Agronomy 405/505
Spring 2013
Response to Mid–term Evaluation.
March 28, 2013.
Assignments Most students remarked that assignments are difficult. I think this is a good
sign. It means you are thinking and learning. You are talented students and I want to
challenge you. The homework and exam scores indicate you are up to the challenge.
Lectures A couple of students requested a slower lecture pace, but the majority are comfortable. Please stop me and ask questions if you think things are going by too fast.
It is difficult for me because I want to cover as much material as possible, but in a
way that is understandable. Many students asked for more examples. I will try to
incorporate more examples in future classes. I do not have time to put the lecture
notes up before class, and would like you to write down as much as possible before
class and the review and modify your notes after class. This requires you to do more
thinking, which hopefully will result in more learning. A few students remarked about
the difficulty of distinguishign κ from k and such. Please stop me and make me clarify
this in class when their is confusion.
Exam One student commented that the exam did not cover all of the topics that we had
addressed in class. Unfortunately it is simply not possible to cover everthing on an
exam. Most students felt the exam was easier than expected. This is a good sign that
you understand the material. I try to test more for conceptual rather than technical
competence on the exam. One student asked for more guidance, i.e. what to expect.
In the future once I have developed a large number of exam questions I am considering making past exams available to all interested students. I’m just not quite there
yet. Another student suggested giving more exams (perhaps four) instead of only a
mid–term and final. I like this idea also, but writing exams is difficult and time consuming for me. It also takes away from class time (unless they are given outside of the
regular class time) and makes scheduling homework due dates more problematic. It is
something I will continue to consider in the future.
Instructor No concerns.
Webpage One student remarked that I should make sure notes go up the day of class. I
have missed this for the 3/29/2013 class, but will make every effort to be one–time with
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this in the future. There is a concern about the darkness of the writing (readability).
I have been setting the scanner to the second–highest constrast level and will use the
highest level in the future. One student asked that homeworks be placed in their own
content folder on Blackboard. Another commented that the syllabus appears cluttered
with the links within sentences. It was suggested that I set up the syllabus as its “own
web page” which I interpret as having it native in Blackboard so an extra mouse click
is not needed after you click on “Syllabus.” I acknowledge all of these suggestions but
am choosing not to act on them because the vast majority of students are comfortable
with the existing web page and I don’t have the time to make these changes.
Project It was noted that specific deadlines for the 505 project had not been established.
I have established them now, we discussed them in class, and they are on the syllabus.
A couple students desired more direction in the project. I am willing to meet with you
to give you more direction if you need this. The vast majority stated that the project
has been well defined.
MATLAB One or two students asked that more information on MATLAB be given in
class. I’m happy to work one–on–one with students on programming, and Jason has
also been available and helping with this. I am reluctant to spend class time on this
because there is such diversity of programming skill in the class. As a result, I don’t
think this would be an effective use of class time, as many students would be bored
and I wouldn’t be able to teach the programming at the level that would be needed
for the beginning programmers. Again, please meet with Jason or me to get help
here. One student noted they prefer using another programming language. That is
totally fine with me as long as the code is well documented. I have chosen to promote
MATLAB because I can help with that environment. Another student has asked for
more example code and more discussion in class. I feel like I have provided enough via
what is on the syllabus plus the code that is provided in all of the homework solutions.
More discussion of MATLAB is class is again problematic because of the variety of
familiarity with programming among students. Finally, one student requested a better
introduction to MATLAB. Jason did offer two sessions of introduction. What I can do
in the future is suggest a book to buy that would have a more formal and structured
introduction.
What I do well. Thank you for the feedback.
What I need to improve. One student asked for the homework assignments to be available earlier. I will do my best to have them ready as soon as possible. Another student
asked for the length of homework assignments to be reduced. I am not going to do this
as I think challenging homework problems are the best way to learn the material and
I believe, according to the homework grades, that homework sets have not been too
much of a challenge. One student asked that I review more math (specifically Laplace
transforms) before the math is used in models. I don’t remember mentioning Laplace
transforms, so I am not able to respond to this concern. Another student asked for
more handouts. I am not sure how to accomodate this request, but I will continue to
hand out figures when they are appropriate. Another couple students requested more
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worked examples. I will see if I can write and post on the webpage some more examples
to help with homework. One student did not like the evening mid–term. I chose this
time in order to allow us to get the homework back and to allow you to have your exam
grade before leaving for spring break. I think the positives of immediate feedback on
the exam outweigh the inconvenience of the evening exam. The evening exam also
allowed for more time to take the exam. A student suggested I remove student names
from emails that I forward to the class. I have been careful to make sure that what
I send would not be offensive to the student that sent the email, but I will remove
names in the future to be safe. I want you to ask questions. Finally, one student was
uncomfortable with the dice. I have found that the dice is the best way for me to
be unbiased in my choosing of who to answer questions (it is well documented in the
literature that these types of bias exist) and to make sure that one or more students do
not dominate class discussion simply because they have a more outgoing personality
than other students. This student also suggested that I keep track of whom I call on,
to make sure that students have an opportunity to respond at least once per week.
Thank you for the suggestion, but I don’t think this is reasonable to accomplish. I do
ask for volunteers on some questions and will continue to mix between dice and asking
for volunteers.
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