Friday, February 27, 2009
Peer Reviewing
I had my first experience peer reviewing a paper tonight. I’m still far too early in my research to be confident talking about the material at that level, so I didn’t have much to say about the science. I accepted their arguments and math, but that could just be naivety or ignorance. It was significantly better written than a number of papers I have been reading in pursuit of background knowledge for my own research, so I was inclined to give it higher remarks and assume the science bits I don’t know were right. Thankfully my thoughts will be combined with Matt (who is a PhD candidate several years in on this topic) and then Tumer, my advisor, will review them and he’ll be submitting his own thoughts. Still it was interesting to read and review. The topic is not that far off of some of my potential research avenues (it was in multi-robot coordination, specifically on-line algorithm selection) so their idea may be worth trying out. The simulation results certainly seemed promising. I wanted to see a harder simulation, but it sounds like this could be a preliminary paper from them and the research is still ongoing.
Tuesday, February 24, 2009
Word Problems
Today I take issue with word problems. What idiot decided that some math problems should be classified as word problems, and given special treatment? Somehow the notion was created in elementary schools, that word problems are not pure math and must be translated into pure math before then can be solved. Many years later some of these students enter physics and engineering and follow the same habits they always have. They see a problem, and immediately attempt to translate it into the right equations and then solve those equations.
These students need to see that, instead, they should be solving the original problem as stated. I’m approaching this both as a grader and someone who knows that sometimes, in the real world, you want to solve a problem, write it up, and then keep the solution around as reference for future engineers, or just to remind yourself later of why (or how) a certain design decision was made. Being able to follow the thought process and look for logical missteps is key to this. Instead of this word problem translation step, problem solving procedure should be closer to this:
Given a problem, pull out what information is available from the words and figures. Indicate what is known, and what is being sought. Guide the reader through the process of your solution. What are you doing? What are you assuming? Then state an equation that represents what you are doing. Tell your reader how you are manipulating the equation (if necessary). Do the manipulation, and repeat these last few steps each time a new step occurs. Reach a solution and indicate it. If this problem is for any real-world application, at this point another bit is needed to explain what the solution means.
As with nearly any form of successful communication, the work must tell a story. Most of that write up is in words. I don’t expect the story to make sense without the equations, but rarely do the equations by themselves provide all the information needed to understand it.
I will admit that I, as an undergrad, did not do this. I reached for the equations I thought solved the problem, and threw them down. Massaged them slightly, converted the variables to numbers and found an answer. A lot of my understanding of how a problem should be worked and presented, didn’t come until a) I started working in the real world and b) I started having to grade 40+ homeworks on a regular basis. Not everyone gets the chance to do this, and see the shortcomings of the translate the word problem approach. I think a lot of fear and apprehension about physics and engineering assignments could be alleviated if word problems, or real problems, weren’t ever held out in such a special light, made to seem hard, different, or incomprehensible. They should be easier, because they have some physical meaning, something 2x + 6 = 10 will never directly have.
Monday, February 23, 2009
Riding Hard Through the Rain
Some things you need to know:
- I go riding on my bike with my dogs at the park regularly. As a result, my bike is typically quite muddy.
- My Monday class is at least a 15 min. walk or 5 min. bike ride, walking fast and riding hard.
- I drive in to school, park a few blocks away, and ride my bike from there.
- Today it was raining hard.
It was a dark and stormy Monday. My rain pants were in my office. My bike and I left the car and rode the few blocks to work without the rain pants. The mud from the park and the puddles on the road conspired to paint a large brown spot on the seat of my pants. No big deal, as I got to my office, put on my rain pants, and no one was the wiser as I left to ride the rest of the way to class. I was running late so I rode harder than usual, whilst trying not to shower pedestrians as I went through the puddles. I get to the building my class is in. My jacket and shoes are a new color, soaked with water. My feet squish at every step. My head feels wetter than it does after a shower. I struggle onwards, mopping what I can with the paper towels in the bathroom. I get to the classroom. It is dark…empty. Class has apparently been cancelled, unbeknownst to me and I am now soaking wet for no reason, as well as having a large, brown wet spot on my regular pants, underneath my rain pants. So I retreat back through the rain (though thankfully it let up some by then) and take refuge in my office. Hopefully the dirt will brush off my rear when it dries, so I can walk down the hall with a straight face.
May the rest of my week go better.
Sunday, February 22, 2009
A Fresh Start…
For the time being, I’ve decided to pull down my old blog. I have a few ideas for what I want to do here thought none of them may bear any fruit. Right now, I’m just going to pull everything down and selectively add stuff back. Part of this is due to switching to a new engine. The old one had several bugs and vulnerabilities and has not been updated in over 2 years.
There are currently quite a few bugs in my graphical layout. I’m working on them, slowly…
Back to grading.