27
votes
Accepted
Comparing two conventions: erase when you finish teaching, or erase when you begin
I very much prefer option (1) as a general blackboard cleaning policy, mainly for the reasons mentioned in the questions, but there are some other points:
Efficiency: Where I am, cleaning staff ...
- 39.3k
24
votes
Comparing two conventions: erase when you finish teaching, or erase when you begin
Please clean up your own mess
You could just as easily broaden your enquiry to cleaning up any resource that is used by multiple people in a communal fashion. Should I put my rubbish in the bin, or ...
- 73k
14
votes
Comparing two conventions: erase when you finish teaching, or erase when you begin
I admit that I am firmly in camp (2) --always erase at the end and leave a clean board for the next class. But I also recognize that I'm sure some of that is just "the way we've always done it.&...
- 241
9
votes
Is it taboo to change departments within a university?
In many, probably most, universities, who is a member of the faculty is a department matter. Departments do the hiring, not the university as a whole and departments have budgets and specific needs. ...
- 399k
9
votes
Is it taboo to change departments within a university?
As a preamble, do you think this is particularly unique to universities? I've known people who have moved between teams/departments in non-academic jobs, both due to directives from higher up and due ...
- 3,901
6
votes
Is it taboo to change departments within a university?
In my observation (as a mathematician in a US research university), faculty members' primary loyalties are to their departments, not to the university as a whole.
My department is the group of people ...
- 15.4k
6
votes
Comparing two conventions: erase when you finish teaching, or erase when you begin
I think @Lars Seme's answer captures my sentiments already pretty well, except that I would add the following argument:
Let's just all be good humans and do something nice for the person who comes ...
- 105k
3
votes
Comparing two conventions: erase when you finish teaching, or erase when you begin
I've been erasing before-and-after for decades, and counting on allowing time for it. Once-upon-a-time I tried to argue with people about whether they should erase (or not) at the end of their classes ...
- 91.2k
2
votes
Comparing two conventions: erase when you finish teaching, or erase when you begin
What is the culture of your institution?
This is, in my experience, very much a matter of institutional culture. In the mathematics department where I earned my BA and MS, the culture was very much ...
- 7,062
2
votes
Is it taboo to change departments within a university?
I think that there should be mention of the fact that, traditionally, departments (i.e., Department of Mathematics, sometimes called "Faculty of ..." outside of the U.S.) have more ...
- 31.3k
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