More College Student Worst Practices
August 17, 2016 by
Continuing on from my list of “College Student Worst Practices” post:
Worst Practice No. 4:
Waiting until the day an assignment is due to ask the instructor for assistance. As soon as an assignment is announced or made available, read through it in its entirety at least once and maybe twice. Don’t simply do the assignment to hit the rubric marks as quite often there is more to the assignment than what appears in the rubric.
Worst Practice No. 5:
Expecting to learn everything you need to learn during class. Also, expecting to finish your work in class.
Worst Practice No. 6:
Not reading the syllabus. A course syllabus is a contract between the instructor and each and every student. It contains all of the things that a student will need to know about assignments, exams, late work policies, how a student’s grade will be determined, a statement about procedures and school policies for students with disabilities and much more. Neglecting to read it at the beginning of the class and every now and then is also not a good thing to do.
What does the syllabus really say? All of the things that you are going to ask tomorrow.
College Student Worst Practices – The First Three
August 16, 2016 by
Worst Practice No. 1:
From an email sent to students: “If you have read this far and want 3 extra credit points, send a message to me by Tuesday at noon.” 5 days later and only 2 people replied.
If your teacher/instructor ever offers you extra credit points for reading a weekly announcement email, respond to them as soon as you read the words “extra credit”.
Worst Practice No. 2:
Don’t wait until the assignment or exam due date to ask for an extension. It’s ok to ask for an extension (in my classes). Communicate early and often. It’s ok. I’m human and sometimes life happens and I get that.
Worst Practice No. 3:
If you are the smartest person in the classroom, and you know more than most people, don’t use that as the platform to challenge or prove that the instructor is dumber than you or that you are smarter than everyone else, use it as an opportunity to help others in the class that may be struggling.
Learn PHP and SQL this Fall!
August 10, 2016 by
Hello!
Are you interested in learning PHP and SQL? If so, please consider taking my course this fall which is being offered on Tuesday’s and Thursday’s from 10:30am-12:50pm at Clark College located in Vancouver, Washington.
Got questions? Please ask.
If you could share this post with your friends I would really appreciate it.
On Teaching
June 7, 2016 by
As a college instructor, there is one thing that I rarely have ever talked about and that is how I have improved my skills. Every day in class I am constantly being asked to help solve student programming problems and demonstrate and explain my solutions. There has rarely been a time when I couldn’t come up with a solution.
The other skill that I have developed is solving problems “over the air”. What this entails is being able to solve a student’s problems without even seeing their code. I ask a series of questions and by the time we get to the second or third question the student has resolved their own problem.
I highly recommend that you give teaching of any kind a try. It will not only help your students but yourself.
Why Feedback Matters
December 21, 2015 by
It’s now been a little over a week since the Fall Quarter ended at Clark College and it’s time to review anonymous feedback students left on the popular RateMyProfessors.com site.
Now, this post may see a bit “ASW-ish”, but when you truly enjoy what you are doing and you are making an impact on peoples lives, why not share it?
Here are some the reviews left in the past 30 days:
CTEC 121 – Intro to Programming and Problem Solving
Awesome teacher and a great class, I really learned a lot. I never felt like I couldn’t ask questions, and he joked with the class a lot to make it a really comfortable environment to learn in. There is a lot of homework, but it was fun to do, and he was always available to answer questions. An all around fantastic class.
CTEC 165 – Business Web Practices
Each week Bruce Elgort brought in speakers to conduct presentations. He went all out to find interesting people that could speak on a variety of subjects related to “Business Web Practices”. I am usually fighting off sleep when forced to endure presentations, but these were often fun and always very interesting to listen to.
CTEC 228 – API and Advanced Integration
Bruce Elgort is very organized, easy to understand, available for help,& definitely cares about his students. He goes the extra mile to provide guidance and help when you need it.
CTEC 121 – Intro to Programming and Problem Solving
Bruce Elgort is very organized, easy to understand, available for help,& definitely cares about his students. He goes the extra mile to provide guidance and help when you need it.
CTEC 228 – API and Advanced Integration
Bruce is an amazing instructor, He makes himself available 27/7 for help, His classes are hard, but its programming, and programming is hard. Bruce make class fun and he teaches useful techniques that can be applied to many programming languages.
CTEC 121 – Intro to Programming and Problem Solving
Bruce is probably one of the best professors I’ve ever had. He’s extremely knowledgeable in his field and he is always excited to teach you more, if you just ask about it. He has a great talent for teaching to the average student, but also giving unique challenges to the student who is ready for something a bit more complicated.
CTEC 121 – Intro to Programming and Problem Solving
A very enjoyable professor. I had him and he made everything interesting in his own way. Quizzes and homework almost every week, but if you go to class and do some reading it will be a breeze. If you need help is almost always online and ready to help you with whatever roadblocks you run into. I’m definitely looking forward to taking him again.
CTEC 121 – Intro to Programming and Problem Solving
Bruce extremely helpful! He is very smart and knows the subject in and out! He’s always available for help! He is very funny and makes class very enjoyable!
Here are all of the reviews left on RateMyProfessors.com.
Three Years as a College Professor
December 17, 2015 by
This month I completed my third year as a professor at Clark College, located in Vancouver, Washington. Here are the courses I have taught:
- HTML Fundamentals (CTEC 122)
- JavaScript (CTEC 126)
- Intro to Programming and Problem Solving with Python (CTEC 121)
- PHP with SQL 1 (CTEC 127)
- PHP with SQL 2 (CTEC 227)
- Business Web Practices (CTEC 165)
- API & Advanced Integration (CTEC 228)
In that time I have had the pleasure of working with 700+ students, received the 2013 Exceptional Faculty Award and have made many new friends and colleagues. I am also participating in several college councils and industry advisory boards. Add to the list three “30 Clicks” presentations at the Cannell Library.
My “encore career” continues to bring much joy and happines to my life.
And that’s a wrap…
November 20, 2015 by
I would like to thank the following people for volunteering to speak to my Business Web Practices class at Clark College during the Fall 2015 quarter:
Week 1 – Craig Ebersol of Clark College / Heidi Johnson Bixby of Johnson Bixby and Associates
Week 2 – Tocarra Stark, Communications and Marketing of Clark College
Week 3 – Troy Uyan of Clark County
Week 4 – Derek Jesser and Aine McCarthy of Gravitate Design
Week 5 – Micah Godbolt of Phase2
Week 6 – Morgan McColum and Don Mills of Twilight Pizza and Scott Carden, Marblelife
Week 7 – Jane Croft of Anthem Medical
Week 8 – Dave Barcos of The Startup Brand
Week 9 – Aaron Hockley, Aaron Hockley Photography
All of you delivered invaluable information and experiences that each and every student couldn’t have gotten anywhere else.
On behalf of my students, myself and Clark College – Thank You!
Here is a description of the course from the course catalog:
Business Web Practices surveys business standards and professional best practices for professions associated with web content creation, web design, and web development. Topics include distinctions between freelance, contracted and salaried work environments, web production practices in content strategy, project management, workflow and version control, current practices in marketing, web analytics and search engine optimization, and legal and ethical issues.
During Week 11 of the quarter students will be delivering “Ignite” style final presentations. I’m super stoked to see my students presenting in this new and upcoming presentation style.
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