2022 Fall – Journey to the west: from Singapore to Canada

Bye bye 2022 Fall semester

This is the very last week of 2022 fall semester so it’s a good time for me to do a short reflection about how it went. From the frequency of my posts in the past half a year, you can probably guess this is a very hectic semester for me. It’s my first semester going back to teach in-person since I joined the math department here in 2020 August. Many adjustments and way-finding (in literal sense) had to be done before I’m finally comfortable with equipment in lecture theatres, seating arrangements in smaller classrooms, the printer and scanning machines etc. I don’t know how other new hires survived their first semester. If you went through it, you know what I’m talking about.

Test wrapper

We are half-way into the semester and students from all three of my courses have taken at least one test by this point. In order for me to find out what they feel about the test, and the course in general, I sent out an anonymous survey a week after MATH2720 students received their test 1 score. This was done right before Wednesday’s lecture. A QR code was projected in front of the classroom. As students walked into the room, they can scan the code and still filling up the form. 41 responses were recorded so about half of the class took the survey. In Test 1, students were given about five minutes to talk with their peers right before they write the test paper and I’m curious to find out what they think about the activity. The purpose of the activity is mainly to alleviate stress. To many of these students, this is their very first in-person test since 2020 March.

First week: excitement in the air

This is my first week going back to teach fully in-person after joining my current department in Sep 2020. I had A LOT of worries before stepping into my classroom on Sep 7th: how will I walk from one class to the next one (in a different building) with only 15 minutes in-between? will students remember how to sit in a room and attend lectures? Will I be able to write on whiteboard/under document camera/on my computer screen fast enough? Do I have all the adapters to connect things? Will I be able to find the mic? Most importantly will we be able to connect?