It’s All Over But the Crying…

…and there will be plenty of crying.  Grading is going slower than usual this semester, but I’m almost done. (more…)

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Hello

Greetings to my ECE 301 students who found my blog.  Go ahead and poke around, I don’t think I complained about you too much here.
Then get your homework done.

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Feedback

As a professor, I have to deal with feedback of various sorts.  Some good, some bad, some indifferent.  Students have opinions of my work, my Dean has opinions of my work, our accreditors, other faculty, pretty much everybody will give their 2 cents.
I am teaching a project management class for the first time.  I don’t [...]

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Using the Tablets

I finally got the tablet PCs working in the classroom.  We use two access points connected by a small network switch.  That, however, only seems to cover about 15 or 16 computers.  The 17th seems to need to be on the campus network.  I’m wondering what the actual capacity of an access point is. 
In the [...]

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Virtual Lecture

I’ve begun to record lectures for my Signals and Systems class using Lecturescribe.  Lecturescribe is a free program that works with the Tablet PC to create flash lectures.  I can record audio and write on an electronic whiteboard to cover material.  The production quality isn’t great, (partly me, partly the program being cumbersome), but for [...]

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Project Management

As I have mentioned before, my Project Management class is overfull, with two sections of 16 students and counting.  Most of the students are from India, and I suppose that they would like to stay in the US after graduating, which leads to another issue.
India (as one student verified in class) is very hierarchical in [...]

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Overload

My project management course has been split into two sections, which means overload pay for me.  It also means 28 mostly international graduate students that I have to teach the concepts of Project Management. 
The international aspect of the class changes things slightly.  Their understanding of English is marginal.  Given that project managers must be proficient [...]

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Project Management and the Tablet PC

I’ve been developing several good ideas for my project management class, several of which I need to fully develop. One thing I haven’t developed yet is how I will use the tablet PCs in the classroom. So let me lay out several options:

Use them for immediate responses to in-class case studies. Students could spend some [...]

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Preparing for a Major in Engineering

I’ve been doing incoming student advising, and there are a few things that are harder for me than the students who are not prepared for college in general, and engineering and the sciences in particular.

If you are planning on a 4 year degree in Engineering, be prepared in Mathematics. Many universities are requiring math placement [...]

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Thinking Outside the Box and the Issue of Constraints

The phrase “Think outside the box” has been a buzzphrase for more than a decade, it would seem. People who don’t remember the original problem posed that lead to the coining of this phrase toss the phrase around as if it applied in every case. The original problem was to connect a set of nine [...]

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