10/18/04

A student asks about the five sessions this week:

     Hello Dr. Patt,
     I got 65 on the last test.
     I'm supposed to go to classes on Wednesday and Thursday,
     but I can't go to the
     class on Thursday.  So, which classes should I go?
     Monday and Tuesday? or Tuesday and Wednesday?
     Please let me know.  Thanks.                    
     << name withheld to protect the one who did not understand my announcement in class >> 

I thought my announcement in class was clear. Perhaps I can find out what in my announcement in class was not clear. Meanwhile, I will try again:

This week I will not lecture. Instead, I will hold five discussion sessions, one each day Monday through Friday, from 3pm to 5pm. The room numbers are on the class website.

I would like each student in the class to attend ONE of the five discussion sessions. If you got in the 30/40 range or below, then come on either Monday or Tuesday. If you got above that but below 80, come on either Wednesday or Thursday session. If you got above 80, come to the Friday session.

My hope is that by doing this, I can meet with smaller groups of students this week and hopefully improve your mastery of the material. I will target the Monday and Tuesday sessions to answering very basic questions. My hope is to get those who are flunking right now to get over the hump and on their way to passing the course. Wednesday and Thursday will deal with more sophisticated concepts. My hope there is to get those who are doing C work right now into the A and B range. Friday is for the hotshots who do not need this break. For them, I thought I would talk about anything they want to talk about.

I fully believe we have enough time remaining in the semester to take this break from lecturing and give those of you who need it a week to catch your breath, shore up some weaknesses and then move forward. This is not intended to be a vacation. You still have a program to do this week. You still have discussion sessions on Friday. You still have a book that you can read. We will just use the week to not move forward but rather make sure we have the first seven chapters of the book solidly understood before we move on.

Regular lectures begin on Ocotber 25.

Yale Patt