Hi Farah.
Post by Farah HanifI do not understand the way teachers want us to organize our
schedules.
Please find attached a suggestion. Thank you for asking: I would not
have thought about giving one otherwise, but now that I wrote it I
realize that obviously, from my questioning in class, some students
follow another strategy and might benefit from this one.
Post by Farah HanifWe should be allowed atleast 2 weeks to work on the assignments.
I totally agree. That's why each assignment due and release time is
separated by two weeks.
Post by Farah HanifAssignment 3 was released on the 13th Tuesday. And we have a midterm
on 20th June, 7 days after and assignment is due on the 27th. Which
only allows us 7 days to work on it. What is it meant by starting
early? Should we revise for exam or work on assignment?
You assume that working on the midterm is an independant task from
working on the assignment, which is just as senseless as assuming that
reading the slides and understanding them is yet another task,
completely independant from both assignments and exams.
The Lectures, the Assignments and the Exams cover the same
materials. Regular attendance to the lectures will reduce your work on
the slides, regular work on the slides will reduce your work for the
assignments, as regular work on the assignments will reduce your work
for the exams.
Post by Farah HanifIn short, we should be allowed complete 14 days to work on
assignments, considering the fact that 240 assignments are long,
tricky and time-consuming.
I am sorry that you find assignments *too* tricky, and too long (I
guess that time-consuming is a consequence, not a separate argument?)
Assignment 3 is shorter and easier, although still challenging (I
hope), and Assignments 4 and 5 should be shorter as well.
Post by Farah HanifI would appreciate if something could be done about this. As a
suggestion, assignment 3 should be due 2 weeks after the midterm.
I am always happy to receive criticisms, advices and suggestions, and
I am particularly proud that I act on them more often than not.
I won't follow your suggestion on the release time though, because it
is totally impractical and based on unacceptable assumptions.
I already reduced the lenght of assignments starting from the 3rd,
which should address your concern on the lenght and time-consumption
of assignments. I will keep assignments challenging, so you might
still find them tricky.
Thanks for your suggestion anyway. Please allow me to give you one in
return: you might consider being more carefull with the use of the
word "should". Presented with a list of suggestions that "should" be
followed, most people will be on the defense and by default deny the
whole thing, and sometime will be even unable to listen to the
suggestions. This effect is even more true when the suggestions are
done in public, and when they are issued upward in any (conscious or
unconscious) hierarchy structure. Presenting your suggestions in a
less direct way will increase the chances that they are followed. Of
course, I am not following my own advice when giving you this
suggestion on a newsgroup.
Have a good day!
--
Jeremy (http://www.cs.uwaterloo.ca/~jbarbay)
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Here is the way I "want" you to organize your schedule:
- in class, make sure that you understand each concept introduced,
in particular those summarized at the end of each lecture;
- after and before each class, read the slides and check if you
understand and remember the important points: the exercises given on
some slides are a good way to check that;
- each week, come to my office hour if there are some points in the
slides or in the lectures that you are incomfortable with;
- immediately after the release of the assignment, read it and think
about how much time each problem will take you to answer; think about
the hardest and solve all the easier problems during the first week,
finish the hardest during the second week; eventually give up on the
hardest if you can't solve it in a reasonable time;
- immediately after the release of the assignment's solution, read it
and check that you understand the solution; see someone's office hour
if you are incomfortable with some points;
- before an exam, read once again the slides, your assignments, and
ask yourself which key points you would cover if you were testing a
colleague on his knowledge in a very limited amount of time.
I think that this strategy will help you for most classes.