A New Beginning

Tomorrow will be the first class for CS3216. Again.

Typically, if I were to be teaching a class for the third time, I would probably be able to do it in my sleep.

Not so for CS3216.

While many people have been on vacation this past month, my dedicated teaching staff have been hard at work developing the new assignments for this year. To them, I owe a great debt of gratitude. Without them, CS3216 would not be possible.

Unlike last year, we will be introducing a new Google Wave assignment. Google Wave is so new that none of us knew how it works, and much less what it is good for - but we still have to come up with an assignment.

Also, instead of deploying their homework on the SoC servers, the students this Semester will get to deploy their work on Amazon Web Services. Truthfully, we also had no idea what this was about and we had to go find out.

But such is life.

There is the saying that if we really believe in what we're doing, then we better "eat our own dog food". So we eat.

CS3216 is about learning how to take risks and work outside our comfort zones. Why would we want to do something like that? Well, because if we do not push at the boundaries, there will be no progress - and if we do not push at the boundaries aggressively enough, there will not be breakthroughs.

So every semester we try new things. We try to make it better - though we aren't necessarily sure that we will succeed.

I was chatting with Kok Wee (course TA) after we finished CS3216 last year. I told him that I thought we did well and the feedback for the module seems to indicate so too. But it's scary sometimes when things go well, because in creeps the fear of screwing up. When things are going well and swimming along, where else do you have to go but down?

To digress, I would like to take the opportunity to address the following comment by a student last year: "I strongly suggest the last project before the Final Project be scrapped. Too much time is spent to master a totally new platform to create a new app. Perhaps it is not so strenous on non-programmers but it takes a lot for programmers to pick up a totally new platform. Although the intention is to expose the students to "evolving platforms", I feel that it is way too heavy and results in a lack of time for the final project. Overall this module feels more like an 8MC module and this view is echoed by all the students of the class. It is extremely taxing on students in their 3rd or final years where they are also pursuing their FYPs or design projects which also require an immense amount of time. While those modules are appropriately awarded with 8 or 12 MCs, this isn't. Although the student is already spending the majority of time on this, it does not translate to better scores, instead, it drags down the students' overall score as the other modules are severely affected."

Two things: (i) this student is referring to the Microsoft WPF assignment we had last year, which we have replaced this year with the Google Wave assignment. Google Wave is really just JavaScript, so life will be better this year (not only for the students, but for the teaching staff). (ii) We will continue to emphasize to the students to try to moderate the size of their projects and to avoid building the mother-of-all-projects project to take over the world. Instead, we hope that the students will deliver small but cool projects.

Sometimes, small is beautiful.

Sometimes, when we do something right/well, there are fears of not being able to reproduce past success. I would be honest and admit that these fears are quite real to me.

CS3216 really has a lot of random uncontrolled factors. Like Forrest Gump says, "it's like a box of chocolates." I have no idea what we're going to get.

However, there is also the theory of "Do or Do Not, There is No Try." Sometimes we might have concerns, but what really matters is whether we believe in what we do.

I believe. And fortunately for me, I have a dedicated TA and four brilliant Tutors, who are all ex-students of this class, and who share the same belief.

One lesson on risk management is to find the right people who BELIEVE in the same vision. I am fortunate to have found the right people and with that, we press on with CS3216 for yet another semester.

To conclude, I would like to address the issue of blogging.

It's clear to me that some students are going to find blogging a pain/chore -- and like Randy Pausch says, "if there's an elephant in the room, address it".

CS3216 is about learning. The sad thing about learning is that students can go through motion the entire time they are in college, get good grades and learn absolutely nothing. This statement might seem like nonsense, but it's true.

How does blogging help in the learning? Well, we have to go back to the psychology of learning.

The thing about blogs is that there's some ownership. When a student blogs, it makes a statement about who he/she is. Very few people want to make a statement to others that "I'm a loser".

In this light, when "forced" to blog, students will spend a lot more effort thinking about what to say and how they want to say it. It is not so much the blogging that the learning takes place, but in the agonizing over what to write where people will learn something.

They are forced to take stock of what they have heard/seen and draw conclusions. That's important. Many people go through life not thinking hard about what they have seen or heard.

I am one of the weird profs who tell my students that school is overrated (fortunately, parents don't believe that - or I'd be out of a job :-P).

Well, school is overrated, because learning is EVERYWHERE. To think that learning can only take place in school is completely misguided.

That said, given that we have job to educate our students, we should try to earn our pay.

In addition to "forced" thinking, there are two other key advantages of blogging.

One, it is important to learn to communicate in ANY job. Writing more through blogging is one way for students to practise this skill. We're not looking for Shakespeares in CS3216. People just have to express what they say in clear and concise manner.

Foreign students might find blogging even more of a pain 'cos they have to write in a foreign language. All the more better write more to improve your command of English.

Two, the blogs actually allow me to figure out exactly what people are learning and how much they are learning. Blog comments also provide me with a way to ask questions and challenge assumptions and/or clarify ideas. Students can also interact with each other and learn from their friends through the blogs.

There are many good things going for blogs - but there's no free lunch. Blogging every week requires effort and discipline.

As it turns out, I believe that teaching also requires some leadership by example.

If I am to inflict such pain on my students, I jolly well demonstrate that I can take the same pain. In this light, I will also write a blog entry every week like the students.

However, I will probably do it AFTER I have read what the students have written.

It's not because I dunno what to say and I need to check what the students have written to check market rate and because I need to "copy" from the students. In fact, by blogging after the students, I am making my life much harder 'cos the expectation is that I have to say smart things that none of the students have said. :-)

Actually, if students expect me to say "smart things," I suspect they will be sorely disappointment. My talent lies in stating the obvious (did I say school is somewhat overrated? :-)).

But more seriously, I don't want to write first because there's still a very bad culture in Singapore where students tend to think that there's some "model answer" and that the prof knows the "right answer". I suspect that if I weigh in prematurely on issues, students will end up worse off because they will be circumscribed by what I say.

To understand my concerns, see this entry. I would like to clarify that students won't "score more points" if they agree with me. No one has any need to rewrite *any* blog entries. :-)

What exactly students think doesn't really matter. What matters more is how and why they think the way they think. I'm am actually more impressed with students who come up with views contrary to mine that are backed with with good ideas and thorough arguments.

Anyway, my closing remark to the new students is this: don't complain about this blogging business. Just do it (Nike style). If you struggle with it, good for you. You're learning something and getting smarter.

I'm ready for CS3216. Are you? :-)