steuard

steuard, 4 months ago

@ZachWeinersmith There's bound to be a good roughly-age-appropriate telling of Arthurian legend out there. (I wonder how The Once and Future King holds up these days?) I wonder about something like The Song of Roland, too, though I don't know it as well. Maybe Finn MacCumhaill, too?

(I think you're looking for actual mythical epics rather than fictional mythpoetic epics. But in any case I assume LotR is already on her reading list, past or future.)

steuard, 6 months ago

@ZachWeinersmith Oh, cool! I love it when formal academic writing and popular presentations tie together like this. Congratulations!

steuard, 8 months ago

@ZachWeinersmith I start to get really uncomfortable with terms like "student quality": too easy for STEM people to interpret that in an inappropriately smug way.

But I think it is really interesting to think about your "bullshit vs. damned hard" choice that's available in some majors. Possibly there's a similar choice in Physics (e.g. undergrad research, elective choices, etc.), but the base level's demands are well above "bullshit" level. I wonder why Physics hasn't developed a BS track?

steuard, 8 months ago

@ZachWeinersmith The other thought on my mind: I feel like I've seen some brilliantly insightful ideas and insights from people in English who didn't specialize in (e.g.) poetry translations from obscure languages. That is, even in those fields of English where people can get by with BS, there are still people doing fantastically innovative and creative work. (I suppose if that weren't true, those would cease to be accepted academic fields and the BSers wouldn't have that option anymore.)

steuard, 8 months ago

@jpshoer @ZachWeinersmith Speaking as a physics prof (at a small undergrad college), I hate the idea of "weed-out courses". Our subject is already challenging enough, and too many people already give up on pursuing it because they start to think they don't belong there (and hey, that correlates strongly with being in underrepresented groups). What's the value in unnecessarily shattering people's dreams rather than supporting them as they build up the skills and resilience to make it through?

steuard, 8 months ago

@ZachWeinersmith That's fair. I would love to give everyone an A if I could, but you're right that the math is real, as are the concepts. Even with copious partial credit, students with mediocre understanding either push to catch up, or leave the field.

But, hmm. When I've taught literature, it's also not that hard to distinguish "cool creative thesis" vs. "neat idea explained poorly" vs. "BSing with nuggets of truth". So why do English and Physics treat mediocre work so differently?

steuard, 8 months ago

@ZachWeinersmith @jpshoer Oof, yeah, it's really hard to figure out how to tell an advisee, "I know you love this subject, but your grades suggest that some big pieces just aren't clicking for you. Have you considered something else?"

(My usual strategy is to insist that everyone keep doors open for a plan B from the start, because who knows which will turn out to inspire you more in a year. That makes it easier for students to suggest a switch themselves. Or they stick it out!)

steuard, 8 months ago

@ZachWeinersmith @nonnihil I had ChatGPT help me remember/learn some Git syntax a month ago, and that went really well. But in anything related to my actual job (physics prof), it's either too unreliable to be useful or seriously annoying as a teacher (because none of us know how to reliably help students grow from mediocre writers to good ones anymore).

I think you need to know your subject and AI pretty well to recognize when AI's hallucinations and limitations will and won't be a disaster.

steuard, 8 months ago

@nonnihil @ZachWeinersmith Is there a LLAMA out there that 1) runs well on a Mac M1 and 2) is a reasonably solid equivalent to at least GPT3.5? I haven't been keeping up with this very well. (And generally, where's a good place to look to see pros and cons of different LLAMA/etc. local models? Ideally targeted at "knowledgeable non-experts".)

steuard, 8 months ago

@ZachWeinersmith @nonnihil I see your point here, but I'm not sure that it's that useful in practice. A physics teacher doesn't need someone to lay out a boilerplate physics curriculum, because we've all already taken one, and because for individual courses you've probably got a textbook already whose table of contents is a solid outline. (Also, laying out a curriculum is generally a rare or one-time task: not the sort of thing that really needs automation.)

steuard, 9 months ago

I've struggled so much with whether to mask in the classroom. The medical evidence seems strong that >10% of infections lead to some level of Long Covid and that risk is cumulative with repeat infections. But every term I worry more that my students will see my mask as a barrier.

steuard, 9 months ago

@ZachWeinersmith I've heard reports that the current generation of high school (and college?) students doesn't routinely organize files, or even have a clear mental model of folder/file system structure at all. They almost entirely interact with the "recent documents" lists in individual apps. (This is encouraged by phones and tablets that hide all those details.)