January 02, 2014

36-350, Fall 2013: Self-Evaluation and Lessons Learned (Introduction to Statistical Computing)

This was not one of my better performances as a teacher.

I felt disorganized and unmotivated, which is a bit perverse, since it's the third time I've taught the class, and I know the material very well by now. The labs were too long, and my attempts to shove the excess parts of the labs into revised homework assignments did not go over very well. The final projects were decent, but on average not as good as the previous two years.

I have two ideas about what went wrong. One is of course about kids these days (i.e., blaming the victims), and the other is about my own defects of character.

First, in retrospect, previous iterations of the course benefited from the fact that there hadn't been an undergraduate course here in statistical computing. This meant there was a large pool of advanced statistics majors who wanted to take it, but already knew a lot of the background materials and skills; the modal student was also more academically mature generally. That supply of over-trained students is now exhausted, and it's not coming back either — the class is going to become a requirement for the statistics major. (As it should.) So I need to adjust my expectations of what they know and can do on their own downward in a major way. More exactly, if I want them to know how to do something, I have to make sure I teach it to them, and cut other things from the curriculum to make room. This, I signally failed to do.

Second, I think the fact that this was the third time I have taught basically the same content was in fact part of the problem. It made me feel too familiar with everything, and gave me an excuse for not working on devising new material up until the last moment, which meant I didn't have everything at my finger's ends, and frankly I wasn't as excited about it either.

Putting these together suggests that a better idea for next time would be something like the following.

All of this will be a lot of work for me, but that's part of the point. Hopefully, I will make the time to do this, and it will help.

Introduction to Statistical Computing

Posted by crshalizi at January 02, 2014 18:01 | permanent link

January 01, 2014

End of Year Inventory, 2013

Attention conservation notice: Navel-gazing.

Paper manuscripts completed: 4
Papers accepted: 3
Papers rejected: 4 (fools! we'll show you all!)
Papers in revise-and-resubmit purgatory: 2
Papers in refereeing limbo: 1
Papers with co-authors waiting for me to revise: 7
Other papers in progress: I won't look in that directory and you can't make me

Grant proposals submitted: 5
Grant proposals funded: 1
Grant proposals rejected: 3 (fools! we'll show you all!)
Grant proposals in refereeing limbo: 2
Grant proposals in progress for next year: 1
Grant proposals refereed: 2

Talk given and conferences attended: 17, in 10 cities

Classes taught: 2 [i, ii]
New classes taught: 0
Summer school classes taught: 1
New summer school classes taught: 0
Pages of new course material written: not that much

Manuscripts refereed: 21
Number of times I was asked to referee my own manuscript: 0
Manuscripts waiting for me to referee: 5
Manuscripts for which I was the responsible associate editor at Annals of Applied Statistics: 4
Book proposals reviewed: 1
Book proposals submitted: 0
Book outlines made and torn up: 3
Book manuscripts completed: 0
Book manuscripts due soon: 1

Students who completed their dissertations: 0
Students who completed their dissertation proposals: 0
Students preparing to propose in the coming year: 4
Letters of recommendation sent: 60+
Dissertations at other universities for which I was an external examiner: 2 (i, ii)

Promotions received: 0
Tenure packets submitted: 1
Days until final decision on tenure: < 30

Book reviews published on dead trees: 0

Weblog posts: 93
Substantive posts: 17, counting algal growths
Incomplete posts in the drafts folder: 39
Incomplete posts transferred to the papers-in-progress folder: 1

Books acquired: 260
Books begun: 104
Books finished: 76
Books given up: 3
Books sold: 28
Books donated: 0

Major life transitions: 1

Self-Centered

Posted by crshalizi at January 01, 2014 00:01 | permanent link

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