6.437  Inference and Info

Dear Class,

We have just finished grading the 2nd quiz. The class average is 17.4/30. You should be able to see your own score on the stellar site gradebook. You can pick up your quiz, as well as the last pset, from my office. Please drop by anytime, although you need to catch me to get your quiz back, and you are always welcome to spend a few minutes to chat about the quiz, and the course in general.

I will keep these for another week.

If you haven't, please do fill that evaluation form.

http://web.mit.edu/subjectevaluation/

Thank you all for participating in 6.437 this term. I wish you all have a good relaxing summer.


Lizhong

Dear Class,

As I am not going to show up at the quiz, I would like to say a few words towards the end of the semester.

1. Again, the quiz is at Walker, 50-340, from 7-10, this evening. NOT at the lecture place.

2. You are allowed to have 4 pages of notes.

3. The quiz has 3 problems, and is at a similar level of difficulty as your first quiz. This means if I were to make a wild guess,  the average would be about 50-60 % of the total points. Hitting this point would very much secure an 'A' for your final score. So the coolest way to do the quiz is to do only two problems and simply leave, although I certainly do not recommend that. The point is do not pressure yourself, but try to relax and enjoy the story behind the problems, as you do not have to answer all of the questions, just like what happens in real-life. 

4. We will be grading tomorrow and the day after. You are certainly welcome to visit me in my office next week to discuss the course, the quiz, and your grades.

5. PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE, fill the course evaluation.

6. It has been fun to work with all of you this semester. I hope you all enjoyed the materials and learned something. I hope you will apply some of the techniques in your future research. And I hope you would like to drop by to share those research with me when that happens.

7. Good Luck.


Lizhong

Dear Class,

The second quiz is now scheduled at 7-10PM on May 14, Wednesday, at 50-340(Walker).

You are allowed to bring 4 8x11' sheets of notes.

And let me clarify the coverage of the quiz again. As I stated in class, the focus of this quiz is on the materials after the previous quiz. However, the later part of this course is mainly about techniques in analysis, while the earlier part has several different formulations. The quiz would thus mostly be problems with formulations given in the first part, but requiring the tools from the second part to work out. You do need to be quite familiar with the basic concepts of hypothesis testing, estimation, etc.

The last section of the course, up to Laplace and variational methods, are considered as analysis, and thus can very well be the topic of a problem. The Monte-Carlo part is also included, but as I said in lectures, it is quite obvious that it is hard to come up with a conceptual question about such numerical issues, especially since you will see them again in 6.438. Thus, it is safe to assume that part is not a focus point.

I will hold office hour on Monday the normal time, and Tuesday in Lecture. Hope to see you then.

 Lizhong

Dear Class,

 

Subject evaluation is now open. Please go to the following link

 

http://web.mit.edu/subjectevaluation/

 

and spend a few minutes to give us your feedbacks.

 

I didn’t have enough time in class to encourage you to do this, with as much details as you care to offer. But the fact is, your opinions do help us a lot in making the course better. You have observed that the materials in this course are challenging, are very close to real-life research, and are evolving. What might not be clear to some of you is that the class is also very diverse, coming from many different disciplines. It would benefit us tremendously if we know how much certain material is helping you in your own research and studies of the related topics; whether the level of technical details is appropriate to your needs; what specific directions you wish the course to cover more, or less, to meet your expectations.

 

I guess it should be clear that I do want my class to have fun and enjoy the materials. I take teaching an opportunity to show you what I enjoy the most on these topics. I hope your feedbacks would help me to tune the course towards what you would have enjoyed more. The subject evaluation is your chance to take the ownership of curriculum development, and together we can make the course all better.

 

Thank you in advance for your help.

 

Lizhong