teaching in the fall, input requested!

[alexr_rwx]

Hey, so, this course I'm teaching in the Fall. It's real; it's happening. There are 29 students signed up for it.

I want your wisdom about classes. What was the best course you took as an undergraduate, or took at all? What do you think made it the best?

Moreover: what do you think about having little intermittent non-graded quizzes, once or a few times during a class? I'm imagining something like the quizzes in the Coursera lecture videos: "if you understood the last five minutes, you should be able to work this out". They're typically multiple choice, which I like.

Also moreover: for mid/upper-level undergrad classes, tell me all your thoughts on course projects. Lindsey has pointed out that term projects are often terrible, especially if left unconstrained. My mental model is that an NLP course should have a course project, and it's OK if they turn out badly. But reflecting on this, a bad course project can be demoralizing...

Thoughts and considerations?

Comments

[oniugnip.livejournal.com]

It's an undergrad class. I'm definitely going to have a list of possible projects, yeah!

Those are all really good suggestions, about checkpointing and intermediate and stretch goals!

You're the course instructor for this class? Rad!

[bubblingbeebles.livejournal.com]

yes. in self-deprecating speech i would say that i am just being a figurehead. this guy who's also starting the phd program with me conceived the class sometime last year, and apparently like half the CS freshmen took it or something incredible like that. we have 4 tas for the fall :O