Teaching this year

Created by Theresa Rowe (Oakland University) on June 14, 2007

The spring just swept by with no time to write. The focus of the moment is students and thinking about my student experiences this year. We participated in the Educause student technology survey again. We launched our first portal, targeted at returning students.

I taught an undergrad course this winter/spring semester. The class was targeted to professional development for sophomores interested in an information technology career, offered through our School of Engineering and Computer Science. The course included a technical team project and the one technical skill prerequisite was HTML.

I’ve heard a lot about the millennial generation and I wanted to approach the course a bit differently. I spent all the classroom time talking about professional aspects of their future careers: developing and maintaining technical skills, problem solving, project management, change management, communications, ethics and similar topics. I also had a technical theme, which was “identity management.”

The assigned group project was for each team to develop a web site to do original capture of an identity, and to create and store a login and password in a secure way. I planned not to teach the technology; I wanted to see what they could figure out.

Wow, did they figure it out! Students taught themselves PHP or XML programming. They taught themselves databases (MySQL). One team figured out how to use sha1 to encrypt the stored password. One team incorporated a CAPTCHA image. They designed web sites (not just a page) with data handling and error control. There were very few questions; one had to do with how to install SSL.

I was very impressed with the entire class. They really worked hard on their own to learn the needed technology, which included several actions steps:

What is needed and required for the assignment
What technology can be used to deliver the needs and requirements
Evaluation of existing skills on the 5 member teams
Development of missing skills
Designing a solution (both visually and technically) that they could deliver within the knowledge and time constraints of the course
Creating the solution
Presenting the solution

They essentially proceeded on their own through all of this, and didn’t expect “technical training.” They were very interested in the career and job stories and material.

Some surprises:

When did cursive writing disappear? I handed out a couple in-class assignments, and all returned assignments were hand-printed during class.
Students seem to think that work projects would be something like school projects; i.e., start something new, work on it for 15 weeks, turn it in and go on to something else.
Students expressed a lot of concerns about work-life balance, both in this class and in another group that I spoke with later. Our IT profession does not represent itself well in the area of work-life balance.

In all it was a wonderful experience and I certainly was impressed by the technical initiative that the students demonstrated.

student teaching

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What's "cursive"?

Submitted by Kevin Guidry (Indiana University) on June 15, 2007 - 10:24am.

When did cursive writing disappear? I haven't written in cursive since my teachers stopped forcing me in elementary school. It's so different from the letters I read and type every day that it's virtually a foreign language to me. I honestly can not remember how to write some cursive letters and can only read them with the aid of contextual clues. I'm certain that if I wrote (with a pen or pencil) a lot then I'd be more inclined to relearn cursive. But I don't and hence view it as a waste of my time.

Our IT profession does not represent itself well in the area of work-life balance. IT's not alone. Many of our colleagues in student affairs, particularly live-in residence life staff, seem to suffer from the same problem. We all know that we're setting a poor example and that an unhealthy balance is - by definition - unhealthy but we do it anyway.

		Teaching this year Created by Theresa Rowe (Oakland University) on June 14, 2007 The spring just swept by with no time to write. The focus of the moment is students and thinking about my student experiences this year. We participated in the Educause student technology survey again. We launched our first portal, targeted at returning students. I taught an undergrad course this winter/spring semester. The class was targeted to professional development for sophomores interested in an information technology career, offered through our School of Engineering and Computer Science. The course included a technical team project and the one technical skill prerequisite was HTML. I’ve heard a lot about the millennial generation and I wanted to approach the course a bit differently. I spent all the classroom time talking about professional aspects of their future careers: developing and maintaining technical skills, problem solving, project management, change management, communications, ethics and similar topics. I also had a technical theme, which was “identity management.” The assigned group project was for each team to develop a web site to do original capture of an identity, and to create and store a login and password in a secure way. I planned not to teach the technology; I wanted to see what they could figure out. Wow, did they figure it out! Students taught themselves PHP or XML programming. They taught themselves databases (MySQL). One team figured out how to use sha1 to encrypt the stored password. One team incorporated a CAPTCHA image. They designed web sites (not just a page) with data handling and error control. There were very few questions; one had to do with how to install SSL. I was very impressed with the entire class. They really worked hard on their own to learn the needed technology, which included several actions steps: What is needed and required for the assignment What technology can be used to deliver the needs and requirements Evaluation of existing skills on the 5 member teams Development of missing skills Designing a solution (both visually and technically) that they could deliver within the knowledge and time constraints of the course Creating the solution Presenting the solution They essentially proceeded on their own through all of this, and didn’t expect “technical training.” They were very interested in the career and job stories and material. Some surprises: When did cursive writing disappear? I handed out a couple in-class assignments, and all returned assignments were hand-printed during class. Students seem to think that work projects would be something like school projects; i.e., start something new, work on it for 15 weeks, turn it in and go on to something else. Students expressed a lot of concerns about work-life balance, both in this class and in another group that I spoke with later. Our IT profession does not represent itself well in the area of work-life balance. In all it was a wonderful experience and I certainly was impressed by the technical initiative that the students demonstrated. student teaching Theresa's blog Login or register to post comments 3008 reads What's "cursive"? Submitted by Kevin Guidry (Indiana University) on June 15, 2007 - 10:24am. When did cursive writing disappear? I haven't written in cursive since my teachers stopped forcing me in elementary school. It's so different from the letters I read and type every day that it's virtually a foreign language to me. I honestly can not remember how to write some cursive letters and can only read them with the aid of contextual clues. I'm certain that if I wrote (with a pen or pencil) a lot then I'd be more inclined to relearn cursive. But I don't and hence view it as a waste of my time. Our IT profession does not represent itself well in the area of work-life balance. IT's not alone. Many of our colleagues in student affairs, particularly live-in residence life staff, seem to suffer from the same problem. We all know that we're setting a poor example and that an unhealthy balance is - by definition - unhealthy but we do it anyway. Login or register to post comments
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