Notes from TOW Teachers dinner, September 25, 2003 Notes by N. Vandenberg, October 21, 2003 Notes are in order of teacher remarks, as we went around the tables. The main points are summarized at the end, including notes from the general discussion following dinner. NOTES ===== Rich Strand, Pre-checks and Operations: This was the best TOW so far. We got lots of feedback. There seemed to be more operators this time. Language was a problem for some classes. People were paying attention, were interested. Due to so many Mark 5 questions, we adjusted the material to cover more of this topic. Complaint: we didn't always get people transported to Westford in time for the start of the class. Teachers should be sure to let their classes out in time for the next one. Carl Holmstrom, gnplt program: It took some time to get used to teaching, it was sometimes hard to connect to the students. After going to Alex Kraus' class I learned stuff I should have known for my own class. Maybe make people take the theory first and then the program. There were too few students in the last section. Jonathan Quick, Linux Intro and Linux Adminstration: I taught Linux Admin first, ran out of time, and learned how to cut it down for the next section. Got good feedback from the Intro class. The classes could have been better targeted to handle problems on Linux with the Field System. Mike Poirier, Pre-checks and Operations: Co-teaching with Rich worked well. This is the first TOW where I felt a more intimate connection to the students. They were asking questions, made it feel like a community even with the language problems. Students need to take Pre-checks before Ops, and both should be taken, not just one. There was good information exchange. We made the students introduce themselves to each other at the start of class. The Mark 5 teaching seemed to be especially useful. Alex Kraus, Amplitude Calibration theory: I got positive feedback from the students. Maybe combine this theory class with Carl's practical usage class. There were lots of questions after class and in the halls. Ray Gonzalez, Linux Intro and Linux Adminstration: Ran out of time. Need to make the classes more focussed. We need to have classes on the Field System itself -- how to do a backup, system management, administration, how to do an update, what's new with the FS. Yasuhiro Koyama, K5 system: It was a good opportunity to show the K5 system to an interested audience. Mario Berube, S2 system: I was surprised to see so many people at this class. There are not so many managers here this time, more operators. Discussions with the Kokee operators were useful, to get their point of view about our system. John Ball, Mark 5 software: I was impressed with the interest level. The main problem was the wide range of previous experience and abilities. There was a high quality of interest, students were there to learn. I dealt with individual students, perhaps followed their questions into too much detail for the rest of the class. Maybe the class should be split into levels next time. Chopo Ma, science overview: There was some feedback that the level of the lecture seemed about right. The Chinese gave feedback that some lecturers talked too fast. Tom Buretta, tape recorder and rack maintenance: I didn't think recorder classes would be necessary, but there were 37 students who signed up. Classes ended up being too large, not enough hands on. We focussed on head calibration problems and pre-checks. I went around and asked each student to say who, where and what they did. Many were maintenance staff at their stations. For the rack, emphasized test procedures and repaired a video converter LO. All classes were a good experience, students were attentive, but language is still a problem. Nancy Vandenberg, IVS lecture, web site: The meeting seemed to run smoothly, teachers were more relaxed and students seemed to know they would really learn something. This is a very successful meeting and has a good reputation for providing real teaching and learning. At my lecture people seemed to pay attention, but not many questions at the end. Mike Titus, correlator: This year we redesigned the class, jazzed it up with color and pictures, more variety, and three teachers. The audience seemed engaged, asked questions and had more discussion than last time. We seemed to have more operators this time and fewer engineers and managers. David Lapsley, e-VLBI lecture: The aim was to give an overview of e-VLBI. There was lots to cover, and I was not sure how much to include. There were really good questions and discussions following. Heidi Johnson, local coordinator: There seemed to be about 50/50 new and old faces this time. People seemed comfortable at the meeting. Haystack is really full with this size of 87 people, it can't be any larger. We are getting better at handling the meeting ourselves. Dan Smythe, Mark 5 operations: Students were attentive. By the third class I needed a script to remember what I covered. There were good questions, but not so many in the smaller classes. Sometimes people needed to be prodded to participate. Ed Himwich, pointing, FS coding, various lectures: The teachers seemed more relaxed this meeting. I had enough time for the class plus discussion for pointing. It's hard to teach the coding class. The question and answer section went better, students seemed to get an understanding of what's needed. I got more examples of what goes wrong in the field to put into the operations and analysis lecture. It's hard to know how to present station performance, as shown by the feedback. I was glad to be able to take classes myself this time. Some of the feedback was predictable, all of it useful. Maybe the students know us now and feel more comfortable. Arno Mueskens, correlator: There were very good interactions this time, perhaps due to teachers aiming more to the operator level, wanting to give help, not teaching down from above. Brian Corey, phase cal, RFI, FFT, decoder: My classes were more theory than hands on. In the phase cal class the most interesting topic was why we don't do the cable cal test during an experiment. For the FFT class there were too many people to be able to see the screens. Try to even out the class assignments more, there were many more in the first sections and far fewer in later ones. In the RFI class operators wanted to know how serious it is and how to deal with it. The deocder hardware setup was not done well the first time and the second class was better. Kerry Kingham, correlator: We revised the presentation based on feedback from the mini-TOW. It's nice meeting the faces behind the e-mails. I felt there were more new faces this time. Alan Whitney, Mark 5 testing: This was the first time teaching at the TOW for me. I got better each time I taught a class. Some classes were more "with you" than others. The greatest response from the class was then I made a mistake and they caught it. Students were interested, they were taking notes. I think it was useful to give them a basic idea of how the Mk5 was built. SUMMARY, QUESTIONS, DISCUSSION ============================== - How to keep the numbers down next time? We don't want to turn anyone away. The focus has been on teaching operators only, but managers also need to be exposed to some of this stuff. - Should we have more time between classes? Teachers must stop at least 15 minutes before the start of the next class. - It was good having the new Mark 5 classes this time. What will be new for next time? We should try to have something new. - Schedule smaller classes earlier in the week, to give teachers opportunity to practice and setup. Maybe we need some practice and setup time before starting classes, so even the initial class sections don't suffer from less-than-good teaching. - Combine pre-checks and ops so they are a single long class (with break). - Combine antenna calibration theory and practical measurements into a single long class (with break). - Try to even out the numbers of students in each class section. - Keep the meeting at 3.5 to 4 days. - Keep the feedback sessions.