Carroll has become a special place to me. I have been influenced greatly by its students, faculty, staff, administration, and alumni. By its traditions, theater productions and its music.
There are lots of changes these days occurring at Carroll. Some of them are physical, others organizational. Some things never change (read between the lines:); some things never should change.
I asked research assistants Alison and Lizzy to document some of the physical changes. Here is what they produced:
I continue to experiment with my “best” course (Statistics and Experimental Design) to make it better by finding the right balance of technology-assisted and personally- delivered instruction. Here is how I have taught it in the past. I have been pleased at the helpfulness, useful feedback and receptiveness of students past and present as I experiment.
This semester I was influenced in what did the during the first week of class by a Chronicle of Higher Education thought piece about making best use of the first class day.
I began the class wanting to test the sound systems so I shared this amazing tribute to David Bowie:
Instead of calling out the class list to take attendance I give a quiz every day with immediate feedback which goes into a student portfolio. I also call upon a random group of students (selected by students using random sampling software to select the lucky students). Two students won free copies of my workbook!
Since then I have introduced them to SPSS and InStat (i.e. that the latter software exists) and to Survey Monkey.
Here is something Lizzy and Alison produced illustrating one of these tools:
I have also shown them Quizlet, started urging them to read germane articles from the Chronicle of Higher Education, and attempted to alert them to ethical issues about research by sharing lessons I have learned from Diederik Stapel.
To date, I seem to have highly engaged students learning and eager to learn. The first exam is February 10.
I am now invite their feedback and yours.
