On your first day with me, I played Who seddit? with you, where I gave you six statements of unquestionable relevance that had been made by someone. You were asked to tell me who the someone was in each case. Of course, I understood that you had no basis for knowing the answer, but I wanted you to hear that such statements had been made by various people in the recent and/or distant past:
. . . . . 1. It is the student's responsibility to learn the material. (Related: Teaching in college is a cooperative effort shared by the instructor and the student.) I said that in the Panel on Science and Mathematics in Orientation Week 2003. But it has also been said by many others over the years. Indeed, the statement is viewed by most faculty as the bottom line on education in college.
. . . . . 2. The students must convince themselves that they want to learn the material. This is common enough advice, that failure to do so will sabotage their performance. This was stated to me in July 2003 by a senior who had just graduated, a student athlete. (I had just met him for the first time.) It is a variant of what Jason Howald said in Panel on Science and Mathematics in Orientation Week 2003.
. . . . . 3. It is important to be able to follow the lectures. This is asserted by most students in the course. Yet it imparts some responsibility to the *student* to be ready to receive the lecture; see the statement by Allen Shearn in Panel on Science and Mathematics in Orientation Week 2003, and other Orientation documents on-line.
. . . . . 4. I wanted to drop you a little note to say hello and to thank you for a really great Calc III class last semester [Fall 2002]. I really enjoyed your lectures (even the ones I had to think about in order to understand). This was from an A+ student, sent Mar 2, 2003. Maybe his opinion shouldn't count? I'll add that he withdrew from Hopkins two years earlier, because he wasn't doing so well in several senses. This is just one illustration of the notion that the student's performance is mostly an issue of attitude.
. . . . . 5. Thank you for teaching me how to learn! This was at the beginning of the Spring 2003 semester. This student --- I wish I knew who it was --- shouted that as we were passing in the hallway on the second floor of Krieger Hall. It was presumably a freshman from the Fall 2002 Calculus III course, who realized that I had run the course so as to push the student to develop learning skills. Some students might change the verb "thank" to something else, but ....
. . . . . 6. I wish I had an instructor who came out and told us exactly what he wanted from the students. I was told his by an Engineering student I knew from volleyball. I was trying to decide whether it was really a good idea to distribute such a document, when I ran into him at the gym. I asked him to read it and give his opinion. Well, you've seen the opinion, and the document.
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On Sept 24, I told two stories in lecture. One was titled "The kid", the other "The five little bares". Both had something to do with freshmen neglecting responsibilities in college. The lesson from both was that there can be a price for not keeping up with what happens in a course. (I was the kid, Sept 1966.) To see these stories, click here.