Some of this advice doesn't apply to my class (I have 35 students and no TA's), but I see exactly where he is coming from. Unfortunitly, I can not pull the "I have a Ph.D., trust me" trick, yet. But, I could have used it a couple of times.
1. Crush them on the first 2 homework assignments -- those who remain will be good students.
2. When you don't know the answer to a question say it's outside the scope of the class.
3. Teaching evaluations are highly correlated with the grade the students think they will get at the time of filling out the surveys. Make your course easy, then crush them on the final (but see #1).
4. Never admit you're wrong. "I have a PhD, trust me."
5. Schedule office hours at 8am.
6. If you can't learn their names, call them all "dude."
7. Never, under any circumstances, disclose the exact grade cutoffs at the end of the semester. Somebody has to get the highest B, and they won't be happy. "You're lucky you got a B, dude."
8. Finish lecture 10 minutes early every time –- they love this (and they'll never know you love it even more).
9. Easiest way to get rid of whiners without yielding: "I'll take that into account when calculating your final grade."
10. Get good teaching assistants.
One thing that I would add to this list is this word of advice: "Teaching is hard, get over it."
It's one thing to give advice on dealing with students, but he never address another fundamentle problem, laxidasical teachers. It takes an emmence effort on my part to prepare lecture, demos, and home works, and I have no one to complain to but myself. Teaching is one of the hardest endeavours I have ver undertaken, and the sooner you realize that it is not going to be a cake walk, the sooner you get to work and start preparing. Teaching is hard, very hard.
Anyway, I can't wait to start calling all my students "dude" because I am always forgetting their names. Thanks for the advice Luis, and word to all my dudes and dudettes.
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