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\memoto  Nils Nilsson


\from  Robert W. Floyd 


\subject ``Better Teaching''

\body

%Put your letter here.

This is my response to the memo from Bob Eustis to Nils Nilsson about
quality of teaching, as evaluated by looking at numbers on a computer
printout.  During the winter quarter, I had severe bronchitis for all
but the first week of the quarter. I only missed one class, but as the
illness continued I was not able to do more than the minimum to keep
CS262 going. I had no teaching assistant or grader. Not surprisingly,
the class got terrible ratings.

Some years ago, a visiting professor got comparably bad ratings on a
computer science course. The next quarter the man was dead. The computer
never noticed he was gone.

I was disappointed by the student reponse to CS254, my Formal Languages
and Computability course in the spring. Compare my absolute and
percentile rankings with CS106H, the introductory computer programming
course I taught in the fall.

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#\hfil\quad&\hfil#\qquad&\hfil#\hfil\qquad&\hfil#\qquad&\hfil#\hfil\cr
&\multispan2\hfill CS254\phantom{132}\hfill%
&\multispan2 \hfill CS106H\phantom{M}\hfill\cr
Question&Score&Percentile&Score&Percentile\cr
1 (Organization\cr
and Preparation)&2.98&16&2.13&42?\cr
2 (Explanations)&3.14&\phantom{1}8&2.38&47?\cr
6 (Responsiveness to\cr
class difficulty)&3.83&\phantom{1}4&2.00&54?\cr
11 (Fairness of tests, etc.)&3.18&\phantom{1}4&1.75&92?\cr
13 (Overall value\cr
of course)&3.38&\phantom{1}4&1.75&77?\cr
14 (Overall rating\cr
of instructor)&3.43&\phantom{1}8&2.00&42?\cr}}$$

\vskip .125in

What happened between fall and spring? Did I forget how to give
explanations of average clarity in three months? Did I change from
being an exceptionally fair grader to being a near-monster?
Didn't any of my colleagues notice my mental deterioration and
suggest a CAT scan?

In fact, I was always carefully prepared for my lectures. I
distributed about 100 pages of computer-typeset notes, of which
samples are attached; they will become a book including major
improvements of standard results and proofs. When I found that
some students were in difficulties, I conducted several hours of
help sessions, and had my TAs do the same. The content of the
course is fundamental to the design of compilers and text processors.


Then why did the course get such terrible ratings?

$\bullet$ It is a semi-required course for the MSCS degree, and is
required in several specializations. Many computer science students
acknowledge that they detest mathematics. The course is unabashedly
abstract and mathematical.

$\bullet$ Support was understaffed and underqualified. One TA and my
grader were themselves taking the course. The other TA was so bad
we had to redo much of his grading. At one point, their grading
fell three weeks behind, and nobody told me.

$\bullet$ There appears to be resentment that I give tests on which
there is usually a very broad numerical distribution. There was
probably resentment about a midterm question where I gave an
explicitly non-standard definition of a term, and asked a question
about it. Many students located in the textbook an answer that
was only true for the textbook definition, and paraphrased or referenced
it. This gave me no basis to assign a positive score. It was in no
way a trick question, but I suspect that many students felt unfairly
treated.

$\bullet$ In their written comments on the course, some students
mention my style of speech. ``A boring monotone'' is typical.
Sorry, folks, I speak as I speak. Be glad I don't stutter any
more. I can certify from experience years ago that Stanford
students, protected by the anonymity of course evaluations,
are ferocious toward anyone (not just me) with a speech impairment.
Notice that the rating of CS106H rates the course at 77\%, and rates
me at 42\%, although the course is almost entirely my material.

My spring lectures are available on video tape for inspection by
any evaluator of my performance who takes that task seriously
enough to look at anything but my Nielsen ratings, or by any
colleague who would care to see if my lectures have remediable
faults. My course notes are also available for inspection;
I have encouraged my colleagues and administrative evaluators
to examine them, without much success.

I have never seen evidence that evaluations, on the whole, are
more than a popularity contest. Their anonymity encourages the
venting of frustrations at the professor's expense. No newspaper
will print an unsigned letter. No modern court will accept anonymous
testimony. In most areas of our lives, we call anonymous writings
graffiti, and paint over them.

Be assured, I take my work seriously. I do the best I know how
at anything I do, to meet my own standards for myself. Eustis
suggests discussion with a ``successful teacher,'' and using the
services of the Center for Teaching and Learning. Anyone who 
suggests that I am an unsuccessful teacher should
say it to my face and be prepared to back it up.


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\address 






\body
%Dear 

Stefan Sharkansky took my course on Sorting and Searching, out of
Knuth v.3, last winter. He had a top 95 on the takehome midterm; the
next grade was 85. On the takehome final I promised an A to anyone
who got three problems (out of nine) substantially right. There
were higher scores than his, mainly through accumulation of partial
credit, but several of his solutions were superb: elegant, motivated,
and efficient solutions to problems requiring three or four pages
of combinatorial identities, generating functions, transformations
of recurrence relations, and all that. (The higher scores were made
by a good computer science Ph.D.~student, and another M.S.~student
whom I would also enthusastically admit to our Ph.D.~program.)

He was my TA in the spring, in a formal languages and computability
course based on Hopcroft and Ullman. Although he was learning the
material at the same time, he was a very capable TA to whom I was
able to delegate much responsibility for composing and reviewing
problems and solutions.

Stefan has good mathematical instincts, and should do very well 
in the deductive side of computer science research, or in an
applied math program. I see no reason that he would not be a
credit to any Ph.D.~program.

\closing
Sincerely yours,
Robert W.~Floyd 

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\body
%Dear 

Jay Lao has taken two of my courses: Sorting and Searching, out of
Knuth v.3, and Formal Languages, out of Hopcroft and Ullman.
In the former, a class mainly of computer science MS students,
his work was a shade below the class average, and I gave him a
B. In the latter, on both exams he ranked fifth or sixth out of
more than eighty students, which indicates to me that he is able
to do very good mathematical computer science.

Unfortunately, he is a bit shy, and I don't really know him well,
nor do I have any memory of the details of his work that would
let me make a qualitative assessment.

\closing
Sincerely yours,
Robert W.~Floyd 

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