Exam time

Exams have been over for a while but I thought I'd do some catch up on how things went. It was a very different experience to be the one preparing the exam than to be the student writing the exam. I definitely prefer to be the instructor and not the student. The course I taught ended up being done earlier than I was given time for so I ended up giving them additional lessons over and above the course requirements and also gave the students the option to write their exam earlier than the scheduled exam time so they could get it done and out of the way which then would make for a lighter exam schedule. They chose to write early and get the course done and out of the way. 

Writing an exam for the students was an interesting experience. I'm thankful I had developed some practice questions for the students as it helped not only to find areas of weakness that I could review in class but also gave me an understanding of what to watch for. Since many of the students have done their primary schooling in Arabic and are now transitioning to learning in English, language can be a barrier for many of the students. In the practice questions I created I saw a number of problem areas where my wording was catching them up even though they understood the concepts so I made sure to be clear in what I was asking for.

Spacing was another challenge I found as I went along. Although I thought I had given enough space on the exam to do the work, I took extra blank pages into the exam with me just in case I needed them. I needed them all.

Timing was also interesting. I had 2 hours for the exam and I created an exam that I expected would take somewhere between 1/2hr and 1.5hrs depending on the student. well the first student out of the exam left shortly after the 1^st hour. By the end of the 2 hours there were 5 students left finishing off the exam. Since I was new at this, I had been tracking the number of students that left in 10 minute increments and saw that they were leaving in an expected pattern however it was taking them all longer than I expected. By giving them an extra 10 minutes (into their lunch break so it didn't affect other classes) all but one finished.

Marking the exam was also an interesting project. It was interesting to watch how the mark varied across the students. I even got an overall bell curve out of the marks (which also appeared in the spread of how long it took students to finish the exam) which was interesting to see develop. One thing I found helpful in being consistent was to mark all the exams at once going through 1 question at a time for all the students instead of marking one exam at a time student by student. In addition to keeping things consistent I was able to see if there was any pattern to how the students answered each question. One example of this was a question where I asked for the calculation of something but instead got the definition in about 1/2 of the student answers. Once I saw this pattern I reviewed the question and saw how it very easily got misinterpreted thus more of a problem on my part then on theirs.

One of the more challenging parts of marking I didn't expect was having to mark one question wrong for a student and knowing it was the only mistake on their entire exam. I never expected to feel so bad for the student that did so well. I guess part of me knows how difficult it is to get a perfect exam. 

Overall it was a good experience for me and I learned lots. I think the students did as well.

Life as a teacher for a few weeks

While J was away I started and finished teaching at the local nursing college. I was able to help out and teach some basic statistics to the students. I enjoyed the time I spent with them and also saw some of the challenges that many of them face. As a teacher I noticed that there was a wide variety of abilities in the class. Some students knew not only what I was teaching but also more advanced information that I had not taught while others struggled and had difficulty with basic math skills. Another issue was language skills. The students came from varying parts of the country and had different levels of English language skills.For some, their previous education was in Arabic and their English was limited, thus even though they were familiar with the content, they struggled to understand things due to the language barriers. I found much of what I taught was a balancing act of bringing the more complex content to them so all students understood while at the same time trying to keep it complex and interesting enough to keep those with advanced skills interested. I also found it interesting to learn some of the cultural differences in teaching styles and how the classroom works. The most interesting aspect of culture for me was when the students were dismissed. In Canada when the teacher tells us we are dismissed all the students make a mad dash for the door while the teacher stays behind to answer questions for those that still have questions. As a result I expected the 30 or so students I had been teaching to leave when class was done and I packed up my stuff. Nope.... Instead they all stayed sitting and watched me pack up my stuff and leave. That was a akward ending to my first class. It turns out that out here it is a sign of respect to sit and wait for the instructor to leave the room before the students leave. Any questions they have will wait until the instructor has returned to the office or if they find the instructor in the halls after class. Now I make sure most of my stuff is organized and packed up by the end of class so I don't take too long to make my exit. I also spend some time hanging and being available to students before heading back home.

Its been a while

Its been a while since I posted on this blog. Well part of it is because I spent most of February as both the medical "doctor" and the computer doctor. J was gone for a month to Kenya for some computer workshops/courses. Since he is the IT support for the team someone needed to be in charge and deal with any problems that came up over that time. That person was me. Although it was a busy month I had alot of fun and learned lots. before J left he gave me a crash course in all the different programs the team here uses so I could assist with any problems and do any necessary updates.

Much of my work consisted of submitting bug reports, resetting computer passwords, and pulling data from corrupted harddrives.

One team in particular had some problems when they were running a few different programs and working with someone in another country over the computer. Well its true that when the computer tech is around problems don't happen. After spending one morning running back and forth to their office fixing the problem and sending bug reports I started doing my work in their office. Well as soon as I did that there were no more problems. Later that week I got a call from the team saying they were having problems again so please come and sure enough before I got there I got another call from them saying "don't come anymore, the computer is scared of you and fixed itself". I guess computers aren't fond of their doctor :) The problem never did fully resolve (I think it was a combo of some program bugs and maxing out an already limited internet bandwidth) but we were able to manage and come up with some creative fixes so they could continue working.

The most fun was being able to reset passwords and getting data off of corrupted harddrives. Resetting the passwords was pretty easy given how J has things set up and I got to do some MSDos style stuff to reset things. Does anyone else remember MSDos??? (if you don't remember it was around the time of Windows 3.1... ok, now I'm really dating myself). Pulling data from the old harddrive was also kind of fun too. Although it wasn't hard, I did need a special device. I had initially tried to boot up the old computer and put the harddrive into another computer to get the data hoping it was a computer problem and not a harddrive issue but both ways failed since the problem was most likely a result of the harddrive corrupted in a vital area. Well the fancy device J owns allowed me to make the harddrive into an external one where I could bypass the corrupt section and pull the files needed. Since none of the files needed were corrupted it was just a matter of copy/paste onto a new harddrive. It was pretty basic but also cool how easy it is to get data off of harddrives if you have the right equipment. If it ever happens back in Canada and J isn't around I'll spend my money on this device instead of paying for the repair.

As much as I didn't like J being away, it was a good month where I learned lots.