10 ms·

Things I learned from teaching

249 points by claytonwramsey 3y ago

tgv 3y ago
It sounds very lofty, but also on a path to disappointment and burnout. You can't meet the needs of all students. Fortunately, your class is small, but even there you find that you can't please them all (let alone a class of 300). And I write "please", because that's what you appear to be aiming at. First, a course is there to convey knowledge and skills, not to please students. I'm not fond of hard rules in education, but some are simply right. Rule number one is: set the levels in advance: determine prerequisites and end goals. You may accept students outside the range, but it's their risk to take a class that's too easy or too hard, not your responsibility to overcome. You could always split it into multiple classes (basics and advanced), but that's already setting yourself up for more work. Second: try to use literature, books or articles, for material that takes too much time in class. It's better that they come with questions than that they leave with questions. However, I'm aware this doesn't work well, since students don't read before class. Third, I'm not teaching anymore, but my former colleagues and friends who teach and even direct programs, tell that the flipped classroom isn't only a nebulous concept, it also doesn't work. Covid has shown that. Developing a technically complex class that actually works is going to be very, very time consuming, and not rewarding at all. Cynically: when the department finds out you're not actually physically teaching, they'll assign you to something else. Or give your class to someone else. Fourth, try to be interactive in class: explain, then give short, direct assignments. Your topic is unfortunately too complex to do anything meaningful during class, but perhaps you can ask them to look at some code and write down what it does, compare two different position evaluators, find out why a certain move can't be returned by a certain algorithm, etc. The trick is to get them to actually work out and write down answers (and it can be wrong; there should be no scoring for these exercises), not wait for someone else to tell them, whether it's you or the bright, interested student who's going to pass anyway. Everyone should apply their full attention to the problem for a short time. Another cynical remark: it seems you're interested in knowledge transfer. You don't get high ratings for that. If your school evaluates teachers based on student feedback, it's a losing game. The only thing left, if you want to stay in that game, is to make it "fun."
shae 3y ago
I went back to uni after a 15 year career writing software. I attended the all the office hours for all my classes. Instructors went from shocked to excited, and I learned so much!
- z3dd 3y ago
  I think 18-24 is just way too young for most people to study at a university (at least math/physics-based ones). I don't have a better solution, but only about 6-7 years after graduating I realized I would then have enjoyed these classes and learned from them much much more.
  - sage76 3y ago
    Same here, I feel like I could have done a lot more at college, knowing what I know now. I couldn't see the big picture, and I felt uninspired most of the time.
  - loganfrederick 3y ago
    A big problem (from my experience) is the cultural shift from high school to university. Our high schools do a terrible job at preparing students for college. Just off the top of my head: - High school classes are typically too easy - So kids develop poor study habits which don't serve them well for college material - And most high school teachers are bad at getting kids excited about the subject because they're exhausted themselves from babysitting and treat the work as a job. College professors can be bad at "teaching" but for different reasons (being researchers first and foremost). This disconnect in the reasons for bad education being different in environments is also not taught well to kids ahead of time (because who in this formula would? Requires good parenting or very self-conscious teachers at all levels). There are definitely exceptions to this rule, but they are too few to solve the overarching problems.
    - abdullahkhalids 3y ago
      > High school classes are typically too easy The UK based O/A system, which is used in many of the former colonies, is not as easy as the North American high school system. O levels is easy. But A levels content is almost as difficult as a typical first year university course. Yet, students from those systems also face an equivalent huge shock when they switch to university. The reason is fundamentally different. In school, students are infantalized and their own education is not considered their responsibility. In university, nobody used to care whether you sank or swam. So students struggled. But that has changed quite a lot now. Many universities have almost a "no child left behind" policy - yes they do think child not adult who chose to attend university. So even if students in the past used to attend office hours (I don't know), today they don't because it is no longer their responsibility to learn.
fud101 3y ago
I enjoyed this article. A couple of points, if the interactive/handson way is the future, how do we solve the no-TA problem if that's a prerequisite? It's not really feasible to produce them for every class. Will it be chatbots?
- abdullahkhalids 3y ago
  I have taught such interactive classes/labs by myself. If you have prepared enough, i.e. have a very solidly laid out worksheet of appropriate difficulty, then a single person can handle about 20 people. About 5 students will have no problem and you just need to quickly check on them once or twice. 10 will need quick interventions. 5 will need more support. You can probably do three rounds in that one hour.
beckthompson 3y ago
I would kill for a class like this at my college! All the seminar classes are very boring (Intro to C++ etc...). I wish they would have super specific and interesting topics like this!
janwillemb 3y ago
Nice read. What I like about teaching is that your always get a new chance to improve your own teaching: the next period you try better or try a different approach and see what works best. The frustrating part is that students have a veto over what they learn, because "you can lead a horse to the water but if they don't drink, they don't". If they don't show up, you can teach away whatever you want but no one learns anything.
primitivesuave 3y ago
This really resonated with me. I taught computer science to middle/high school aged kids for several years, and had similar dilemmas on how to keep everyone engaged. There would always be a wide range of student aptitude, and it was always a bit discouraging to see how many students aren't ready to learn. But it's pretty awesome nowadays to get messages out of the blue from my former students entering the workforce and thanking me for the course. I am sure one of your students will build something amazing with Rust some day, because they worked on a practical application and had the resources to "level up" on this very useful skill. Hopefully they send you a message about it :)
- dmvdoug 3y ago
  Engagement is also very environmental, I think, when you’re teaching in middle/high school. Like, is there a schoolwide culture of students engaging in work? Is there an expectation that when you walk into the building you are a student, or is it just a place that you have to be because everybody says so? (Note: kids pick up lightning-quickly on whether teachers themselves give a shit. If half your teachers don’t, you have a problem in your building.) Kids that age are still trying to figure out how to be their own selves. It’s very new. I mean we all try to figure that out throughout our lives, but middle school and high school are when you first start to emerge as your own person. And a lot of figuring that out is done in response to your environment.
k__ 3y ago
I was lecturing software development for information design students. Only 6 students signed up. At least it was an optional class, so the students did it on purpose. Still, it's hard to teach new people from the ground up. Skills, and motivation are just so different. Some learn fast and some slow and in the end you need to define what constitutes a good grade. I did online classes. They had to go through free code camp and every month, I would let them create a small project, to see what they learned. Some students built stuff that was way more than what I expected and some couldn't even do a basic form. In the end, two of them even got a job as frontend devs, so I guess I did an okay job.
xboxnolifes 3y ago
> Flipped classrooms are popular these days, so I might try that, but I also feel that pre-recorded lectures are a little soulless. I might try a hybrid approach, integrating lectures with assignments. My Physics I class in college was a bit of both. First part of class was lecture, then we did practice assignments in class as groups, then there was out-of-class lecture videos and assignments. The out of class lectures weren't very long, I'd say under 20 minutes per lecture day if memory serves. Just long enough to cover a small topic in enough detail.
groby_b 3y ago
The thing that breaks my heart is that we have a much better understanding of adult learning. It didn't need to be that painful. That's not the lecturers fault. It takes a while to learn how to teach. It is the fault of our education system which thinks "let's throw seniors into a teaching situation without any grounding or support". We can also, simultaneously, fault the education system for a high school system that does not prepare people for college at all. Sure glad we spend a lot of money on football coaches, though.
- creesch 3y ago
  In general, it is always interesting and disheartening to see how many educators feel like they need to re-invent the wheel. There has indeed been a ton of research into educational methods, didactic approaches, etc. There is no shortage of material available. Then again, as you say, without the proper support to get you grounded and pointed to the right entry level resources it is difficult to all figure out.
- dmvdoug 3y ago
  Our high school system doesn’t prepare students for college at all because the way high school works here (in America) clearly isn’t meant to prepare students for college. You have to go to high school. There are compulsory attendance laws everywhere. You don’t have to go to college. It’s a choice to be there. College professors expect students to have their own motivation, their own ability to study things, and so in. High school teachers have to deal with the fact that very often a very large percentage of our students would simply rather not come to school than be there. And if you just let them fail, you get everybody from the principal to parents to society at large, pointing their fingers at you as the problem. So we can’t approach instruction with any expectation that students will care, try, stay awake, or do anything other than show up in class. (And I live in a district with really profound truancy problems because our district attorney doesn’t give a shit and never holds truancy court, so I can’t even expect students to show up on a regular basis.) But everyone then pointed us like we are failing somehow to prepare students for college. I put it in reverse: colleges are failing to understand what high schools deal with and what we have to do in response. We are the ones who have laws constraining what we can and can’t do (especially in public school), how we have to approach certain things, and even what content we have to teach. (I am required by law, for example, to teach the content standards promulgated by the state. If I wander outside my standards, that’s good cause for being fired. Now, fortunately, I teach a subject where our standards are extremely broad and loose, so I can fit almost anything under them. But history is a core subject that isn’t a focus of testing regimes, so they generally ignore us.) By the way, I’m not saying it’s a good thing that high schools don’t prepare students for college. But literally the response from our administration when a faculty member points out that our policies aren’t helping prepare students for college is that “not all our students will go to college.” Maybe half-ish of our students do.
DeathArrow 3y ago
What I've learned is that trying to teach others something will help you better understand what you are teaching. Not only you have to analyze different aspects you never considered, but you have to reply to questions you would never ask. You also have to put things in order before explaining to seome and chances are you will never do it otherwise because you are convinced you know it well enough.
lysecret 3y ago
I used to work as a teacher in a kind of bootcamp. Over the years my my view on teaching has changed massively. I think there are only two generic things and the rest is situation dependent. - There is just no way around the struggle. The students have to struggle. Your job is not to take the struggle away but to show them why it is worth struggling and instil the belief that they can do it. - The most important teaching skill is to level with them. Talk about how difficult it was for you to understand it, what helped you. Never put yourself above them. I honestly believe this is where most people fundamentally fail. Respect them. Don’t treat them like babies. Forced attendance is imo the worst symptom of this.
- placebo 3y ago
  Although there is no way around the struggle, there is a way around how the struggle is perceived and experienced. A good teacher shows the struggle is worth it, but I believe a great teacher makes the struggle something you enjoy doing, and not something you have to put up with so you can enjoy the compensation at some point in the future.
  - justinclift 3y ago
    > I believe a great teacher makes the struggle something you enjoy doing What's a good example of this? :)
    - placebo 3y ago
      I think there are two main factors in doing this: The first is creating the passion for the subject matter by making it both fascinating and accessible and by that generating even more curiosity and motivation that I believe are innate in everyone. The second is never letting anyone feel that they are treading water (although this can be seen as a by-product of making things accessible). Even when babies learn how to walk (assuming a healthy and secure environment) they do not need (or would understand) any assurance that the struggle will be worth it. They go for the struggle because the instinct/motivation to explore is already there - it gives a sense of autonomy, of being in control, of making progress, of being involved, of being alive. But no need to make assumptions about what motivates babies - you can look at how people feel when playing games, solving puzzles etc. They don't see it as a struggle, it is something that is a joy to participate in, even though it might be very challenging. A great teacher is someone that makes learning a by-product of having fun. I believe this is possible for any subject, no matter how "difficult" or "boring".
NotOscarWilde 3y ago
The author writes about himself: > Hi! I'm a PhD student studying computer science at Rice University. This means that we are on the same career path (I am currently an assistant professor in theoretical CS in Europe). I wish you of course best of luck! Here is the harshest truth about teaching I learned during my PhD: If you are focusing on teaching too much, you are setting yourself up for failure. This sounds cruel, and in fact I am much like you, I love teaching and I love self-improvement and it is quite easy for me to invest time into my teaching prep, presentation, and more and see measurable results in class quality and usually also student feedback. However, at least in my neck of the woods (i.e. Europe), almost all gates and gatekeepers for you as a PhD student, and later postdoc, are checking your research. At some places they really do expect you to have K publications in the top 3 CS conferences or you will not be considered at all -- and it seems these thresholds are only getting higher. Here I mean for example invitation-only workshops, postdoc positions with top advisors, and later also permanent positions. On the other hand, if you are a talented scientist, they usually only care that your teaching skills are at the bare minimum -- have you taught something? Yes? Great. Now orator/presentation skills are critical and presenting a coherent lecture plan might be useful for a final presentation at an interview for a permanent position. But even there, it is more about you knowing what you want to teach and how it complements the department than about your past achievements (i.e., how much you have put in a course previously). My PhD advisor usually said that he likes to dig into teaching when research is not going well. I agree with that -- teaching really is fulfilling to me and I love to improve my class and see people happy with it, and research is all about global ranking (which is tough on anyone's psyche) and generating progress which is the fun part but sometimes takes a long time. However, at your stage of your career, the research really can't go slow. --- PS: If the author reads this, since it is a self-post, your class sounds really nice and it is actually one I would have loved to attend. My research is in online algorithms -- a field which you can rephrase as seeing some theoretical problems as two player games between a solver and an adversary -- and among other things I would like to consider utilizing all the techniques of chess solvers (which cannot evaluate the game fully, but "almost") and transfer it to other areas of online algorithms.
- kettleballroll 3y ago
  Just as a counterpoint: this very much depends. I probably spent at least a year (probably more) of my PhD (in Europe) just teaching a class I built up from the ground up myself. I barely got any research done the first year I gave that class, and every subsequent year it still took a large chunk of my time. It's part of the reason I spent a total of 7 years doing a PhD (which is long, considering I already had an MSc), during 5 of which I taught my class, and grew it from 10 students in the first year to 200 in my last. But I don't consider that time wasted. I had a blast and found that teaching helped me understand the fundamentals of my fields at an extremely deep level that I'd never reached otherwise. It didn't improve my research output, but I feel that the soft skills and understanding of fundamentals was a real advantage. My future career also didn't suffer, I'm now working as researcher at a FAANG AI lab.
snoopsnopp 3y ago
When I would go to my Professor’s office hours they would be swamped but about a half dozen students just trying to get passing grades. I feel like colleges now self-select for laziness. The less work you actually have to do, the less opportunity to fail.
bluenose69 3y ago
Here are some things I tell young professors: 1. The students are not like you. For you, the topic is fascinating, and something you've pondered for much of your adult life. For the average student, the topic is moderately interesting, and likely quite confusing, in the first exposure that is this class. 2. Teach to the middle of the class. Be aware that the weakest students will be perplexed much of the time, and the strongest will be bored. This range is hard for you to comprehend, given your path. Note that the range is not something you can alter. It is established by the university Registrar, not by you and also not by the students. 3. Expose the students to your enthusiasm for the material. Be direct, and be personal. "The next topic is" will not motivate students as much as "Now we ready for the exciting part" or "This next bit is what I like best about this topic", etc. 4. Make the decision to enjoy your time with the students.
- yodsanklai 3y ago
  > 2. Teach to the middle of the class. Be aware that the weakest students will be perplexed much of the time, and the strongest will be bored. True for the weakest students, but it's always possible to give harder material/exercises to the strongest students. And it doesn't even take much time for the teacher because these students are more autonomous. I only taught CS and maths, but it's very easy to keep the good students busy. I personally like teaching CS lab classes. The key is to design projects with gradual difficulty. Even the weakest students should manage to complete a few tasks. But overall, I think that heterogeneity makes teaching much more complicated that what it could be, especially when basic pre-requisites aren't met. It's a bit heartbreaking when you get students which are obviously losing their time and money.
  - agumonkey 3y ago
    I've been quite curious how to "divide and conquer" the problem by weaponizing the bored genius into teaching the perplexed and lagging. It may save teacher time for teaching the middle group while also teaching the genius what it is to explain something so intuitive to someone who doesn't. But it may backfire ..
avg_dev 3y ago
Definitely thought this was an interesting article. Recalled some of my own thoughts on “struggle” as a way to learn. And am somehow interested in the subject of pedagogy too. Also a software developer. Thanks for the article.
smogcutter 3y ago
The author has the makings of an excellent teacher if they keep at it. I say so more because of the form of this reflection than the content: seeing things from your students point of view really is the core skill that makes everything else possible.
mondocat 3y ago
Thoughts on teaching students: 1. Nobody wants to admit they don’t know. Not in front of you, certainly not in front of their peers. Related, almost nobody that needs to goes to office hours. 2. Teaching the right way to do something is the minimum. Teaching how to avoid all traps; the appealing and intuitive but incorrect or inefficient ways to do something is better. Students will amaze you with all the ways there are to fail to solve a problem. 3. There may be steps you are not articulating, because you're not aware you're doing them. If one student gets it wrong, it's probably them, if most of them get it wrong, it’s probably you. As a new teacher, you will learn as much from their struggles as they do. 4. Related, there are steps you have mastered, like a tightrope walker, than can not be immediately emulated, despite the apparent simplicity of the instructions. 5. You chose this material, they may not have. 6. Related, you want to share the material and your enthusiasm with them, which is good, but they may only want to get the minimum they need to get by. 7. As a teacher, despite the lack of respect you may feel, they see you as an authority figure. You are the institution. You are not one of them, even if you are. They don't want to see you in the hall or at the grocery store; it does not matter your respective ages.
- dmvdoug 3y ago
  Let me respond to a couple of your points, although overall I loved your comment. 1. This is absolutely true. But you can cultivate an environment where students feel safe enough to admit they don’t know. It takes time and effort. It requires you to be honest when you don’t know something. But it can be done. That said, I suspect that is going to be more difficult in a college environment just because you have class less often. I see my (high school) kids more often, so I can establish that safe environment in, say, a month or so. And then I have them for the rest of the year. 2. “Students will amaze you with all the ways there are to fail to solve a problem.” This is so true! And they will also amaze you with all the ways they misunderstand instructions or directions. You’ll receive back an answer that you just don’t even understand how they came to it and when you talk to them, you realize they read your instructions a certain way. Then you realize that you could write your instructions more clearly than you did. So I’d add to this: don’t assume that a bizarre answer that you receive is because the student is dumb or high or something. Ask how they came up with it. Listen to their thought process. And be open to the possibility that you could modify your instructions (or content teaching) to avoid a similar misunderstanding in the future. 3. Yes! Again, yes!! 6. I would only add this: enthusiasm is never a bad thing to express towards your material. (I mean, I’m a history teacher, so it’s going to look different when I’m teaching, like, the Industrial Revolution than when I’m on the Holocaust, but yeah.) Just realize that there will be plenty of students who do not share your enthusiasm and never will, and don’t be hurt or offended by it. But don’t be afraid to be enthusiastic! 7. This is one that I sort of just disagree with, but it could be because I teach high school, not college. Students always run up to me if they see me out and about. I’m not saying they all love me. But they do tend to take special pleasure in seeing you around. It’s almost like they’re surprised that you actually exist outside of the school building. (I’ll stop with that, although there’s a much larger discussion to be had around high school teachers being involved in community activities. If you want to maximize your impact, teaching in high school is so much more than just delivering content.) Like I said though, great comment!
adverbly 3y ago
> In my experience, I learn the most when I struggle; if a student can shortcut through all the hard parts on, for example, and assignment, they're not going to learn very much. On the flip side, when most students struggle, they just give up. This. 100% this. How do you make someone understand that struggling is good? That - more than anything else - is what I want to be able to teach. Any tips?
- dmvdoug 3y ago
  They have to have the experience of being successful on the other side of the struggle. And they have to have someone showing them the connection. Look at where you were before this. You struggled but persevered. Now look at where you are (in terms of either what you know or what you can do). That’s called growth, and it only happened because you stuck with it. Also, frankly, positive reinforcement will get you a lot of mileage.
- tsumnia 3y ago
  Building perseverance, and more broadly motivation, is still only partially understood in cognitive science. However, Carol Dweck's 'growth mindset' can help bridge the gap by shifting students' opinions away from "some people just get this" to "I don't understand this yet". Other motivation elements outside the scope of the material include intrinsic/extrinsic motivations, role models in the field, self-regulated learning, mindfulness, Baker et. al.'s affect model [1], etc. It's something I usually mention to my students during the later part of the semester - humans are one of the hardest problems out there! We're irrational, something that works for one person won't for the other, even if we know something's bad we'll keep doing it. [1] https://busynessgirl.com/better-to-be-frustrated-than-bored/ https://busynessgirl.com/better-to-be-frustrated-than-bored/
OmarShehata 3y ago
> Somehow I need to make assignments which thread the needle between being too hard to solve and too easy The author is describing precisely what ever video game designer learns to do: build the right scaffolding at every step so people can be in Flow [1] I've always enjoyed this symmetry between teaching & video game making. They both try to do the same thing in that way. (after all, video games are really just "voluntary work" when you think about it) [1] See figure 1 https://www.gamedeveloper.com/design/cognitive-flow-the-psychology-of-great-game-design https://www.gamedeveloper.com/design/cognitive-flow-the-psyc...
passion__desire 3y ago
I am not sure why people are not adopting Khan Academy's reasonings and methods for teaching at almost all levels where the study material doesn't change and has been static for years. Why are professors made to teach the same subject each year? Why not create a set of lectures by the best in the field or even setup a committee of professors on how best to craft a particular lecture and create a video, freeze it and distribute it. So many professors spend time in writing an equation on the board, hey why not latex it? I believe each university should hire a powerpoint / slideshow person who can translate professors material into modern format to avoid repeating of work. Once the foundational material is out in the open, the real fun can begin with discussions and other storytelling activities which incorporates philosophy, history and how the topic came about to be and future open-ended problems.
- eddd-ddde 3y ago
  I hate being forced to attend college classes in person, where I sit for 4 hours, hearing a person talk about something that I don't care about, and even if I cared, I could learn it myself in half the time by myself at home. I'm a firm believer that lectures should never be necessary, give me the recorded lecture which I'll watch if I want to, I'll read the content myself, and I'll ask the teacher questions over the time where lectures would usually be given, and it will be easier since not everyone has to be there at once.
  - 0xDEAFBEAD 3y ago
    At my university the professors would record and upload all of their lectures. I would watch the videos at 1.5-2x speed, pausing/jumping back frequently whenever I started to drift off or anything was even slightly confusing, to think it through and ensure that I understood. I got way better comprehension that way. Another trick that worked for me: If there are high-quality lecture notes, download a note, set a timer for the length of the lecture, and aim to read through the entire note within the time period that it took to deliver the lecture. Being on the clock creates a little pressure that helps me focus. It's OK if I don't achieve 100% comprehension; I basically never achieve 100% comprehension during a live lecture anyways. The only problem with these techniques is that it's easy to fall way behind if you don't discipline yourself to consume lectures at about the same rate they're being delivered. Cal Newport's book How to Become a Straight-A Student has good tips like blocking out chunks of time during your week in advance to do study specific topics or do specific assignments.
makeitshine 3y ago
What I've learned from teaching is exactly what these comments exhibit, a hundred different solutions. For me the best teaching tool has been being able to read the room. If you can do that, then you can figure out which of the hundred solutions you need to use.
pdm55 3y ago
A suggestion: I enjoyed one short online computer course I studied, because we were given other students' submissions to assess. I recall using both my own code and the code of another student to suggest improvements in a third student's code. I am talking mainly about small tasks such as coding a function. To me this is just formalising what students do anyway: namely, help each other understand and complete tasks in a course. The difference is that the instructor is actively giving students access to other students' code. I found the process motivated me to get stuck into a task, rather than leaving it to the last minute.
tomcam 3y ago
> I was teaching a blow-off class… only about half of my students were really paying attention at a time, which is pretty bad if you want them to actually learn anything. I think most teachers would consider half the students paying attention to be a roaring success.
8bitsrule 3y ago
At first, at least, nobody learns as much as the teacher. "all physical theories, their mathematical expressions apart ought to lend themselves to so simple a description 'that even a child could understand them.'" - Einstein, to deBroglie [in Clark, 1972, p.418]
Megasnean 3y ago
Teaching transcends mere information delivery; it's about igniting curiosity and guiding students through an intellectual journey. The real skill lies in connecting the subject's complexity with the students' inquisitive minds. It's a blend of storytelling and exploration, where the classroom becomes an adventure in discovery. Effective teaching makes each lesson a step towards a larger, more exciting world of knowledge.

tgv 3y ago

It sounds very lofty, but also on a path to disappointment and burnout. You can't meet the needs of all students. Fortunately, your class is small, but even there you find that you can't please them all (let alone a class of 300). And I write "please", because that's what you appear to be aiming at. First, a course is there to convey knowledge and skills, not to please students. I'm not fond of hard rules in education, but some are simply right. Rule number one is: set the levels in advance: determine prerequisites and end goals. You may accept students outside the range, but it's their risk to take a class that's too easy or too hard, not your responsibility to overcome. You could always split it into multiple classes (basics and advanced), but that's already setting yourself up for more work. Second: try to use literature, books or articles, for material that takes too much time in class. It's better that they come with questions than that they leave with questions. However, I'm aware this doesn't work well, since students don't read before class. Third, I'm not teaching anymore, but my former colleagues and friends who teach and even direct programs, tell that the flipped classroom isn't only a nebulous concept, it also doesn't work. Covid has shown that. Developing a technically complex class that actually works is going to be very, very time consuming, and not rewarding at all. Cynically: when the department finds out you're not actually physically teaching, they'll assign you to something else. Or give your class to someone else. Fourth, try to be interactive in class: explain, then give short, direct assignments. Your topic is unfortunately too complex to do anything meaningful during class, but perhaps you can ask them to look at some code and write down what it does, compare two different position evaluators, find out why a certain move can't be returned by a certain algorithm, etc. The trick is to get them to actually work out and write down answers (and it can be wrong; there should be no scoring for these exercises), not wait for someone else to tell them, whether it's you or the bright, interested student who's going to pass anyway. Everyone should apply their full attention to the problem for a short time. Another cynical remark: it seems you're interested in knowledge transfer. You don't get high ratings for that. If your school evaluates teachers based on student feedback, it's a losing game. The only thing left, if you want to stay in that game, is to make it "fun."

shae 3y ago

I went back to uni after a 15 year career writing software. I attended the all the office hours for all my classes. Instructors went from shocked to excited, and I learned so much!

z3dd 3y ago
I think 18-24 is just way too young for most people to study at a university (at least math/physics-based ones). I don't have a better solution, but only about 6-7 years after graduating I realized I would then have enjoyed these classes and learned from them much much more.
- sage76 3y ago
  Same here, I feel like I could have done a lot more at college, knowing what I know now. I couldn't see the big picture, and I felt uninspired most of the time.
- loganfrederick 3y ago
  A big problem (from my experience) is the cultural shift from high school to university. Our high schools do a terrible job at preparing students for college. Just off the top of my head: - High school classes are typically too easy - So kids develop poor study habits which don't serve them well for college material - And most high school teachers are bad at getting kids excited about the subject because they're exhausted themselves from babysitting and treat the work as a job. College professors can be bad at "teaching" but for different reasons (being researchers first and foremost). This disconnect in the reasons for bad education being different in environments is also not taught well to kids ahead of time (because who in this formula would? Requires good parenting or very self-conscious teachers at all levels). There are definitely exceptions to this rule, but they are too few to solve the overarching problems.
  - abdullahkhalids 3y ago
    > High school classes are typically too easy The UK based O/A system, which is used in many of the former colonies, is not as easy as the North American high school system. O levels is easy. But A levels content is almost as difficult as a typical first year university course. Yet, students from those systems also face an equivalent huge shock when they switch to university. The reason is fundamentally different. In school, students are infantalized and their own education is not considered their responsibility. In university, nobody used to care whether you sank or swam. So students struggled. But that has changed quite a lot now. Many universities have almost a "no child left behind" policy - yes they do think child not adult who chose to attend university. So even if students in the past used to attend office hours (I don't know), today they don't because it is no longer their responsibility to learn.

fud101 3y ago

I enjoyed this article. A couple of points, if the interactive/handson way is the future, how do we solve the no-TA problem if that's a prerequisite? It's not really feasible to produce them for every class. Will it be chatbots?

abdullahkhalids 3y ago
I have taught such interactive classes/labs by myself. If you have prepared enough, i.e. have a very solidly laid out worksheet of appropriate difficulty, then a single person can handle about 20 people. About 5 students will have no problem and you just need to quickly check on them once or twice. 10 will need quick interventions. 5 will need more support. You can probably do three rounds in that one hour.

beckthompson 3y ago

I would kill for a class like this at my college! All the seminar classes are very boring (Intro to C++ etc...). I wish they would have super specific and interesting topics like this!

janwillemb 3y ago

Nice read. What I like about teaching is that your always get a new chance to improve your own teaching: the next period you try better or try a different approach and see what works best. The frustrating part is that students have a veto over what they learn, because "you can lead a horse to the water but if they don't drink, they don't". If they don't show up, you can teach away whatever you want but no one learns anything.

primitivesuave 3y ago

This really resonated with me. I taught computer science to middle/high school aged kids for several years, and had similar dilemmas on how to keep everyone engaged. There would always be a wide range of student aptitude, and it was always a bit discouraging to see how many students aren't ready to learn. But it's pretty awesome nowadays to get messages out of the blue from my former students entering the workforce and thanking me for the course. I am sure one of your students will build something amazing with Rust some day, because they worked on a practical application and had the resources to "level up" on this very useful skill. Hopefully they send you a message about it :)

dmvdoug 3y ago
Engagement is also very environmental, I think, when you’re teaching in middle/high school. Like, is there a schoolwide culture of students engaging in work? Is there an expectation that when you walk into the building you are a student, or is it just a place that you have to be because everybody says so? (Note: kids pick up lightning-quickly on whether teachers themselves give a shit. If half your teachers don’t, you have a problem in your building.) Kids that age are still trying to figure out how to be their own selves. It’s very new. I mean we all try to figure that out throughout our lives, but middle school and high school are when you first start to emerge as your own person. And a lot of figuring that out is done in response to your environment.

k__ 3y ago

I was lecturing software development for information design students. Only 6 students signed up. At least it was an optional class, so the students did it on purpose. Still, it's hard to teach new people from the ground up. Skills, and motivation are just so different. Some learn fast and some slow and in the end you need to define what constitutes a good grade. I did online classes. They had to go through free code camp and every month, I would let them create a small project, to see what they learned. Some students built stuff that was way more than what I expected and some couldn't even do a basic form. In the end, two of them even got a job as frontend devs, so I guess I did an okay job.

xboxnolifes 3y ago

> Flipped classrooms are popular these days, so I might try that, but I also feel that pre-recorded lectures are a little soulless. I might try a hybrid approach, integrating lectures with assignments. My Physics I class in college was a bit of both. First part of class was lecture, then we did practice assignments in class as groups, then there was out-of-class lecture videos and assignments. The out of class lectures weren't very long, I'd say under 20 minutes per lecture day if memory serves. Just long enough to cover a small topic in enough detail.

groby_b 3y ago

The thing that breaks my heart is that we have a much better understanding of adult learning. It didn't need to be that painful. That's not the lecturers fault. It takes a while to learn how to teach. It is the fault of our education system which thinks "let's throw seniors into a teaching situation without any grounding or support". We can also, simultaneously, fault the education system for a high school system that does not prepare people for college at all. Sure glad we spend a lot of money on football coaches, though.

creesch 3y ago
In general, it is always interesting and disheartening to see how many educators feel like they need to re-invent the wheel. There has indeed been a ton of research into educational methods, didactic approaches, etc. There is no shortage of material available. Then again, as you say, without the proper support to get you grounded and pointed to the right entry level resources it is difficult to all figure out.
dmvdoug 3y ago
Our high school system doesn’t prepare students for college at all because the way high school works here (in America) clearly isn’t meant to prepare students for college. You have to go to high school. There are compulsory attendance laws everywhere. You don’t have to go to college. It’s a choice to be there. College professors expect students to have their own motivation, their own ability to study things, and so in. High school teachers have to deal with the fact that very often a very large percentage of our students would simply rather not come to school than be there. And if you just let them fail, you get everybody from the principal to parents to society at large, pointing their fingers at you as the problem. So we can’t approach instruction with any expectation that students will care, try, stay awake, or do anything other than show up in class. (And I live in a district with really profound truancy problems because our district attorney doesn’t give a shit and never holds truancy court, so I can’t even expect students to show up on a regular basis.) But everyone then pointed us like we are failing somehow to prepare students for college. I put it in reverse: colleges are failing to understand what high schools deal with and what we have to do in response. We are the ones who have laws constraining what we can and can’t do (especially in public school), how we have to approach certain things, and even what content we have to teach. (I am required by law, for example, to teach the content standards promulgated by the state. If I wander outside my standards, that’s good cause for being fired. Now, fortunately, I teach a subject where our standards are extremely broad and loose, so I can fit almost anything under them. But history is a core subject that isn’t a focus of testing regimes, so they generally ignore us.) By the way, I’m not saying it’s a good thing that high schools don’t prepare students for college. But literally the response from our administration when a faculty member points out that our policies aren’t helping prepare students for college is that “not all our students will go to college.” Maybe half-ish of our students do.

DeathArrow 3y ago

What I've learned is that trying to teach others something will help you better understand what you are teaching. Not only you have to analyze different aspects you never considered, but you have to reply to questions you would never ask. You also have to put things in order before explaining to seome and chances are you will never do it otherwise because you are convinced you know it well enough.

lysecret 3y ago

I used to work as a teacher in a kind of bootcamp. Over the years my my view on teaching has changed massively. I think there are only two generic things and the rest is situation dependent. - There is just no way around the struggle. The students have to struggle. Your job is not to take the struggle away but to show them why it is worth struggling and instil the belief that they can do it. - The most important teaching skill is to level with them. Talk about how difficult it was for you to understand it, what helped you. Never put yourself above them. I honestly believe this is where most people fundamentally fail. Respect them. Don’t treat them like babies. Forced attendance is imo the worst symptom of this.

placebo 3y ago
Although there is no way around the struggle, there is a way around how the struggle is perceived and experienced. A good teacher shows the struggle is worth it, but I believe a great teacher makes the struggle something you enjoy doing, and not something you have to put up with so you can enjoy the compensation at some point in the future.
- justinclift 3y ago
  > I believe a great teacher makes the struggle something you enjoy doing What's a good example of this? :)
  - placebo 3y ago
    I think there are two main factors in doing this: The first is creating the passion for the subject matter by making it both fascinating and accessible and by that generating even more curiosity and motivation that I believe are innate in everyone. The second is never letting anyone feel that they are treading water (although this can be seen as a by-product of making things accessible). Even when babies learn how to walk (assuming a healthy and secure environment) they do not need (or would understand) any assurance that the struggle will be worth it. They go for the struggle because the instinct/motivation to explore is already there - it gives a sense of autonomy, of being in control, of making progress, of being involved, of being alive. But no need to make assumptions about what motivates babies - you can look at how people feel when playing games, solving puzzles etc. They don't see it as a struggle, it is something that is a joy to participate in, even though it might be very challenging. A great teacher is someone that makes learning a by-product of having fun. I believe this is possible for any subject, no matter how "difficult" or "boring".

NotOscarWilde 3y ago

The author writes about himself: > Hi! I'm a PhD student studying computer science at Rice University. This means that we are on the same career path (I am currently an assistant professor in theoretical CS in Europe). I wish you of course best of luck! Here is the harshest truth about teaching I learned during my PhD: If you are focusing on teaching too much, you are setting yourself up for failure. This sounds cruel, and in fact I am much like you, I love teaching and I love self-improvement and it is quite easy for me to invest time into my teaching prep, presentation, and more and see measurable results in class quality and usually also student feedback. However, at least in my neck of the woods (i.e. Europe), almost all gates and gatekeepers for you as a PhD student, and later postdoc, are checking your research. At some places they really do expect you to have K publications in the top 3 CS conferences or you will not be considered at all -- and it seems these thresholds are only getting higher. Here I mean for example invitation-only workshops, postdoc positions with top advisors, and later also permanent positions. On the other hand, if you are a talented scientist, they usually only care that your teaching skills are at the bare minimum -- have you taught something? Yes? Great. Now orator/presentation skills are critical and presenting a coherent lecture plan might be useful for a final presentation at an interview for a permanent position. But even there, it is more about you knowing what you want to teach and how it complements the department than about your past achievements (i.e., how much you have put in a course previously). My PhD advisor usually said that he likes to dig into teaching when research is not going well. I agree with that -- teaching really is fulfilling to me and I love to improve my class and see people happy with it, and research is all about global ranking (which is tough on anyone's psyche) and generating progress which is the fun part but sometimes takes a long time. However, at your stage of your career, the research really can't go slow. --- PS: If the author reads this, since it is a self-post, your class sounds really nice and it is actually one I would have loved to attend. My research is in online algorithms -- a field which you can rephrase as seeing some theoretical problems as two player games between a solver and an adversary -- and among other things I would like to consider utilizing all the techniques of chess solvers (which cannot evaluate the game fully, but "almost") and transfer it to other areas of online algorithms.

kettleballroll 3y ago
Just as a counterpoint: this very much depends. I probably spent at least a year (probably more) of my PhD (in Europe) just teaching a class I built up from the ground up myself. I barely got any research done the first year I gave that class, and every subsequent year it still took a large chunk of my time. It's part of the reason I spent a total of 7 years doing a PhD (which is long, considering I already had an MSc), during 5 of which I taught my class, and grew it from 10 students in the first year to 200 in my last. But I don't consider that time wasted. I had a blast and found that teaching helped me understand the fundamentals of my fields at an extremely deep level that I'd never reached otherwise. It didn't improve my research output, but I feel that the soft skills and understanding of fundamentals was a real advantage. My future career also didn't suffer, I'm now working as researcher at a FAANG AI lab.

snoopsnopp 3y ago

When I would go to my Professor’s office hours they would be swamped but about a half dozen students just trying to get passing grades. I feel like colleges now self-select for laziness. The less work you actually have to do, the less opportunity to fail.

bluenose69 3y ago

Here are some things I tell young professors: 1. The students are not like you. For you, the topic is fascinating, and something you've pondered for much of your adult life. For the average student, the topic is moderately interesting, and likely quite confusing, in the first exposure that is this class. 2. Teach to the middle of the class. Be aware that the weakest students will be perplexed much of the time, and the strongest will be bored. This range is hard for you to comprehend, given your path. Note that the range is not something you can alter. It is established by the university Registrar, not by you and also not by the students. 3. Expose the students to your enthusiasm for the material. Be direct, and be personal. "The next topic is" will not motivate students as much as "Now we ready for the exciting part" or "This next bit is what I like best about this topic", etc. 4. Make the decision to enjoy your time with the students.

yodsanklai 3y ago
> 2. Teach to the middle of the class. Be aware that the weakest students will be perplexed much of the time, and the strongest will be bored. True for the weakest students, but it's always possible to give harder material/exercises to the strongest students. And it doesn't even take much time for the teacher because these students are more autonomous. I only taught CS and maths, but it's very easy to keep the good students busy. I personally like teaching CS lab classes. The key is to design projects with gradual difficulty. Even the weakest students should manage to complete a few tasks. But overall, I think that heterogeneity makes teaching much more complicated that what it could be, especially when basic pre-requisites aren't met. It's a bit heartbreaking when you get students which are obviously losing their time and money.
- agumonkey 3y ago
  I've been quite curious how to "divide and conquer" the problem by weaponizing the bored genius into teaching the perplexed and lagging. It may save teacher time for teaching the middle group while also teaching the genius what it is to explain something so intuitive to someone who doesn't. But it may backfire ..

avg_dev 3y ago

Definitely thought this was an interesting article. Recalled some of my own thoughts on “struggle” as a way to learn. And am somehow interested in the subject of pedagogy too. Also a software developer. Thanks for the article.

smogcutter 3y ago

The author has the makings of an excellent teacher if they keep at it. I say so more because of the form of this reflection than the content: seeing things from your students point of view really is the core skill that makes everything else possible.

mondocat 3y ago

Thoughts on teaching students: 1. Nobody wants to admit they don’t know. Not in front of you, certainly not in front of their peers. Related, almost nobody that needs to goes to office hours. 2. Teaching the right way to do something is the minimum. Teaching how to avoid all traps; the appealing and intuitive but incorrect or inefficient ways to do something is better. Students will amaze you with all the ways there are to fail to solve a problem. 3. There may be steps you are not articulating, because you're not aware you're doing them. If one student gets it wrong, it's probably them, if most of them get it wrong, it’s probably you. As a new teacher, you will learn as much from their struggles as they do. 4. Related, there are steps you have mastered, like a tightrope walker, than can not be immediately emulated, despite the apparent simplicity of the instructions. 5. You chose this material, they may not have. 6. Related, you want to share the material and your enthusiasm with them, which is good, but they may only want to get the minimum they need to get by. 7. As a teacher, despite the lack of respect you may feel, they see you as an authority figure. You are the institution. You are not one of them, even if you are. They don't want to see you in the hall or at the grocery store; it does not matter your respective ages.

dmvdoug 3y ago
Let me respond to a couple of your points, although overall I loved your comment. 1. This is absolutely true. But you can cultivate an environment where students feel safe enough to admit they don’t know. It takes time and effort. It requires you to be honest when you don’t know something. But it can be done. That said, I suspect that is going to be more difficult in a college environment just because you have class less often. I see my (high school) kids more often, so I can establish that safe environment in, say, a month or so. And then I have them for the rest of the year. 2. “Students will amaze you with all the ways there are to fail to solve a problem.” This is so true! And they will also amaze you with all the ways they misunderstand instructions or directions. You’ll receive back an answer that you just don’t even understand how they came to it and when you talk to them, you realize they read your instructions a certain way. Then you realize that you could write your instructions more clearly than you did. So I’d add to this: don’t assume that a bizarre answer that you receive is because the student is dumb or high or something. Ask how they came up with it. Listen to their thought process. And be open to the possibility that you could modify your instructions (or content teaching) to avoid a similar misunderstanding in the future. 3. Yes! Again, yes!! 6. I would only add this: enthusiasm is never a bad thing to express towards your material. (I mean, I’m a history teacher, so it’s going to look different when I’m teaching, like, the Industrial Revolution than when I’m on the Holocaust, but yeah.) Just realize that there will be plenty of students who do not share your enthusiasm and never will, and don’t be hurt or offended by it. But don’t be afraid to be enthusiastic! 7. This is one that I sort of just disagree with, but it could be because I teach high school, not college. Students always run up to me if they see me out and about. I’m not saying they all love me. But they do tend to take special pleasure in seeing you around. It’s almost like they’re surprised that you actually exist outside of the school building. (I’ll stop with that, although there’s a much larger discussion to be had around high school teachers being involved in community activities. If you want to maximize your impact, teaching in high school is so much more than just delivering content.) Like I said though, great comment!

adverbly 3y ago

> In my experience, I learn the most when I struggle; if a student can shortcut through all the hard parts on, for example, and assignment, they're not going to learn very much. On the flip side, when most students struggle, they just give up. This. 100% this. How do you make someone understand that struggling is good? That - more than anything else - is what I want to be able to teach. Any tips?

dmvdoug 3y ago
They have to have the experience of being successful on the other side of the struggle. And they have to have someone showing them the connection. Look at where you were before this. You struggled but persevered. Now look at where you are (in terms of either what you know or what you can do). That’s called growth, and it only happened because you stuck with it. Also, frankly, positive reinforcement will get you a lot of mileage.
tsumnia 3y ago
Building perseverance, and more broadly motivation, is still only partially understood in cognitive science. However, Carol Dweck's 'growth mindset' can help bridge the gap by shifting students' opinions away from "some people just get this" to "I don't understand this yet". Other motivation elements outside the scope of the material include intrinsic/extrinsic motivations, role models in the field, self-regulated learning, mindfulness, Baker et. al.'s affect model [1], etc. It's something I usually mention to my students during the later part of the semester - humans are one of the hardest problems out there! We're irrational, something that works for one person won't for the other, even if we know something's bad we'll keep doing it. [1] https://busynessgirl.com/better-to-be-frustrated-than-bored/ https://busynessgirl.com/better-to-be-frustrated-than-bored/

OmarShehata 3y ago

> Somehow I need to make assignments which thread the needle between being too hard to solve and too easy The author is describing precisely what ever video game designer learns to do: build the right scaffolding at every step so people can be in Flow [1] I've always enjoyed this symmetry between teaching & video game making. They both try to do the same thing in that way. (after all, video games are really just "voluntary work" when you think about it) [1] See figure 1 https://www.gamedeveloper.com/design/cognitive-flow-the-psychology-of-great-game-design https://www.gamedeveloper.com/design/cognitive-flow-the-psyc...

passion__desire 3y ago

I am not sure why people are not adopting Khan Academy's reasonings and methods for teaching at almost all levels where the study material doesn't change and has been static for years. Why are professors made to teach the same subject each year? Why not create a set of lectures by the best in the field or even setup a committee of professors on how best to craft a particular lecture and create a video, freeze it and distribute it. So many professors spend time in writing an equation on the board, hey why not latex it? I believe each university should hire a powerpoint / slideshow person who can translate professors material into modern format to avoid repeating of work. Once the foundational material is out in the open, the real fun can begin with discussions and other storytelling activities which incorporates philosophy, history and how the topic came about to be and future open-ended problems.

eddd-ddde 3y ago
I hate being forced to attend college classes in person, where I sit for 4 hours, hearing a person talk about something that I don't care about, and even if I cared, I could learn it myself in half the time by myself at home. I'm a firm believer that lectures should never be necessary, give me the recorded lecture which I'll watch if I want to, I'll read the content myself, and I'll ask the teacher questions over the time where lectures would usually be given, and it will be easier since not everyone has to be there at once.
- 0xDEAFBEAD 3y ago
  At my university the professors would record and upload all of their lectures. I would watch the videos at 1.5-2x speed, pausing/jumping back frequently whenever I started to drift off or anything was even slightly confusing, to think it through and ensure that I understood. I got way better comprehension that way. Another trick that worked for me: If there are high-quality lecture notes, download a note, set a timer for the length of the lecture, and aim to read through the entire note within the time period that it took to deliver the lecture. Being on the clock creates a little pressure that helps me focus. It's OK if I don't achieve 100% comprehension; I basically never achieve 100% comprehension during a live lecture anyways. The only problem with these techniques is that it's easy to fall way behind if you don't discipline yourself to consume lectures at about the same rate they're being delivered. Cal Newport's book How to Become a Straight-A Student has good tips like blocking out chunks of time during your week in advance to do study specific topics or do specific assignments.

makeitshine 3y ago

What I've learned from teaching is exactly what these comments exhibit, a hundred different solutions. For me the best teaching tool has been being able to read the room. If you can do that, then you can figure out which of the hundred solutions you need to use.

pdm55 3y ago

A suggestion: I enjoyed one short online computer course I studied, because we were given other students' submissions to assess. I recall using both my own code and the code of another student to suggest improvements in a third student's code. I am talking mainly about small tasks such as coding a function. To me this is just formalising what students do anyway: namely, help each other understand and complete tasks in a course. The difference is that the instructor is actively giving students access to other students' code. I found the process motivated me to get stuck into a task, rather than leaving it to the last minute.

tomcam 3y ago

> I was teaching a blow-off class… only about half of my students were really paying attention at a time, which is pretty bad if you want them to actually learn anything. I think most teachers would consider half the students paying attention to be a roaring success.

8bitsrule 3y ago

At first, at least, nobody learns as much as the teacher. "all physical theories, their mathematical expressions apart ought to lend themselves to so simple a description 'that even a child could understand them.'" - Einstein, to deBroglie [in Clark, 1972, p.418]

Megasnean 3y ago

Teaching transcends mere information delivery; it's about igniting curiosity and guiding students through an intellectual journey. The real skill lies in connecting the subject's complexity with the students' inquisitive minds. It's a blend of storytelling and exploration, where the classroom becomes an adventure in discovery. Effective teaching makes each lesson a step towards a larger, more exciting world of knowledge.