Okay, guys. So this is the video about the TA program.
This is something I really think is important.
And we can actually improve dramatically this
class if we get that done successfully.
I'm going to talk about it.
I have been working with TA programs for the last 20, 25 years.
And so I want to give you a, a glimpse of.
Of what can happen.
What, what could happen if we actually had a very successful
TA program and I think it can just take the class
to another level if we have you know, another set of maturated people.
So just thinking about having you know, like, 20
[INAUDIBLE]
. Okay?
So, can you imagine what that would do to the
course and of course to me, but that's another problem.
Right?
but essentially, so what we want is essentially,
is essentially look at the TA and boost it.
Okay, boost it tremendously.
So when you see the, the the to Cousera has this type
of community TA, and the TA would basically help to manage the community.
Answer the questions on.
On the, on the forum, help students in various ways.
And this is great,
okay, so we need to have that. But we can go well beyond this, okay.
So what, what I found the most important when we have a
TA program is that the TAs really become part of the class.
They are part of the team, they, they see every, they talk
to us, they can shape the class, they can shape the content.
They can shape the delivery, they can shape everything.
And the reason this is you know, basically they own the classes
as much as we do, and so essentially they become one of
us, and this, they can make a huge difference.
And this is what we want inside the
TA program, we want you know, community TAs of
course, not everybody wants to invest a substantial
time in this, but some people really want okay?
And I'll tell you a little bit why in the next slide.
Okay, so in a sense, there will be different branches of commitment.
If you want to commit three hours per week to this
class, you know you can be a community TA and what
that means is that you go to the forum you look at, you know
some of the questions that the students have, you answer them on a regular basis.
You give them hints when they are stuck.
Essentially what, you know, Carlton and I have
done, you know, when looking at the forum.
Okay.
Now, this is, you know, this is fine but some people actually would come to me.
So I have been basically, you know, working with TA for 20 for 20 years.
it was a really important part at at Brown University and so,
the the key point there is that students would
come to me and say oh we want that material.
You are covering this but you know the students really want that
and of course, you know, you know this is they would tell you
oh, we want to do this, or that assignment you should link, you
should link it with the other ones and make it a integrated assignment.
They would come with all kinds of ideas.
You know and, and many of them actually found their way into
the class, many of them actually didn't but, but in a sense the
class was shaped by you know suggestion by students and
thinking together and trying to brainstorm on how to do that.
And that's what we want to try to achieve in this class as well.
We want to say okay, so now let's think
about what we have done, let's think about the new
delivery you know, medium that we have here and how
can we actually improve the experience of the students further?
So we want essentially a set of you know very
motivated TA to join us and let us develop more interesting
material and there is no way we can do everything.
You know, the two of us, we want more people to join us.
One of the very important things to understand here
is that you don't need to be a superstar
in optimization or having you know 20 years of
experience in the field to be a TA okay, so
what you need is a passion you need to
have taken the class and done well in the class,
but you need to be dedicated to actually say,
okay I want to change, I want to shape this class and
make this kinds of of you know, and make this contribution to the class.
And what I'm going to do is to show you some of the things that we can do, okay.
But there are many more, so just to give
you ideas on, on where we want to go, or where
we could go, and what a difference it will
make in the experience of the students taking the class.
Okay, so the benefits, if you want to be invested
in this class, is that you can shape the class, okay.
And this is something that, you know, in
my experience the students were really keen on doing.
Okay, they would come and they would say oh I can be part of the class,
I can give all my ideas and I can try to convince people that they are good.
You can really change the class.
This is the main benefit of being a very heavily involved TA, okay?
Now there are other benefits like, you
know accessing all the version, you will see
how the system really works behind the scene, what we do behind the scenes, okay?
You can access the version before it's there.
You can test it.
You can try to break it. Okay you can do all kinds of things
you see everything behind the scene and how its done, okay that gives you some
really interesting inside and of course you can
talk to Carlton, you can talk to me.
And that gives you also a sense of how we view these things,
okay we, we keep discussing these issues all the time and you'd be, you
would be part of this conversion, of course we would recognize you on the
site website you will be part of the team and mentioned as such, okay?
And so people who would, would actually
go and talk to you personally and things like this, okay?
what is possible?
So I'm going to show you one of the some of the
crazy ideas that we have right now, but many more are possible.
We have many more actually, but but we also,
we also would you know, love to get more ideas.
from people having taken the class or you know, even people
outside that have looked at the class at this point, okay?
So this is one of the crazy idea and one that I strongly believe in and obviously
count on also, strongly believe in this.
So, so this is something that I told you
have done in optimization since I was really young
and the idea is that you want to visualize
a solution as quickly as possible, okay so once.
When you are developing an optimization application you know, things that
we've told you, build the visualization so you can see what
is happening, so you see this you know the TSP on
the t-shirt, but essentially what we are thinking of is can
we actually provide the students with a visualizer immediately okay so they would
they could visualize everything that they do immediately, that would come for free.
And of course they could build their own, but they would get a basic stuff
for visualizing for free, so we will have to build all of this for all
of the assignments but that would give
you, the students, really very interesting insight of
of what is going on the program and we would ultimate that part of the class.
So this is one of the things that I think that would make a huge difference, okay?
the other things that, that we are thinking of is that we may, may want to
have different kinds of assignments and, of the,
for the class and different kinds of levels.
Of course we have, you know, we have the classes that is organized, no.
And we think that is to stay. This is really very interesting.
But we can also, you know have a
lightweight version of this class, for instance based on
what on quizzes and, and micro-programming assignments.
So we are thinking about that.
We have not made any kind of decisions.
We have, you know, we value your input on this.
the quizzes of course will not be in the
middle of the lecture because that's not my style.
Right, they would be at the end or you know separated.
But, but this is something that we could
do you know, more conceptual questions there and then
we could have, you know assignments which are a
little bit more structured, less open-ended for you know,
for helping people, you know understand the material.
Like, okay so we give you a basic framework,
implement 2-opt on top of that, you know, we have,
you know we have the framework for the branch
in one but you have to do the relaxation yourself.
Okay, things like that.
We all think, these are the kind of things we are thinking of, okay?
No decision made, right, but this is the kind of things we are thinking of.
then obviously usually what we want and this is not so crazy but
we want a lot more tutorial, a lot more support than example and
obviously we want to have.
Introduction to some of the, some of the tools.
You know how do we use a CP solver?
What is, you know giving you some of basic introduction
of a part of CP solver to speed everything up.
When you see example, it's so much easier than just you know going to a reference
manual or to a video explaining everything you
know everything in, in, in a lot of details.
So we can show you examples and teach you how to use these things much faster.
And that's what we would like to do, okay?
So we would like to essentially go and give you a, you know,
a fast paced introduction to some of the tools you may be using.
Okay?
I was thinking that would just be, you know, they would be recommended
for some particular app, you know, some
particular assignment, but of usually not meant
[UNKNOWN]
at all, people would still have the freedom to do whatever they want.
Okay, then we want this little board okay, and
we want us to tailor it to a particular viewer.
We want to do everything we do but tailor to a particular person.
Make everything much more personalized.
Right? So we are in the age of personalization.
We should do that in this class, okay?
So instead of seeing a little boat like, like you see
here, you, we would also give you, you know, essentially where
you stand at this point, and then you see this curve
and your goal would be to push it once again, you know.
to the right side or to the left side.
so essentially, essentially what we want to do
is everything we are showing you will be
more personalized and you will have an experience
which is really personalized to what you are doing.
Okay?
So another idea. Okay?
So many of these ideas you know, are out there
and so ob, obviously you know, we can't do every,
everything every crazy idea that what I just mentioned, plus others.
Okay, and that's where you know, we would
like to have a really healthy teaching assistant program.
So if you are interested, you know once
again okay, so you know, contact us and, and
this will be, I think this will be
a very rewarding experience for you as well, okay.
So the way to think about this is that it's like open source project,
okay, people contribute for free and this is exactly the same here, you know,
it's strictly voluntary we're not going to pay you actually you know, Carlton and I
are really not payed for this, this is like a second job for us, okay.
But the the the basic the basic advantage here is that you will
be part of this team, and you will choose a level of commitment, okay.
No cash, but you will get the recognition as well, okay.
so if you're interested, e-mail Carlton, you know, what
we want is that Carlton has so many emails
that he can't actually access his mailbox. Okay?
That is the goal.
And we hope to see your application because
we strongly believe that we can put this
class at the next level by having a,
a set of really dedicated people working with us.
Okay? Thank you guys.
Please apply. Thank you.