Eric's Beijing Diary

It's late. I have a late class on Monday and Wednesay evening. Oracle Database Administration. This is a new course here at the University, and it is sort of the "flagship" course of the new database curriculum I am setting up here at the Software College. The approach I am using represents a major paradigm shift, because I have stressed to students that, in contrast to what they may have been used to in their previous educational experience, we will be moving from practice to theory rather than from theory to practice. In other words, we will start with the practice, and then use this to build a theoretical construct. The way this works out in practice is that students who come to class and work through the labs meticulously will do well, but those who prefer to stay home and read a book will have problems. Constant review is the only way to learn the procedures required to establish mastery of this (or any) high end system.

I have announced a mid term for next Monday night. This, of course, has produced some anxiety. It shouldn't, because the test will be pretty easy for those who have taken time to learn the procedures. But these students have varying levels of language proficiency. Even though English language proficiency is required for this course, I have not mandated a TOEFL test as a requirement for entry. I have left it up to each student to make this decision. So, as I said, there is some anxiety about the exam. One young lady expressed her frustration on a student web board in Structured Query Language:

DELETE from MyBrain
WHERE memory LIKE '%Oracle%';