End of Semester Reflections


0) Yes.

1) I feel like I have a better idea of what's out there (both mathematically and dimensionally).

2) The most positive aspect of the course was that it was laid back. This allowed me to focus on what I wanted to work on and (almost) ignore things that I was not interested in. The most negative aspect of the course was that we wasted too much class time with administrative stuff.

3) The paperless course idea is nice... of course most of the scanned images were done on paper first, but that's besides the point. I don't think there was any negative aspect to the "paperless" concept whatsoever. I think it's great. I also like the www format. It was neat to browse through other people's homework. I also liked email. It was nice to be able to contact the prof as easily as wew could. I don't know if this would work in a regular math class, where scratchwork is necessary, and tests are involved. However, it could definitely work for "term paper" classes.

4) Learning the technology was fun. We should have made good html writing programs available through our page. Also, I didn't really like the structure of the home page. It was too hard to navigate, and the final projects are stuck really far on the bottom.

5) I liked having Prof. B. respond to my work. I didn't really read his responses to other people's work unless he linked to them.

6) For the final project, I basically did the section on spacetime (intro, visualization, conic sections, orientation, haikube, time dilation, on processed meat and spacetime). Of course I did my best to help my other group members. Most sections of the project were a conglomerate of ideas from all of us.

7) I worked on spacetime like it was my own 10 page project. However, my interactions with other group members improved all of the pages. I was very appreciative of the input I received. Working on a team was nifty.

Sorry, I really need to study.

Prof. Banchoff's response

Dan