Nice post, Shiqiang. I like how you talked about being identifying others as aliens is another way to isolating ownself. Although the US uses ‘alien’ in its immigration documents, I never found myself as an alien here. I found it as a welcoming society!
Author: Syeed Md Iskander
Comment on To fit in or not to fit in… That is the question. by Syeed Md Iskander
So when you order coffee together with your partner, do you use AJ1 and AJ2!
This happened a lot of time with my friends in Starbucks. I personally never saw anyone who took it seriously when their name was mispronounced. When I started talking with my current advisor, I used to call him Dr. Jason, later I started using Dr. He (with mispronunciation), and now I can pronounce his name correctly. He never complained about it. However, I feel like misspelling is very hard to accept.
Comment on Suppressing Heuristics by Syeed Md Iskander
Debjit, I recently saw some tennis ball like products that people put inside their mouth while working out to have a strong chin. This may exempt you from growing beard. I like the example that you gave about your student from the sports team. I also experienced something similar when I was teaching back in my country. The students that I took as average, did best in the final.
Comment on Small class size helps Inclusive Pedagogy by Syeed Md Iskander
Hi Sara, thank you. I think a class size of 20-25 is ideal. If it gets bigger, it’s really difficult to incorporate everyone in the discussion. Just saying from my personal experience, I have taught classes of 20 students and 60 students. I can say that I had great control over the small class. It’s really difficult to listen to most students’ voice in a large class.
Comment on The kind of teacher I do not want to be by Syeed Md Iskander
Nice. I met a lot of teachers with all these qualities! I think most of the teachers of this generation are concerned to avoid these behaviors in a classroom.
Comment on White Lab Coats. Seriously? by Syeed Md Iskander
Did you ever wear a wetsuit in your class? I liked the way you connected different parts of your writing. Teaching by sharing experiences!
Comment on It’s not you, it’s me… by Syeed Md Iskander
Although I believe that teaching style would differ from person to person, I think it doesn’t hurt to try some proven teaching techniques.
Comment on Hide my grade, so I can get my A! by Syeed Md Iskander
Grades sometimes can misinterpret the understanding of a student. For example, in my graduate life, I got As in two very tough classes, however, I am only 20% competent in those. In one of my classes, I got B+, but that class is really helping me now with my research. Sometimes it depends on whether you are interested in that class content or not.
Comment on Grades shutting down student interests by Syeed Md Iskander
This post seems very logical in terms of how the grading history of a class dictates the enrollment in that class. Students are getting more inclined to classes which offer easy grades. They often prefer classes with less intellectual value because of less workload. However, I was wondering whether there is a criterion to separate a class as easy or hard. Whether the instructor can play a role in this.
Comment on Group Work and Assessment by Syeed Md Iskander
This is always difficult to evaluate a group project. I remember a class where I failed to get good assessment because of my group mates. Since they were less committed to doing good in the class, my effort wasn’t sufficient. I like the idea of giving the group members a chance to evaluate the fellow group mates and involving that evaluation in the grading process.
