-level points 1.Know your context: what are the rules, who are your students 2.Objectives: What do want students to learn? Have explicit plans and goals. 3.Skills matter: What to emulate and avoid? 4.Be prepared for the hard stuff and do your best 5.Always room for improvement Scribed notes will be at: February 22, CRA Mentoring Workshop: Teaching