Mail Bag For This Week

I would most definitely appreciate it if you mentioned the section of the book you're going to cover before you lecture. I found it hard after lecture on Wednesday to go through the book when you've covered material in part of a section and not in another.
-- Biology; Salem, OR

This is a fantastic idea! I will make a post for the first week of class and try to follow up with a post after each lecture going over the material covered in class.

I just read through the blog, and it reminded me about something I had wanted to bring up to you on Wednesday during lab, but forgot to (I was just so focused!) I wanted to say that I think it is great that you choose to conduct lecture by making use of the chalkboard. It makes me think back to when I was a freshman in, taking honors European history with Mr. Woodall. What was great about Mr. Woodalls class was that he rejected the use of the overhead projector and of powerpoints, and instead had us copy down his primarily illegible, size 8, scribble that he referred to as his award winning penmanship. His class forced me to pay attention, to ask questions, arrive to class early (the front row obviously had an advantage!), and ultimately his class sticks out in my mind as the class that I learned and retained the most information from. A funny little quirk of Mr Woodall, one that I think would be best for you to NOT integrate into this course, is that he had a nasty little habit of taking peoples shoes... usually always girls flipflops... and throwing them out of the second story window. It added spontaneity to the class, as he would say.

I'm glad to hear that you enjoy the "chalk talk" style of teaching. The best professor I had taught that way and I hope to emulate his teaching style. It's a shame we aren't in the second story window in lecture or I could toss some flip flops. I could do this out of the 2nd story window in Celeste for labs though :) That would add some spontaneity!