What's the secret behind a medical school 'triumvirate'?

[micromass]

50 Fun Things for Professors to Do on the First Day of Class

1. Wear a hood with one eyehole. Periodically make strange gurgling
noises.
2. After confirming everyone's names on the roll, thank the class for
attending "Advanced Astrodynamics 690" and mention that yesterday
was the last day to drop.
3. After turning on the overhead projector, clutch your chest and
scream "MY PACEMAKER!"
4. Wear a pointed Kaiser helmet and a monocle and carry a riding
crop.
5. Gradually speak softer and softer and then suddenly point to a
student and scream "YOU! WHAT DID I JUST SAY?"
6. Deliver your lecture through a hand puppet. If a student asks you
a question directly, say in a high-pitched voice, "The Professor
can't hear you, you'll have to ask *me*, Winky Willy".
7. If someone asks a question, walk silently over to their seat, hand
them your piece of chalk, and ask, "Would YOU like to give the
lecture, Mr. Smartypants?"
8. Pick out random students, ask them questions, and time their
responses with a stop watch. Record their times in your grade book
while muttering "tsk, tsk".
9. Ask students to call you "Tinkerbell" or "Surfin' Bird".
10. Stop in mid-lecture, frown for a moment, and then ask the class
whether your butt looks fat.
11. Play "Kumbaya" on the banjo.
12. Show a video on medieval torture implements to your calculus
class. Giggle throughout it.
13. Announce "you'll need this", and write the suicide prevention
hotline number on the board.
14. Wear mirrored sunglasses and speak only in Turkish. Ignore all
questions.
15. Start the lecture by dancing and lip-syncing to James Brown's "Sex
Machine."
16. Ask occassional questions, but mutter "as if you gibbering simps
would know" and move on before anyone can answer.
17. Ask the class to read Jenkins through Johnson of the local phone
book by the next lecture. Vaguely imply that there will be a quiz.
18. Have one of your graduate students sprinkle flower petals ahead of
you as you pace back and forth.
19. Address students as "worm".
20. Announce to students that their entire grades will be based on a
single-question oral final exam. Imply that this could happen at
any moment.
21. Turn off the lights, play a tape of crickets chirping, and begin
singing spirituals.
22. Ask for a volunteer for a demonstration. Ask them to fill out a
waiver as you put on a lead apron and light a blowtorch.
23. Point the overhead projector at the class. Demand each student's
name, rank, and serial number.
24. Begin class by smashing the neck off a bottle of vodka, and
announce that the lecture's over when the bottle's done.
25. Have a band waiting in the corner of the room. When anyone asks a
question, have the band start playing and sing an Elvis song.
26. Every so often, freeze in mid sentence and stare off into space
for several minutes. After a long, awkward silence, resume your
sentence and proceed normally.
27. Wear a "virtual reality" helmet and strange gloves. When someone
asks a question, turn in their direction and make throttling
motions with your hands.
28. Mention in passing that you're wearing rubber underwear.
29. Growl constantly and address students as "matey".
30. Devote your math lecture to free verse about your favorite numbers
and ask students to "sit back and groove".
31. Announce that last year's students have almost finished their
class projects.
32. Inform your English class that they need to know Fortran and code
all their essays. Deliver a lecture on output format statements.
33. Bring a small dog to class. Tell the class he's named "Boogers
McGee" and is your "mascot". Whenever someone asks a question,
walk over to the dog and ask it, "What'll be, McGee?"
34. Wear a feather boa and ask students to call you "Snuggles".
35. Tell your math students that they must do all their work in a base
11 number system. Use a complicated symbol you've named after
yourself in place of the number 10 and threaten to fail students
who don't use it.
36. Claim to be a chicken. Squat, cluck, and produce eggs at irregular
intervals.
37. Bring a CPR dummy to class and announce that it will be the
teaching assistant for the semester. Assign it an office and
office hours.
38. Have a grad student in a black beret pluck at a bass while you
lecture.
39. Sprint from the room in a panic if you hear sirens outside.
40. Give an opening monologue. Take two minute "commercial breaks"
every ten minutes.
41. Tell students that you'll fail them if they cheat on exams or
"fake the funk".
42. Announce that you need to deliver two lectures that day, and
deliver them in rapid-fire auctioneer style.
43. Pass out dental floss to students and devote the lecture to oral
hygiene.
44. Announce that the entire 32-volume Encyclopedia Britannica will be
required reading for your class. Assign a report on Volume 1,
Aardvark through Armenia, for next class.
45. Ask students to list their favorite showtunes on a signup sheet.
Criticize their choices and make notes in your grade book.
46. Sneeze on students in the front row and wipe your nose on your
tie.
47. Warn students that they should bring a sack lunch to exams.
48. Refer frequently to students who died while taking your class.
49. Show up to lecture in a ventilated clean suit. Advise students to
keep their distance for their own safety and mutter something
about "that bug I picked up in the field".
50. Jog into class, rip the textbook in half, and scream, "Are you
pumped? ARE YOU PUMPED? I CAN'T HEEEEEEAR YOU!"

From http://jcdverha.home.xs4all.nl/scijokes/8_6.html#subindex

 

[drizzle]

:rofl: OMG number 13 :rofl::rofl:

 

[Evo]

Love it micro!

 

[Dembadon]

50 Fun Things for Professors to Do on the First Day of Class

[...]

15. Start the lecture by dancing and lip-syncing to James Brown's "Sex
Machine."

[...]

This one is definitely my favorite.

 

[lisab]

Who *didn't* have at least several profs who did this?

26. Every so often, freeze in mid sentence and stare off into space
for several minutes. After a long, awkward silence, resume your
sentence and proceed normally.

 

[Pengwuino]

I'm going to walk into class wearing a Toga

 

[I_am_learning]

Can somebody filter the list removing all but the practicable ones!
Not that they aren't fun to read.

 

[flyingpig]

I'm going to walk into class wearing a Toga

You should also wear one of those Caeser head band thing.

 

[George Jones]

47. Warn students that they should bring a sack lunch to exams.

This happened in a two-semester applied math course that I took. We were also told that we could bring books (any that we wanted to bring) to the exams.

 

[flyingpig]

This happened in a two-semester applied math course that I took. We were also told that we could bring books (any that we wanted to bring) to the exams.

Cheating, legally.

 

[George Jones]

Cheating, legally.

Definitely not cheating.

 

[Jimmy Snyder]

Instead of writing one equation after the other on the blackboard, erase parts of the equation you just wrote and write in the changes to form the next equation. Keep going like that until the equation is in the final form. Then erase the entire equation before starting the next sequence so that there is never more than one equation on the board at a time. Don't erase thoroughly so that there are always stray marks in the equations.

 

[EWH]

Use cuneiform, linear A or Rongo-Rongo symbols for all variables.

 

[malty]

(Note: Only follow this if you hate the class!)

• Set up a bogus network account that appears to be your genuine profile account.
• Place 'fake' mid-term papers on it.
• When logging into the network, make sure projector is on and that all the students can see the login details on the login screen (You may have to lock or hibernate the computer in advance to achieve this).
• "Accidently" type the password to the bogus account in the username window. (Ensure that this password is easily memorable.)
• Revel in sadistic delight when the students sitting the mid-term start suffering agonising torment when they realize that the leaked paper they know so diligently isn't the actual paper they are sitting.
• When exam is just about half way, have a staff member walk in with an envelope holding the actual papers explaining some sort of mix up.
• Explain to the students how you spent all night making up that back-up paper which they are now sitting, sympathise with them, then ask them if it's ok with them if you switch to the original paper because you believed it to be a lot fairer. Explain to them that the decision is fully in their hands and that you fully understand it if they decline.
• If they accept:
  • Hand them the 'genuine' paper.
  • Balk in sadistic glee at the second mindf**k of when the students realize that this genuine paper isn't the 'fake' paper they saw on your bogus account either!
• If they decline:
  • Wish them the very best of luck with their test.

 

[drizzle]

Instead of writing one equation after the other on the blackboard, erase parts of the equation you just wrote and write in the changes to form the next equation. Keep going like that until the equation is in the final form. Then erase the entire equation before starting the next sequence so that there is never more than one equation on the board at a time. Don't erase thoroughly so that there are always stray marks in the equations.

Actually one of my professors did that... Ack! My quantum mechanics prof! The essence of horror, that's what I call'm. :yuck:

 

[Pengwuino]

Instead of writing one equation after the other on the blackboard, erase parts of the equation you just wrote and write in the changes to form the next equation. Keep going like that until the equation is in the final form. Then erase the entire equation before starting the next sequence so that there is never more than one equation on the board at a time. Don't erase thoroughly so that there are always stray marks in the equations.

... I had a professor do that once. It was SO confusing.

I'll do that.

 

[Astronuc]

I heard about one professor who typed exams on black paper such that it made them difficult to read the questions. He apparently was nuts.

 

[micromass]

I had a professor once and the very first lecture he said: "We will have a break in the middle and during the break I want that a students comes and cleans the boeard".
So during the break, the students stared at each other thinking: "I'm not going to be the suck-up that cleans the board here". So eventually nobody cleaned the board.
After the break, the professor came back and he saw that the board wasn't cleaned. He continued the lecture normally, but instead of cleaning the board, he just overwrote all the text on the board. It was unreadable
The subsequent lectures, there was always somebody that cleaned the board.

Here peng, that is what you should do :tongue2:

 

[Pengwuino]

I'm not sure what's funnier, the suggestions made on this thread, or the fact that some of them have actually been done by people.

 

[rhody]

This thread should be renamed: When Professor's have had enough, and STRIKE BACK ! Very good MM...

Rhody...

P.S. Take http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9znEPPZly58" if you must have the real deal, the original...

 

[Moonbear]

I'm only a week and a half away from the start of classes, and this thread has me cracking up!

13. Announce "you'll need this", and write the suicide prevention
hotline number on the board.

Is it bad that I have the phone number for our counseling center in my syllabus? :uhh: (I really do; mostly I started including it because of the anatomy lab for the students who don't cope well with being around cadavers, but they also offer counseling about academics issues, so I started including it in all of my syllabi just so the students know where the help is if they haven't figured it out before or needed it before.)

 

[Moonbear]

I'm going to walk into class wearing a Toga

I'm now part of a "triumvirate" of course coordinators for one of the courses in the med school. I didn't come up with the term, and when I agreed to share responsibility for the course, I thought it was just going to be two of us alternating semesters, so now every time someone mentions the "triumvirate," I keep thinking I need to wear a toga to our course planning meetings. :rofl: