Today is the last day before the Christmas break and it is the end of the first semester of the academic year. This was my tenth first semester since I joined NCI full time in August 2003 - modules taught were IT Project Management, Business Systems Analysis, Management Support Systems, Business Data Analysis, as well as some classes on 4th year projects.
The Business Data Analysis (statistics) class was the most challenging as I took this module over from a colleague who had left the College. I decided from the outset not to use other lecturers' notes as I prefer to create my own. This helps me get to know the subject a lot better and makes it easier to teach. It has not been since I was studying for my PhD in the 1980s that I had used statistics in any meaningful way. I also used marked weekly exercises in this class instead of tutorials and it seemed to work fairly well. It helped that the class were final year students who are keen to do well.
Each year I feel that the semesters are passing by quicker and quicker. While there is a lot of work preparing for classes and assessments, this too is getting easier for me. I have almost all continuous assessments for the semester graded (excellent results all round!). Students will be back in January for exams, so they will have a busy Christmas (hopefully) studying. I wish them all well.
No comments:
Post a Comment