18.821 | Spring 2013 | Undergraduate

Project Laboratory in Mathematics

Calendar

In this section, Prof. Haynes Miller and Susan Ruff share the course calendar from Spring 2013 and describe some scheduling choices and disruptions.

The following calendar reflects the schedule for Spring 2013. Not included are the hour-long mentor meetings that occurred once a week for each of the student teams.

WEEK # TYPE MONDAY TUESDAY WEDNESDAY THURSDAY FRIDAY
1 Other  —  —  — No class at MIT
(emergency cancellation)
2 Project 1 Project 1 topic selection Project 1 development
Other Course introduction  — Teamwork workshop
3 Project 1 Project 1 development
Other Presentation workshop Writing workshop
4 Project 1 Project 1 development Project 1 first draft due
Project 2 Project 2 topic selection
5 Project 1 Project 1 debriefings (1 hour per team) Project 1 development
Project 2 Project 2 development
Other Team 1 practice
presentation
6 Project 1 Project 1 development Project 1 final draft due
Project 2 Project 2 development
Other Team 1 in-class
presentation
Team 2 practice
presentation
7 Project 2 Project 2 development
Other Team 2 in-class
presentation
Team 3 practice presentation  —
8 Other No class at MIT (spring break)
9 Project 2 Project 2 development
Other Team 3 in-class
presentation
10 Project 2 Project 2 first draft due Project 2 development Project 2 debriefings
(1 hour per team)
Project 3 Project 3 topic selection Project 3 development
Other Team 4 practice
presentation
Team 4 in-class
presentation
11 Project 2 Project 2 development Project 2 final draft due
Project 3 Project 3 development
Other No class at MIT No class at MIT
(emergency cancellation)
12 Project 3 Project 3 development
Other Team 5 practice presentation Team 6 practice presentation; Team 5 in-class presentation
13 Project 3 Project 3 development
Other Team 6 in-class
presentation
Team 7 practice presentation Team 8 practice presentation Team 7 in-class
presentation
14 Project 3 Project 3 first draft due Project 3 development Project 3 debriefings (1 hour per team)
Other Team 8 in-class
presentation
 — Team 9 practice
presentation
15 Project 3 Project 3 development Project 3 final draft due
Other Team 9 in-class
presentation

Scheduling Choices and Disruptions

Spring 2013 was a particularly disrupted term, with several university-wide emergency cancellations. This wreaked havoc on the workshop schedule and the planned project timelines. Our class was scheduled for a one-hour slot on Mondays and a two-hour slot on Fridays. We had intended to schedule the formal one-hour presentations on nine consecutive Mondays, with two-hour practice presentations on the preceding Fridays. Because of the disruptions, three of the presentations occurred on Fridays, and we had to scramble to schedule the practice presentations. The disruptions also forced us to run a shortened version of the presentation workshop in a one-hour slot instead of a two-hour slot.

Even without these disruptions, it was probably overly optimistic of us to think we could adhere to such a constrained schedule. We would have had a lot more flexibility if we had scheduled the class for two-hour time slots on both Mondays and Fridays.

Spring break also felt like a big interruption to the second project, although one student proved beautiful theorems while on vacation in Panama!

Course Info

Departments
As Taught In
Spring 2013
Topics
Learning Resource Types
Lecture Videos
Other Video
Projects with Examples
Activity Assignments with Examples
Written Assignments with Examples
Presentation Assignments with Examples
Instructor Insights