Life as a tutor #1

I had been thinking of making this type of entry for some time during this month but, as is generally the case, I didn't gather enough enthusiasm and motivation till now.

This semester I am a tutor of a course taught to many 2nd year undergraduate students of IIT Kanpur. Its titled 'ESO202A : Mechanics of Solids'. I myself did this course in 2007 under the tutorship of Dr. S. N. Tripathi of Civil Engineering Dept. It would have been impossible then to imagine myself taking up his role sometime in the future. I probably would have quickly dismissed even a slight hinting at that scenario by someone. But here I am, today, in this unforeseen situation. And in the ensuing few blogs (hopefully) I intend to share some of my feelings, experiences and observations. Part of the reason for doing so is that I think the readers will find some of these experiences funny and interesting. Another reason is that I like the idea of revisiting these entries in some distant future.

For readers’ information who are unfamiliar with the academic duties of a tutor of a theoretical course at IIT Kanpur (brackets correspond to the present case): 

The student body (273 students) crediting the course is divided into certain number of sections (9). A tutor is assigned to each section. The tutor is either a faculty member or a graduate student. Once a week (Thursday) there is a 50-minutes tutorial class(in addition to the regular lectures taken by the course instructor). The tutor is supposed to solve certain problems, the problems being suggested by the course instructor and illustrative of theory discussed in regular lectures. In the present case we are not provided with the solutions to those problems by the instructor which isn't a big deal if you are (well, you should be!) well-familiar with the subject. And we are supposedly required to do a good job at that and answer students’ questions.

As is evident from this structure, the tutor is given a lot of freedom as to how he/she wishes to perform his/her task. I do not know how things are done in other IITs or other engineering colleges but I really like this feature of my institute!

I have presently tutored in 4 classes with the last class being held just yesterday morning. I will highlight some of my thoughts and experiences in the form of points

1. What I most want: If someone asks me what matters the most to me, that I tend to always keep in mind while preparing for the tutorial classes, my answer is this: I wish the students think they have learned something interesting during those 50 minutes and that they consider it to be a nice experience.

2. New discoveries: To get some assurances of (1) I have been trying to find ways of presenting the material and explaining things which generate some interest in the students. Fortunately, the current course is more of an applied physics course so that almost everything they study can be made to relate to what they see in the physical world. This is where things get interesting - you see, when I did this course in 2007 I actually almost didn't bother to (a) think beyond things mentioned in my class-notes, like possible real life applications of the abstract concepts, (b) pause and rigorously question all the assumptions on which a theory/solution is based, (c) verify whether the solution to a problem is in line with common experience or intuitively makes sense, (d) think of alternative approaches to solving a given problem and (e) reconcile two or more different explanations of the same result with each other/themselves. In short, I let my imagination starve and used the analytical tool kit sparingly. My guess is that this is typically the case with most undergraduate students. And I don't think its because the students are incapable of using their imagination. I think it’s got to do with the practical reasons of time constraints and it being a reflection of the way things are actually taught in the lectures and the way they have been trained to think about what they have been studying since school days. Anyway… what has been very interesting is that in order to be successful in (1) I am inevitably resorting to (a)-(e) exercises, and its turning out to be a pleasurable experience! I find it a little sad that the academic schedule of the students often doesn't allow them to experience this feeling but on a bright side, I am, in my own little way, trying to open for them a door to some exciting possibilities which they probably aren't conceiving on their own. In the process I am also benefiting by gaining new insights into the concepts, an example of which is mentioned below in (3)!

3. Mohr Circle: The tutorial h­­eld yesterday was different from the rest. In most cases, the theory on which the discussion problems are based is already taught to the students beforehand in their regular lectures. This time the problems were based on a concept that had been introduced only briefly to the students and the tutors were requested to familiarize the students with that concept while solving the problems. The concept is called 'Mohr Circle'. Put plainly, it is a geometric representation of a mathematical relationship between some physical quantities. During my undergraduate days I used to find this concept a little irritating since I often forget its construction. Later on, while doing some graduate courses I gained much more confidence, but it wasn’t till the past couple of days that I realized how little I had explored it. This time while going through the concept I came up with alternative possible constructions of the concept and made guesses so as to why they were not in mainstream use and eventually shared them yesterday ­with the students. Then, while solving the discussion problems I thought of developing an animation in MATLAB to help students visualize the concept and to highlight some results. This last activity proved to be fun as I discovered some more interesting things that can be done in MATLAB which I hadn’t tried before! And finally, I was able to illustrate that animation in yesterday’s tutorial to my satisfaction. I have uploaded it on YouTube:

4. Being a teacher: As a student I have sat through many lectures with a dull expression on my face. I have sometimes presented an indifferent disposition when the teacher asked questions to the entire class. I have many a times not tried to conceal a yawn. I have sometimes arrived a little late in the classroom. I have sometimes started discussions with the neighboring students in an ongoing lecture some of which were a bit too noisy. And yet I had given no thought as to what impact these behaviors make on the teacher. Well, I think I am becoming a little more knowledgeable in that regard! Yesterday, many students were not on time for the class and I found it a bit irritating to see them stand at the door entrance while I was teaching and to give them a nod to grant entry into the classroom. Then, while I was not lecturing and instead writing something on the blackboard (oh, and writing with chalk on a blackboard sucks!!) I could hear some conversations behind my back which also irritated me. After about half-an-hour I found many of the students sitting at the far-end of the classroom sleeping peacefully, which was a bit disappointing. Sometimes, when I posed questions to the class I was a little taken aback by some blank stares in response. I hope any student reading this will be able to empathize with me and reflect on his/her behavior. Certainly I would, from now on!

5. Managing time: This is one aspect that I am having difficulty handling. Except for the 1^st tutorial class I have failed to cover all the intended material in the allocated 50 minutes (usually, I am able to extract about 5 additional minutes). Yesterday, I was not able to discuss two problems although I can justify it by the fact that a lot of well-deserved time was spent on explaining the concept of Mohr circle which is usually not the case. However, I also spent time explaining some basic preliminary concepts which the students ought to be quite familiar with in order to understand Mohr circle. Indeed, while preparing for the tutorial I anticipated this problem and was faced with the dilemma of whether to or not to explain those basic preliminary concepts – on the one hand, those concepts had already been taught in regular lectures and ideally it’s the responsibility of students to make sure they understand it well which, if they did, would save me the trouble of spending time on that and thus increase my available time window; on the other hand, if the students are not familiar with those concepts then I don’t see much point in explaining further advanced concepts built upon those, but then explaining those basic concepts would decrease my available time window. I have come up with one strategy for handling this problem. I have created an online discussion forum using Google groups and have invited the students to join it. I plan to post any missed out things (e.g. answers to the two problems that I missed) or some ideas that I failed to discuss in the tutorial class due to lack of time or my own neglect. Of course, I have invited students to post their other doubts on the forum which I will be glad to answer! I have also invited them to share their own insights/discoveries with the rest of the group members. I will also keep posting interesting/important things. I hope this venture proves successful! However, I do hope that as the course progresses the students devote sufficient time on learning and understanding the things being taught in their class, otherwise it will become a hassle for me..

I guess that’s all I want to share for the time being. I will share other interesting experiences as they come along in the subsequent entries which I hope won’t be as lengthy as this one! Phew!