Notes from TOW Teachers dinner, May 12, 2005
Notes by D. Behrend

Notes are in order of teacher remarks, as we went around the
table. The individual comments are followed by general remarks
made in an open table discussion.


Individual Remarks
==================

Mike Poirier, Pre-checks and operations:
best TOW so far; double-length class for Pre & Obs worked
very well; easy class for exchanging information between
teachers and students.

Jonathan Quick, Linux Intro and System Administration:
Linux class needs some work; Linux system administration
class not so much asked for any more; Linux introduction
still in demand.

Mike Titus, Correlator:
Response to the two correlator classes very different:
one quiet the other very involved; suggestion for future
feedback forms: request specific (real words) feedback
instead of ranking from good to bad; split of correlator
class into theoretical and practical parts may satisfy
students' needs better.

Yasuhiro Koyama, K5 System, software correlation:
Good opportunity to advertise activities in Japan; good
platform to show the Japanese K5 system.

Alan Whitney, Mark 5B and e-VLBI overview:
Attended only part of the sessions, but received solely
positive feedback from the students. Future TOW: create
relaxed atmosphere for increased feedback and comments
(maybe through the incentive of rewarding every comment
with a drink at the dinner).

Rich Strand, Pre-checks and operations:
Merging Pre & Obs into a double class solved the order 
problem experienced at previous TOWs; merger also good
for reducing material into 3-hour time slot and enabling
more demonstrations; interviewing the students at start
of class helped melting the ice; students were very
attentive.

Dirk Behrend, IVS lecture:
First TOW experience. Lecture ran okay with a few questions
afterwards. Workshop ran smoothly and feedback from
students was overall positive. Double class worked well,
but created difficulty in doing the overall class schedule
resulting in non-perfect class sizes for some classes.
Something to improve next time.

Ed Himwich, Pointing, FS Coding, various lectures:
Had more time for doing classes; the two classes at the
end of the schedule only had a few students; FS Topics
class worked well; Pointing class advanced level was
weak as the material had not been well adopted (yet);
the Pointing class intro level was good. Overall the
meeting worked well.

Mario Berube, S2 System:
There is only a limited number of S2 stations, but with
a good technical support. The students were easy to deal
with and listened attentively (they weren't sleeping).
The meeting was mutually beneficial; it is important to
meet people face-to-face.

Dan Smythe, Mark 5 operations:
The last class was too big with 14 students. Cramped
space prevented covering all the topics. Best classes
had Rich Strand and Tom Clark as students. Find a
quieter place for the teacher's dinner.

Brian Corey, phase cal, RFI, FFT, decoder, pre-CONT05:
Pleased to see regular AND new people. Still, seeing
the same students in the same class the third or fourth
time (in consecutive TOWs) gives feeling of being a bad
teacher. Phase cal: little class response. Spectrum
analyzer: is wide-spread knowledge, hence experience
was assumed. RFI: was fun, stations had experience and
exchanged stories. pre-CONT05: went okay, first class
very positive, second class was way over the students'
heads.

Cormac Reynolds, ANTABS:
Was first TOW and a new experience. Being a correlator
person and not an operations person, I experienced new
perspective. I enjoyed the workshop and profited from
a low teaching load. I'll come back for the next TOW.

Alastair Gunn, Pointing, amplitude calibration, antenna gain:
Three related classes (amplitude calibration with Cormac's
and Andrea's classes) could be split differently, e.g.,
combine theory with ONOFF, and GNPLT with ANTABS. Class
sizes were largely different (one class with one student,
another class with 14 students). Teachers should receive
a different (color) certificate.

Andrea Orlati, Antenna gain:
Was first TOW, cannot make comparison to previous TOWs.
Geodesists not so much interested in gain calibration;
there weren't many questions or feedback. Pretty content
with workshop. There was a problem with the size of some
classes.


General Remarks
===============

- It should be ensured that the actual operators attend
  the meeting.
- It may be worthwhile to have poster presentations of
  the stations.
- Hardcopy version of the Notebook is important. Maybe
  it can be made available before the meeting for print
  out by the participants.
- In Conference Room A a microphone should be used for
  all lectures.
- To increase the group feel, Haystack people may think
  of staying at the conference hotel or at least spend
  some evening time there.
- Maybe do the teacher's critique before the teacher's
  dinner.