Teaching it

Everything needed to walk into a room: a semester plan, a per-session runsheet, a generated slide index, a before-class checklist, and one make command that keeps all of it in sync with the decks.

The instructor material lives in Teaching_Guide/.

The instructor kit

File

What it is

On GitHub

semester_plan.md

The thirteen weeks on one page: what to teach when, where the three split lectures break, what to sacrifice when you fall behind

open

slide_index.md

Generated from the compiled PDFs: every section with its page range and time budget, every exercise and solution with its page

open

before_class.md

The ten-minute checklist for the evening before and the morning of

open

runsheets/

One page per session — timings, what to run live, what to cut, what students get wrong

not published

handouts/

Printable two-up PDFs of every deck (make handouts)

build output

Why the runsheets are not here

They name which exercise rehearses which exam problem, so they are assessment material and stay out of the public repository alongside the exams themselves. Instructors can request them from the author at info@profweisser-ai.de.

One command keeps it consistent

From the repository root:

make            # figures, decks whose source changed, and the slide index
make check      # page counts, and any slide that overruns its frame
make handouts   # printable 2-up PDFs of every deck
make index      # refresh Teaching_Guide/slide_index.md from the PDFs
make docs       # build this documentation locally
make help       # the rest

Everything is incremental: a deck is only recompiled when its .tex changed (or, for the two precourse decks, their make_figures.py), and the slide index is regenerated from the PDFs, so quoted page numbers cannot drift away from the slides.

What a runsheet gives you

Each session has one page, and each page has the same eight parts:

  1. Running order — timing blocks with page ranges, so a 180-minute session has a plan rather than a hope. The blocks add up to the teaching minutes left after arrival, breaks and questions.

  2. Run these in the room — the two to four exercises worth live time, with the reason each was chosen.

  3. Set as homework — the rest, with the page of the prompt and its solution.

  4. If you are running late, cut in this order — a ranked cut list, written in advance so the decision is not made at minute 140.

  5. What they will get wrong — the misconceptions, each with the sentence that fixes it.

  6. Worth doing on the board — the two or three derivations that land better written by hand than projected.

  7. Before you walk in — the notebook cells to pre-run, the numbers to have on screen.

  8. Close on — the last slide, and the sentence that bridges to next week.

The Before you walk in checklist also says when a 60-minute short exam becomes available: A after Lecture 6, B after 7, C after 8, D after 10, E after 12. They are sequenced, so they cannot be handed out in any other order — see Mock exams.

Where the appendix fits

Every deck ends with an appendix holding its optional, more advanced material — formal derivations, the heaviest worked exercises, side topics. It sits outside the timed plan: the running orders stop where the appendix begins, and the slide index marks it optional instead of giving it minutes.

Three ways to use it:

  • Assign it. Every exercise in an appendix keeps its full worked solution, so students can do it alone.

  • Reach for it in the room when a cohort wants the derivation. Each runsheet has an “In the appendix (optional)” section naming what is there and which board moments moved with it.

  • Ignore it. Nothing in a deck’s main flow depends on an appendix slide.

What each appendix holds is listed in Lecture slides.

If you are behind

Falling behind is normal — the decks carry more than a session holds. The first cut is already made: the appendix is outside the plan. After that, in order of what to sacrifice:

  1. Extended exercises — set them as homework; the solutions are in the deck.

  2. The second worked example of a concept, when the deck gives two.

  3. The “where this reappears in the course” slides — signposting, not content.

  4. The closing summary block — it is written to be read alone.

Do not cut the motivation slide that opens a topic, the pitfall (alertblock) slides, or any exercise the runsheet marks as exam-relevant.

Where to go next

  • Lecture slides — deck-by-deck contents, and what is in each appendix.

  • The course at a glance — the twelve-lecture plan and the split points.

  • Mock exams — the assessment rhythm, the release order of the five 60-minute short exams, and how the papers are built.

  • For students — the page to point a cohort at in week one.