Wed, 2 Sep 2021, 02:29 Several items
My students, Several items have come up in the last few days, and I thought the simplest thing to do is to send you all email. Normally I would just post the items to the course website, but since we are just one week into the semester, I thought I would use email instead. This will be long, I apologize for that. 1. I am told that a few of you are using the chat feature of Zoom to send messages during class that has gotten to the point of being very distracting to the other students. Well over 100 today! Starting now, parts of the chat functionality is being disabled so chat messages will not go to the students in the class. I ask you to use chat during class ONLY to ask questions dealing with the lecture, AND to address them ONLY to Sabee. Sabee will interrupt my lecture as appropriate to read the questions. Please do not send the chat messages to me since it is distracting to me also. Bottom line: I want you to understand the concepts in EE306 and will do what I can to help make that happen, but to do that effectively, I need to set up the above rules. You can also ask questions by clicking the icon that raises your hand, and Sabee will interrupt me and call on you. Or, you can unmute yourself and just ask the question. I realize that the above is not as convenient as it would be if all 185 of you were in a classroom with me in person. Hopefully, we will get there before much longer. Until then, please follow the above process for asking questions. 2. As I said in class today, I have to be away next Wednesday, so I am going to give next Wednesday's lecture over Zoom this Sunday evening, September 5, at 8pm. We will use the usual Zoom Meeting ID. I leave it to you to decide whether to tune in live, or wait until next Wednesday when the TAs will play the recording we produce Sunday night. Or, watch the recording at your convenience. Any questions about this, please ask one of the TAs or me. 3. We have noticed that some of you are connecting your laptop to the Zoom lecture and then going off and doing something else. I am not sure why you are doing that. As I told you on the first day of class, I never take attendance, so connecting your laptop if you are not going to actually attend lectures is a waste of time. Whether or not you attend class is completely up to you. My experience is that if you do not attend class and discussion sessions, you will probably not do well in the course. But it is up to you. You are in college now, and as far as I am concerned, you can be trusted to manage your time. 4. Study groups. The overwhelming result I have seen over the years has been in favor of study groups. If you form a study group (3 to 5 students) and work the problems together, my experience has been that all members of the study group will do better than if you do it alone. The stronger student benefits from explaining things to the weaker student and the weaker student benefits from getting those explanations from a classmate. Some students have asked me how they can find other students to form a study group. Most of you are in FIGs, which contains a ready source of potential study group partners. I will not put a limit on the size of the study group, I leave that up to you. I do know that if the number gets too large, it becomes more a party and less a study group. If you are not in a FIG and have trouble finding classmates to join in a study group, ask your TA during discussion session if he can make an announcement and couple you up with two or three other students. If that does not work, then please let me know and I will see what I can do. You can form a study group whenever you wish. Doing so earlier rather than later usually works best. 5. FIGs. Speaking of FIGs, I hope you are taking advantage of the FIG program. I think it is one of the best things we do for first semester students to help you get acclimated to UT. In fact, I make it a point to meet individually with each FIG that wants to spend an hour with me, and have already committed to meeting with one of them late in September. Almost any day of the week is fine for me, and if we meet late in the day, we should be able to find a large enough classroom where we can meet in person and maintain social distancing. If your FIG wants to meet with me, please have your FIG advisor or mentor send me email to set it up. I am very willing to meet with each of the FIGs, but only if the FIG thinks it is something you want to do. 6. The EE306 course page. URL: http://www.ece.utexas.edu/~patt/21f.306 Please make it a point to check for new announcements, etc. every two or three days. It is my most common way of getting information to you, rather than cluttering up your email inbox unnecessary. If I post something, after three days, I will assume you have read it. There is already plenty of useful information on the course web page and that will grow as the semester continues. That should do it. Sorry this was so long winded. But what is most important is to get all of us on the same page so you can do your best in EE306 this semester. Feel free to contact me (email is usually initially best and we can move our conversation to Zoom if necessary) if I can be of help. Good luck with EE306. ...and most importantly, stay safe. Yale Patt