the natural log is *not* the reciprocal

March 29, 2011 in Math 151, Rambles

i’ve got a post for spring quarter. yay!
less money again and i suppose less
prestige… i’m running two sections
of a calc class. the students see lectures
(not by me) on mondays and wednesdays
and meet me for guided-problem-solving
(and to hand in homeworks and take quizzes;
exams have yet a different schedule;
i grade everything of course) tuesdays
and thursdays. also there are tutor-room duties.

but one-on-one tutoring is in many ways
the *best part* of the whole “math teacher”
thing. not by coincidence, the furthest away
from the show-me-the-money side:
grant applications and suchlike no-math
adminstrivia. pretending to participate
in curriculum design and suchlike policies:
worse-than-meaningless committee work.

there’s a great deal of online activity
associated with teaching at Big State U.
but almost everything has gone pretty well
in my two quarters here so far (this century).
the payroll-related interface was frustrating
to be sure… but there was an old-fashioned
paperwork over-ride that i eventually found
out about by showing up in person ready
to beg for help.

otherwise… filing grades and scheduling tutoring
duties for example… stuff works the first time
and the right buttons aren’t hidden among
dozens of useless ones with similar names.

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