Last contact hour for weeks

I had my last lectures in the Earth, Climate and Evolution lecture this week; one "normal" lecture and one revision lecture. The "normal" lecture was scheduled in one of the cinemas in Pontio; that was quite cool. I never had such a big screen for my presentation!

The revision lecture I hadn't done before, so I had to quickly make one. I decided to make it a sort of pub quiz; the exam is multiple choice, and if you practice multiple choice questions you can have the students answer them by remote control. I had used that method before, for my post-fieldwork-lecture, and I had liked it. Why not do it again! You can see how many of the students get questions wrong and you can explain on the spot. I made a lecture with 33 questions (some of them directly copied and pasted from the exam) and two score boards. We'd see!

On the actual day I got only just beyond halfway. There were only some 25 of the ~90 students. And I think it worked well! Some questions they got quite wrong, but at least they now know before the exam. I got to explain these. And some they did well the first time around. And the rapport with the floor was quite good! I enjoyed it. I don't know who was there so I can't check if the students who were there will score better in the exam than the non-attendees, but well, maybe there will be some comment on this session on the module evaluation forms. I hope so! Although there is little reason to believe I will teach this module again next year...

On the day I did that interactive session I had to run away immediately afterwards to the next activity; that was several hours of student talks for the "communicating science" module. I would do that with Jaco, and he had already started when I got there; a bit cheeky, as he is not supposed to start a 10AM session before 10:10. This is meant for people to get from one lecture room to another (they may be in entirely different buildings), but he knew the students had nothing before 10. Only I did! So I missed half of the first talk.

The talks in general were good. In the lunch break I dealt with a student who had, for no apparent reason, not managed to submit her essay (for the same module) on time, neither digitally nor in hardcopy. Oh dear. It would be easier for everybody if such things wouldn't happen! I didn't have time for lunch this way before we moved on. Many students, however, had refrained from showing up, so by half past one we were done. I could have lunch after all, bring back my clickers (from the interactive lecture), and return to my office. There I spent a lot of time answering the emails of one of the students who had not shown up, but now suddenly had re-emerged and wanted to do his presentation right then. That didn't happen. Bu then it was easter holiday for the university! That doesn't mean no work, but it does mean no contact hours. Essay marking, here I come!