Course Information

This course will be held online (here, on this blog) for the Summer Semester 2020 (or at least until they tell us we can meet in person).

These circumstances are unusual, and it will be a learning experience for me too! Normally, during a lecture, I would be monitoring your cherubic faces for signs of distress, and adjust my teaching accordingly. In order for me to succeed in teaching you this semester, I will need your help. Please let me know what is working for you, and what is not!

Starting from next week, I plan on having comments enabled on this blog. Please leave your comments or questions for the ‘lecture’ there, and please comment on your compatriots' comments etc. My hope is that these comments will allow us to have meaningful interactions. Two advantages of these comments, over personal, in class interactions, are that

  1. we have more time to think about what we want to say
  2. you can say anything you want, at any time

Of course, there is also the downside (which might be the flip side of one of the upsides…) that writing a comment imposes a higher barrier to entry than just blurting something out.

Please don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good! If you want to say/ask something, just post a halfway workable version of it, instead of polishing it up until it is the perfect comment. If you have something to ask that you are embarassed to say in public, you may send me a private email.

Making comments will be part of your grade for the course.

Grading

This course is, along with the course on Linearization taught by Mike Frazier, part of the Computational Perspectives on Grammar module. The official grading scheme for that module is ‘Portfolio.’ For the non-Germans among us (myself included), that translates (roughly) to ‘semi-regular assignments.’ Mike and I will give you few problems to work on at home (i.e. a homework) over the course of the semester, and that will be that. In addition to this, you will need to average one comment a week on a post. Some weeks you may make none, while other weeks you might make multiple comments. This is ok.