So, it is party time again, folks!

[wiseheart]

Each year this time, we launch my virtual birthday party, which starts on October 1 and ends on October 9 at midnight, sharp. The goals of the party are to post as many comments and collapse as many threads as possible, on as many new pages as we can. It is always great fun, as you can see if you check out the similar entries of the last few years.

This year, I'll also throw the real party at mid-time - and post the recipes of all the food that will be there for you, so that you can all participate if you want to. Virtual food has no calories.

Fandom-related discussions are as welcome as the ones about coffee or chocolate (just to name a few favourites from previous years), and, of course, pictures and recipes of birthday cakes. ;)

So, drop by, tell your story, post your pics or silly poems, ask questions you always wanted to ask and have a good time!

Soledad, in excited expectation




Oh, and by the way, to provide birthday gifts hobbit-style, I've got a revived story and a Kansas 2 update for you.

Enjoy!

Comments

[solanpolarn.livejournal.com]

The way the tutorials work, is that the students get a sheet of problems set each week by the person lecturing the first year physics module (there are three different people doing that each semester; I am one of the ones in the spring semester). They have to hand in their solutions for marking on Monday afternoon, and then we have the tutorials either at noon (which mine is) or at 2pm on the Tuesday. I think the students will get much more out of the tutorials if they have to show how they solved the problems, than if I talk at them for half-an-hour about how I would have gone about it. Of course, that only works if the students are actually willing to come to the board and show the others how they did it...

In some ways, I think it would be easier to go the 'instructor' route of me doing most of the talking. It certainly would mean I had more control, but I think it is more interesting for both me and the students if they talk. That way, it is also easier for me to see if there are things they have managed to do correctly without understanding, which does occasionally happen.

Some of my colleagues apparently have six (6!) tutees this year; that is one student too far to my thinking. My preferred size of a tutor group is four, I think, with enough students for discussions to be viable, but not some many that some of them might get lost (or hide) in the crowd. There is also the restriction that I don't think I could sensibly fit six students in my office...

[espresso-addict.livejournal.com]

In Cambridge where I supervised, questions were generally set by the supervisors, not the lecturers. The usual group size in Nat Sci was two, though I supervised groups of medical students up to four, as I recall. Four male boaties could be fairly bumptious. Five feels more like a mini-lecture.

I did have an unfortunate tendency to talk and test their comprehension via essays, rather than attempt to assay it by questions. I don't think I was cut out to be a teacher.