Jenn has signed me up to be on an Incoming Faculty Orientation Panel with her today. As a reward, each panelist gets a $25 gift certificate to either the Union Grill or Amazon.com. Being an unwashed CS major, I'm opting for the food over the books.

Anyway, these questions are hard. I'll take a crack at them here so that I'll hopefully have something to say at the panel.

What is the best/most exciting/most interesting educational experience you have had here at Carnegie Mellon to date? Why was it so wonderful? You can mention people by name or not.

Well, my favorite class so far has probably been Intro to Playwriting with Bill Kovacsik. But they probably want me to mention something relevant to my major. In that case, I'd have to go with Steve Rudich's Great Theoretical Ideas in Computer Science course. Dude could teach a semester's worth of probability in an 80-minute lecture.

It was tough to keep up with Rudich's lecture, and I'm sure his TAs were plenty overworked during office hours. It was kind of like one of those video game levels where the screen is constantly scrolling forward, and if you don't jump from platform to platform fast enough, the left edge of the screen will push you off into a pit.

But it was always worth the effort, not only because the material was interesting (to me), but also because Rudich was an incredibly dynamic lecturer. You could tell he cared deeply about the material, and about teaching it. But most of all, you could tell, just by the way he lectured, that you were in the presence of a brilliant mind. You could feel yourself getting smarter just being in the same room as him.

What is the worst/most disappointing educational experience you have had? Obviously you wouldn't want to "name names" here :)

That's easy. Interpretation and Argument (i.e. freshman English). Although that wasn't the teacher's fault at all - more that the class was a step below 9th grade English, and I had to consciously make myself dumber for it. I got a C on the first draft of my first paper because we weren't supposed to include our own original analysis, something that, after four years of high school English, I did by default.

Again, not relevant to the issue at hand. The most disappointing class I ever took was called "Cognitive Processes: Why People Are Smart and How They Can Get Smarter". When I saw this course title in the freshman course package, why, it was almost too much for a budding AI student to handle. An intro psychology course geared towards CS majors like me! How exciting!

And it should come as no surprise to the seasoned reader that this course ended up being just another intro psychology course. Huge lecture, apathetic monotone professor, TAs who just screwed around the whole time, tests that required you simply to regurgitate the textbook. The few students who actually cared about the material had lost interest by the third week. Except for Ernest, this really super-annoying kid who always went up to suck up to the professor after class and whom my TA had to specifically prohibit from answering questions in recitation, because otherwise he'd answer them all. You know the type.

What expectations do you have when you walk into a course at CM?

Let's put aside for now the fact that it's "CMU", not "CM".

This could be one of two different questions. One is: "Based on your experience with courses at CM[U], what have you come to expect when you walk into a course?" The other is: "What would you expect a professor to do in order for a course at CM[U] to be really good?"

Answer the first: It depends on the size of the class. If I walk in and there's 60 other kids there, I expect to sit through 80 minutes of lecture twice a week and learn the most from doing the homework projects. If I walk in and the professor is making small talk with one of the five other kids there, I expect that I'll be able to get a modicum of individual attention when I need it, and that the class is going to be sprinkled with awkward silences when the professor asks a question, because face it, college students don't like to answer questions in class.

Answer the second: I would expect the professor to make it clear to the students that he cares about the material, and that he cares about teaching the class, and to at least pretend that he cares about the students. I would expect a sentence on the syllabus that says, "My door is always open." I would expect the professor to challenge the students, to make them learn the material through their own efforts.

I would also expect the teacher to make the lecture notes available online, because really, that's just easier for everyone.

Broadly speaking, what is the best thing about CM? What is the worst thing about CM?

As a CS student, the best thing about CM[U] is the feeling that I'm in the presence of, and under the tutelage of, some of the brightest minds in the world.

That's also the worst thing. It's hard for a student to feel important when he knows that his professor is probably more important than he'll ever be.

What advice would you give to faculty new to Carnegie Mellon to help them be successful teachers/educators? (FYI - the orientation program is all about helping people to calibrate to our environment, expectations, etc.)

I can't stress this enough - put the lecture notes online. It saves paper, you know?

CM[U] students are going to expect you to be boring, especially in a big lecture. Bring a katana to class. (Not my personal experience, but that of someone I know.)

If you're teaching a difficult class, give students plenty of opportunity to come to you for extra help outside of class. CM[U] students are highly sensitive about looking stupid in front of their peers, and hence aren't going to ask questions in class as often as they should.

What have faculty done that made a difference in your time here at CM?

Greg Kesden was my professor for Operating Systems. The class was a two-hour lecture thrice a week, plus four insane projects that most students spent upwards of 25 hours a week on. One Friday, he was lecturing to about 30 very tired students (out of the 80 enrolled), all sitting in the rear 10 rows of the lecture hall. He asked a question, which was met with dead silence. Nobody even moved. He got this look of disappointment, which was quickly swept away by a look of utter determination. Without warning, he leapt up onto the front row of seats and strode across the rows to the back of the lecture hall, right in the middle of where we were all sitting. He points to a student and asks the question again. The student, shocked into wakefulness like the rest of us, answers the question. He points at another student and asks another question. The student answers. He asks about five more questions in this manner, then walks back to the front of the lecture hall and continues his lecture.

Absolutely inspiring.

Okay, so maybe the questions weren't that hard.