The first day of class for the spring semester went great! I’m teaching two sections of math for liberal arts. We’ll be covering geometry, set theory, logic, counting theory, probability, and statistics. The course is primarily intended for students with weak mathematical backgrounds who do not intend to major in the sciences or math.

At the end of class in one of the sections, two of the students told me they were excited for the class, and one said that I gave the best introduction of all her professors that day.

The cap on my classes was 100 students each, but I ended up with twenty-some in one section and thirty-some in the other section. So we have this big classroom with a microphone and TV screens so students at the back can see, and I just have everyone sit towards the front teach it like a regular class. The smaller class size will sure make things easier when it comes to grading, and while I will be missing out on the skill-building opportunity of teaching a bigger class, I prefer having a smaller class.

I’ve divided the tests and homework problems into easy, medium, and hard problems. It’s possible to get passing grades answering just the easy and medium problems on the homework and just the easy problems on the test. But to get an A, one has to answer the hard problems, which are substantially more involved and require more critical thinking. That way, I hope that every student can be challenged at their own level.

I got a lot of my teaching preparation done for the whole semester over winter break, as well as almost all of my academic job applications for the current hiring cycle, so I don’t think I’ll feel like I’m scrambling to keep up all semester, as I did last semester.