tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6916168470376937425.post859973831739552397..comments2024-03-06T06:27:15.764-08:00Comments on Earning My Turns: Learning by Doing Part 2Fernando Pereirahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05849361902113771573noreply@blogger.comBlogger7125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6916168470376937425.post-7774631727312864462007-05-25T18:11:00.000-07:002007-05-25T18:11:00.000-07:00I'm a computer science major/rising sophomore at P...I'm a computer science major/rising sophomore at Penn, can we do this please? I had a long discussion with Rita Powell about how computer science is too much lecture.<BR/><BR/>You should read <I>Teaching as a Subversive Activity</I> by Neil Postman.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6916168470376937425.post-14067113327591030292007-05-25T15:19:00.000-07:002007-05-25T15:19:00.000-07:00When I was teaching computational linguistics at C...When I was teaching computational linguistics at Carnegie Mellon, I thought the most useful class we taught was NLP III. David Evans developed the basic model, but I inherited the class and taught it after it was established.<BR/><BR/>NLP III was for second year MS and PhD students. It followed three NLP lecture/project courses (intro, I and II for those who want the math to work out), and itself ran for two semesters.<BR/><BR/>We tried to compress the whole Ph.D. experience into a supervised 1-year project. We had students start thinking about and researching topics over the summer, then they hit the ground running with proposals in the fall. You have to start by teaching people what a doable project is, and you can only learn that by doing, too.<BR/><BR/>Learning to focus research was almost invariably the most difficult part of grad school for ambitious students.<BR/><BR/>What made NLP III different is that we focused on academic skills, not NLP skills. My students already knew more than me about their own research areas at that time.<BR/><BR/>We assigned students to be the "host" of other student's talks, and the host had to do the introduction and always had to ask at least one question. I made the students give each other written feedback on papers like they were refereeing journal submissions, and yes. When other people gave the class, they had students do posters like at a conference. We had them write "elevator pitches" that condensed their project into what they'd tell someone else in the field who asked them what they were doing when they were in line for coffee at a conference.<BR/><BR/>This class was *easy* to teach and almost as rewarding as meeting one-on-one with good grad students. An observation that a lot of us who taught this class had was that the students worked harder when they knew the other students were grading them. Not to mention when they cared about the outcomes. Students can be harsh critics and they care what their peers think.<BR/><BR/>My one experience in teaching an intro-level undergrad humanities class was a disaster (a freshman intro to psycholinguistics designed by Ted Gibson, who probably went to MIT just to avoid teaching the class). I couldn't get the students into thinking about projects. We ran experiments in class (Johnson-Laird style syllogistic reasoning) and then analzyed the results in class, which I thought would catch their attention. Nope. The main comment on the evals was that the students wanted more well defined tasks. Basically, I'd have scored top marks with lectures and multiple choice tests. I don't have any insight on how to jump start project-oriented work with freshmen. My upper-level undergrad philosophy of language classes never had that problem.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6916168470376937425.post-44552709031826701642007-05-25T07:06:00.000-07:002007-05-25T07:06:00.000-07:00Very attractive. I tend to agree that this is some...Very attractive. I tend to agree that this is something which is likely to happen. I'm not sure of whether or how it can fit in to current institutions. A college that<BR/>already has a highly distinctive profile, like <A HREF="http://www.cooper.edu/" REL="nofollow">Cooper Union</A> in New York, might more easily do this than others. From the advertising, it looks as if Cooper Union may already be several steps down this road. (I don't necessarily read college advertising for pleasure, but we have a 16-year old going into the senior year, so...)<BR/><BR/>It was Steve's second comment here that reminded me of Cooper Union. I wonder if that was the place that he went.<BR/><BR/>I'm not convinced that the demands of this kind of educational experience are either greater or lesser than those on existing faculty, but it does seem clear that a different balance of technical, interpersonal and managerial skills will be called for. This may mean that only a small percentage of existing faculty will want to take up the challenge.<BR/><BR/>A major role of the faculty would be to make sure that projects are such as to allow education to happen even in the face of the kind of schedule slippage Brooks talks about in the Mythical Man Month. Quarter- or semester-length courses have the feature (or bug) that when they don't work out too well, the next quarter is something of a fresh start for all.Chris Brewhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15950294272852443488noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6916168470376937425.post-51483890721966750972007-05-24T14:53:00.000-07:002007-05-24T14:53:00.000-07:00My undergrad school was something of a glorified t...My undergrad school was something of a glorified trade school/guild. While I can fault it for some things (my undergrad education was extremely narrow ... about 70% of my classes were in math and physics), there was also a very strong mentoring program that put kids, usually starting with sophomores, on experiments and other investigations that often lasted more than a year and taught them about science at a fundamental level. <BR/><BR/>There was still formal classroom work, but the hands on work was much more important to me ultimately.<BR/><BR/>I would love to see a major constructed around this.<BR/><BR/>Perhaps the place to begin is in emerging fields where the perceptions of what constitutes an education aren't as strongly established. Perhaps the blend of applied physics/chemistry/cs/mechanical engineering (or fill in your favorites) that is emerging for dealing with climate change or new energy demands would be a good area.<BR/><BR/>But I would love to see it done in CS or Physics.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6916168470376937425.post-70385869602570232652007-05-24T08:12:00.000-07:002007-05-24T08:12:00.000-07:00Love the idea... You can't buck formal classes alt...Love the idea... You can't buck formal classes altogether, since you'd want to teach fundamentals and normalize a bit, plus allow for those who aren't 4-year CSEs. But you're right, there's latent demand.<BR/><BR/>At Penn, the <A HREF="http://www.seas.upenn.edu/~cse400/" REL="nofollow">senior project</A> is the greatest facet of the CSE curriculum. Profs post <A HREF="http://www.seas.upenn.edu/~cse400/ProjectIdeas.html" REL="nofollow">ideas</A>, too, so it begins to resemble this idea. But why not have a junior project, and a sophomore project? Offer it as something independent-study-ish, and you'll have takers.Chris Koenighttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03485278194313021165noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6916168470376937425.post-73984980527838345872007-05-24T07:28:00.000-07:002007-05-24T07:28:00.000-07:00I think it could be made to work, but the load on ...I think it could be made to work, but the load on the professors would be higher - to do the job right they would need to be more attentive to the students and what they actually know than more are. (this would be a good thing, but I think you'd find resistance)<BR/><BR/>There is the issue of changing majors ... this isn't as "modular" as conventional programs.<BR/><BR/>But I think it makes a good deal of sense and should be tried. It would be interesting for a group of schools to do this with some rotation of students among them.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6916168470376937425.post-78218298430047985512007-05-24T01:03:00.000-07:002007-05-24T01:03:00.000-07:00Fernando,this is very interesting.For your domain ...Fernando,<BR/><BR/>this is very interesting.<BR/><BR/>For your domain of expertise could you:<BR/><BR/>a) give an example of a topic;<BR/><BR/>b) give an example of a current research activity that you would not consider a suitable topic;<BR/><BR/>c) identify the (set of) principle(s) that would allow you and others to distinguish between a) and b)?<BR/><BR/>Stefano BertoloAnonymousnoreply@blogger.com