Here is how people did:

A    2
A-    1
B+   3
B     1
B-    0
C+   2
C     0
C-    4
D+  0
D    0
D-   1
F     1

$STUDENT that’s been taking my class for the fourth time finally pulled a C-. Yeah! $STUDENT can graduate now. Although $STUDENT_B will be back for a third time.

I find that I am more lenient with grading after the semester is over. If I wait to grade the assignments, I dont nearly find as many things wrong.. or mark off as many points. So I think it’s in the best interest of my students that next year, I grade the week after they turn in the assignment, right?

It’s also fun to read the comments they put on the back of their instructor evaluations. Unfortunately, I don’t get those until the end of the following semester. So.. if a book is bad, I wouldnt know it until after I’ve already selected it for the following semester. Or, if my teaching is bad, I’d never know about what I can do to improve until I’m well into the next semester.

This past Tuesday, in my Networking class, I gave my students a quiz on the reading I told them to read last Thursday. Nobody reads the book. Well, in this case, two of them said they did. Six of the eight students didn’t do so good on the quiz. At the end of the class I said we’ll be covering chapters X and Y this Thursday and we’ll be having a quiz, so go home and read it. I’m sick of people not putting forth the effort to learn the material required for the course. Most will have a RUDE awakening when/if they graduate and when/if they get a real job.

At the first of the semester I told each of my classes a few things.

#1 You’ll want to spend at LEAST 6 hours outside of class for this course a week. These six hours a week should probably go towards studying the material, going over notes from class, and doing homework and example problems from the text. This is a given for any upper-division CIT program. I am not going to give them everything they should know during class time. They will have to be learning stuff on your own so you can come to class and ask questions. This is the same for the real world. I don’t learn everything I do at work.. AT work. I have to spend time, outside of work, to study.. continue my understanding and keep up with the latest and greatest technologies. Many a time have I pulled up a PDF for a router or switch configuration on my laptop while I was laying in bed trying to go to sleep.. learning stuff all the time is what it’s all about. If they can’t do it now, how will they succeed in the private sector?

#2. I go fast. Yes, I am a speed demon. I type fast, I talk fast, and I think fast. This, again, is a result of the private sector. You bill by the hour. You have emergencies that you have to resolve quick, otherwise servers stay down.. the Internet stops working..and people start crying..and you end up losing money. If you are unable to think quickly through problems, identifying potential solutions and ways to fix the problem then a demanding IT job probably isn’t the best. Even in the world of design, quick results mean more money. Given, it takes time to come up with ideas and make them work in the design world.. if you’re not always thinking about things behind the scenes it’ll take you even longer. Which is why accuracy, speed, and completeness are essential traits in my sector of work. Initially I told my students that I go FAST. I also said that if I go “too fast”, slow me down. If you don’t ask questions, then I won’t know that you aren’t getting it. If you don’t do #1 and #2 then you’re probably not going to be getting it. You’ll be just filling a seat with a blank stare on your face or you’ll probably not be paying attention doing your homework for other classes (in my class), or chatting away on IM. Yes, I have students that do all of the above.

So what do I tell these students of mine that aren’t really interested in learning? I’m not going to give them an “A” for just showing up. If they do #1 AND #2 from above, then they’ll get an “A” in the class. I have students that don’t have to put a full 6 hours a week outside of class and are getting “A”s. Maybe they get it? Maybe it is that they pay attention in class, take notes, and read the texts outside of class. Maybe they do their assignments before they are due instead of waiting until the last possible minute to start them and then running into issues.

My oh my how I rant. But it is true. The work ethic amongst students and the up-coming working generation is diminishing. Everybody wants it handed to them on a silver platter. Nobody wants to work for their education or even once they have their job, they don’t want to work to further their education while at that job. They just expect to be given raises, more responsibility, and more time off when they don’t earn it. I do see a correlation between the classroom and the workforce. There are those that put the time in to the course, learn the material even if it takes them MORE time than 6 hours a week, and get “A”s out of the class. These students I’d love to pick up in a heart beat. Unfortunately, they already know that they are well sought after and have good jobs elsewhere.

If you’re a long time reader in this blog you’ll know I rant about this subject from time to time. Usually this happens when grades are given or we near the end of the semester and students have an awakening that their “all As throughout college streak” is about to come to a close. I’m a nice guy, I put up with a lot of crap in the classroom. But I also demand results and for my students to put forth the time in their upper-division courses. If they don’t then they’re not going to be able to accomplish what they want to after graduation.

“But Why?”, might you ask. To help pay down the Saab is one of the reasons. The other reason is.. well.. that’s pretty much the only reason there is. Just to get some easy extra $ by showing off how much I know about three subjects.

I’ll be teaching:

IT4400 – Advanced Networking (or is it Networking Design and Management now? they keep changing the title every year).

IT4200 – Advanced Web Delivery

IT3110 – SysAdmin part 2

The IT4400 will be my fourth time teaching. Third time using the same text, so I’m not too worried about it. I have 7 students enrolled in it.
IT3110 is one I’m a little concerned with. We’ll cover most of the stuff I know. Except LDAP. I can “do” LDAP, but I’m not pretty proficient with it. I can install and do the assignment stuff that the previous instructor has required the class to do, but if someone has a problem, I might be calling $_PAST_INSTRUCTOR and asking for some help. Another thing I’ll need to learn is compiling kernels on Debian. Never had to do it, yet. But for the most part it’ll be pretty easy. Samba, PDC, NFS, LDAP.. nothing too major.

IT4200. The Advanced Web Delivery is one I’m having a bit of a concern with. $_PAST_INSTRUCTOR taught some AJAX for the last 1/3 of the class. I’m kinda not wanting to do that. But instead might want to introduce the class to Ruby on rails. It’s a pretty basic class. Install apache/mysql/php/linux. Install some SSL stuff, learn mod_rewrite, maybe some caching, proxying with apache2.. mod_deflate would be fun. I’d like to show them or have them learn how to scale your project. Multiple servers serving up stuff, MySQL cluster perhaps? Authentication, Benchmarking,.. hmm. .anybody else have any ideas?

I subbed for a day last month and reviewed with the IT1100 (intro to everything OS related) class. I rather enjoyed it because it was so simple. I also enjoyed it because I just didn’t care. I poked fun at the way the instructor had us do the quiz (cups red, yellow and blue). They seemed to enjoy it. Hopefully, I’ll get a few good students this year. Some that actually show up, care, and want to learn. Some that participate and ask GOOD questions.. not those questions that everybody asks when they missed a day and weren’t able to go over the reading.. you know the type.

So yeah… spring 2007 semester @ DSC is coming right around the corner. Hopefully it’ll be a beneficial semester and get me out of some Saab debt.

$STUDENT is a good student. He/She was there for the majority of classes and ended up with an A- in the class. This email was sent to me and to $SUPERIOR. Not sure why it was sent to $SUPERIOR, he’d just ask me if I did a fair job and I’d say “yes.

So here’s the Email:

I would like to formally request a review
of the grading for the IT4300 class.
Would you please look at the overall makeup of
scores and consider curving the scores?
I think that there should some students with A's
in this class.
I'll leave it to you fine men to make the final
decision, but please give it your consideration.

My reply was this:

There were some students that were .5% or
less from a 'higher' letter grade. I ended up giving it
to them on their final grade postings.  For instance,
there were two students that achieved a total score
greater than 93.5% but were below the 94% cut
off for an 'A'. There was also another case of another
student that was bumped up due to the within .5%
mark from a higher letter. If I was to bump up
everybody .5% it wouldnt make a difference in the
final letter grade except for these individuals.

So I did give out 'A's' despite the online excel file
showing a slew of A-'s.

If you feel I was unfair or biased in my grading of
assignments and/or tests let me know where and
how and we can talk.

Why should I grade on a curve? Let’s say I had a class full of people that didn’t study, take tests nor do assignments. Everybody got a C in the class. Do I bump everybody up to an A? Did they earn an “A”? No. So why should they deserve an “A”?

Even the people in my class this semester that didn’t get that coveted 94% on their own lost a few points here and there on tests and projects. Maybe they turned in a project a day or two late and lost 10 or 20 points. The projects in my class will pick away at your grade rather easily. I noticed after I posted the last students project, he went from a B+ to an A- because he got 100 on the project. If he hadnt turned in that project he would have sat at the B+ mark. So it pays to do the assignments. Do them well and turn them in on time.

While 94% is a high mark to shoot for, it is not impossible. Sure my tests are “hard”. Sure there is a lot of work to do. However, my class is a upper-division class. It’s a 4000 series class.. shouldn’t that be harder than say a 3000 level? Shouldn’t it require more effort to study and do the work than a 2000 or 3000 level? I’d think so. That’s how I structure it. Some students that already knew a bunch of the stuff had an easy time on the projects. But others, stuggled. My hearts go out to them. Some were juggling a full-time job, school, and a family.. and were feeling like they were getting pulled under.

So here’s to another semester done with. This is the third time I’ve taught this course. It’s gotten easier along the way. I know what works and what doesnt work. What I should teach and what I shouldnt. I’m still a hard teacher, but it’s good to think I’m up there with $SUPERIOR in level of hardness.

Curves suck… ’nuff said.

It’s done. Finals are graded. I got the last two projects graded. Final grades are posted. I’m done. It feels good.

A few stats: Nobody got above 94% total in the class. A few got 93.6% and above. I rounded up. Three students walked away half way through. Average grade was around B to B+. Not bad. If some people would have gotten 100% on their projects they would have gotten an A.

Here’s to a restful two weeks until I start it up again.

A few interesting things happened today.

First, the projector in my room did not work right with the computer. I had a couple of students playing with it. Then I sent another up to Erics office to get his projector. Not to be found. Anyway, we ended up moving rooms over to a stupid room that had a stupid computer. I could hardly read the screen, and it didn’t have Firefox. What a fun start of the day.

Went through all the syllabus, schedule, reading, etc.. got done with plenty of time so I started in on some intro to databases.. I really wasn’t planning on spending that much time on it, but I got a head start on Relations, and Relational Algebra definitions.

Then there was $STUDENT who brough in a little hand held camera to record my screen movements.. it was interesting. Not like $FORMER_STUDENT who also brought one in. I was really annoyed a few years ago when he brought it in, but with $STUDENT, I’m ok with him recording me. I even mentioned I was thinking of doing a podcast. One student asked that if I did, “would we still have to come to class?” Maybe I will.

Anyway. School’s in session.. Fun stuff ahead…

This morning at 7:00AM my students all showed up to take their final exam. I ended up making a written and a hands-on portion of the tests. Reason being is I wanted them to prove what they knew on the Cisco router.

Last night before going to bed I chatted with Billy, one of my students. He suggested that I bring donuts.. or was it, that we figured nobody was going to bring any, so I ended up volunteering to bring donuts again.

Well, upon arriving in the entry way of the Udvar-Hazy building at school, those that were there busted up laughing upon seeing I brought donuts. Seems Matt (another student) also brought a dozen assorted donuts from the same place I did.

So we had 2 dozen donuts to pick from.. wow!

Later Billy showed up with some donuts that AJ picked up last night. There were only 6-7 left, but still.. Two and a half dozen for a class of 8 people. Needless to say, we didn’t finish them all. But it was a great way to end the semester.

I ended up getting the finals back to most of the students before they left, and posted their grades before I left to go to work. A pretty good spread of grades (A, A-, B+, B, C, C-, F) so I feel ok about it, knowing that the majority passed the class and will not have to retake it next spring.

Now that the class is over I get to figure out a book for next fall’s CIS3600 – Database Design course. So far I have 6 enrolled, and I believe I have the fear struck in most people that are considering it because of my first semester and ‘pushing’ them too hard. We shall see how many enroll.