I'll comment on a professor I was fortunate to have several classes with at Lehigh University within the Industrial Engineering Department - Dr. Gary Whitehouse. Gary later moved from Lehigh to the University of Central Florida and is now (unfortunately) deceased. My favorite course with Dr. Whitehouse was "Decision Making Under Uncertainty." He vividly reinforced the concepts being taught by allowing students to weight class deliverables (homework, quizzes, tests, final, project, etc.) as a fraction of their total course grade - but only up to a time when ~ 40% of the class was complete and many deliverable outcomes uncertain, with a minimum number of components being required. Each homework assignment had both an analytical component (50% of the grade) and a probabilistic component (the other 50%). The best example I can remember of a typical homework assignment which reinforces "living the course material": You can buy (at a set cost) observations from a coin flipper that is set to a given % heads. There is a reward function that values accuracy in a prediction you must make concerning how many heads will result in 10 coin flips. The question - how many coin flips should you buy? .. and what is your prediction? (Keeping in mind 50% of your grade is based on the accuracy of your predicted number of heads in 10 flips.) As this memory was from 1975, I may have forgotten (or embellished) a few of the specifics, but hopefully you "get the picture."
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George Freestone
Lifetime Member of the INFORMS Roundtable
Air Products and Chemicals, Inc.
Wyomissing PA
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Original Message:
Sent: 08-25-2022 13:57
From: Jill Capello
Subject: Fun Post - Favorite Teacher
It's back to school time in many parts of the world, so let's recognize our favorite teachers. Mine was Allen Stockett - my high school English teacher. He genuinely cared about every student - not just how you were doing in his class, but how you were doing over all. He even has a fan page on Facebook! Who was your favorite?
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Jill Capello
Membership Associate
INFORMS
Catonsville MD
jcapello@informs.org
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