Sorry that lately my blog has become more about my adventures in teaching than my adventures in grad school or Texas, but this is the first semester I’m teaching my own class, so it’s new and somewhat exciting and that’s what I want to talk about.

I drafted my first exam this week.  I wrote a really awesome exam.  About 5 or 6 questions are quick and can be answered with little or no calculation; you just have to understand basic concepts.  The rest of the problems require more detailed processes (calculations and reasoning).

I knew as I was writing it that it was WAY too long to be completed in 50 minutes for a college algebra student.  I was going to have some of my colleagues look it over and ask their opinions about what I should cut out.  It would be a lot easier to cut out questions than generate more content if needed, and getting input from other people who have taught the class before would be helpful.

BUT I was inspired with a fabulous idea!  I won’t cut ANYTHING out!  I’ll just structure the exam so that the first half are questions everyone has to do, and the last half they can choose which problems they want.  That way I don’t have to cut anything out, but it can still be reasonable to expect them to do “all” of it.

I have 13 questions written right now, so I think 7 will be required then they can choose 3 of the other 6. (I’ll have to see how long the optional questions are and that will determine how many of them they have to do.)  I am really excited about this development.

I feel a little weird, because I’m like 3 sections ahead in the book of most of the other people teaching the course.  But, I wrote my own schedule like this because I want to be able to take my time on the later chapters that have some really difficult concepts in them.  I hope it works out to benefit my students and speeding up at the beginning doesn’t cost them understanding of the basics.  So far they’ve exceeded my expectations – a majority of the students have been doing all of the assignments on time, and class attendance has been pretty good (usually I have about 5 of 35 students out on any given day; today 9 were absent which is much higher than normal).  The first exam is in 2 weeks, so we’ll see how well they’re really understanding the material then.

In general, this semester has been amazing so far.  All of the classes I’m taking are very interesting (Lie algebra topics course, and the core graduate courses in complex analysis and topology), I’m keeping up with all my coursework, and my teaching responsibilities haven’t been too time consuming or difficult.  Last week football started, and next week most of the TV shows I watch premiere their new seasons, so my life is busy, full, and enjoyable.  One thing that’s been a huge benefit is that on Tuesdays and Thursdays, the only thing I have to do is go to class from 9:30-12:30.  I have my afternoons completely “free.”  I have that unstructured time for running errands, doing homework, etc.  I usually go home right after class and it’s nice to have two afternoons per week that I know I have alone time and I can be as productive as I want/need to be, or can relax if I don’t have a lot of deadlines coming up.  Fridays are also sort of open.  I have to be on campus from 8-11 for office hours and teaching, but after that I’m “free.”  Usually there are seminars/talks/presentations in the afternoons that I want to go to, or friends want to go out to lunch, so I stay on campus for much of the afternoon.  But sometimes I even get a Friday afternoon off!

As for Texas, it’s been unseasonably “cold” here.  Monday and Tuesday of this week it did hit 100 degrees, but Sunday and Wednesday/Thursday/Friday it was no warmer than the 90s in the day and down in the 70s at night.  It has been really nice walking to and from school in this weather.  I don’t mind the heat when it’s here, but when it goes away, it doesn’t get bitter cold; it just gets bearable.  That’s the part of Texas weather I love the best.  I’m really looking forward to leaving Texas for Pennsylvania for a visit, but I’m not looking forward to the fact that it will be in December, and it will probably be disgustingly cold.  On the plus side, I just bought Pens tickets – 8 rows behind the goal!  I’ve never been to a Pens game before (or any NHL game for that matter; the only hockey games I’ve been to were for my high school’s roller hockey team), so I’m not sure if that means the seats are good or not, but I’m excited nonetheless!  This is on top of the good seats we already have for the Steelers/Rams game on Christmas Eve.  That is going to be such a fun week!