THIS FILE IS CONFIDENTIAL AND FOR THE ATTENTION OF THE TEACHING AWARD PANEL ONLY. PLEASE TO NOT DISTRIBUTE A LINK TO IT. THE FILE WILL BE REMOVED IN A FEW WEEKS TIME. From: HEALY, GREG Sent: Friday, October 16, 2020 5:32 PMTo: Ellis, Graham Subject: 😊 Hi Graham! đŸ‘‹đŸ» Greg here. I have the pleasure of sitting through your MA185 lectures. I must admit, I had a great deal of apprehension when I first put maths down as one of my art subjects purely because it was a subject I have only recently taken an interest to, but after hearing you teach for the short time you have, I can tell you that my apprehension is growing smaller by the hour and in its place is a kindling curiosity for everything mathematics. You have really solidified for me a growing suspicion that I’ve had for quite some time now, that maths isn’t this dull, lifeless subject for frankly dull, lifeless people. With your vibrant personality and engaging material that connects maths with not just the large world of numbers but with real life applications and history, you have really made it a daily treat for me to watch your lectures. I already knew I had an interest in maths but you may very well be the reason for turning my interest into a passion. Here’s hoping I haven’t spoken too soon, and that there is not some horrible formulations just waiting for me around the corner. I’m not naturally intuitive a mathematics but I do love the challenge it brings. I have been searching the web for a book that might do a good synopsis on the history of mathematics and I came across this book titled “Makers of mathematics” by Stuart Hollingldale on Amazon. I wonder have you read it or not and would you approve of it as a good read or do you have something better in mind? Thanks again. Much obliged, Greg. From: Sally Reidy Sent: Friday, October 30, 2020 1:12 PM To: Ellis, Graham Subject: A note of appreciation Dear Graham, Firstly, I would like to introduce myself. I am a lecturer at GMIT, wife of Tony (St. Paul's), friend of Pat Ryan (Renmore/ Kilkenny) and neighbour of Emil. Secondly, I would like to thank you. My son is one of your first year students, and he truly seems to find your on- line lectures fascinating. During these times of on- line delivery, I find that I miss the live feedback that students used to be able to provide and find his reactions to your lectures to be quite heartening. So thank you, Graham. Kind Regards, Sally Reidy Lecturer Galway Mayo Institute of Technology TĂĄ an rĂ­omhphost seo faoi rĂ©ir an tsĂ©anta seo leanas atĂĄ le fĂĄil ag SĂ©anadh RĂ­omhphost GMIT This email is subject to the following disclaimer available at GMIT Email Disclaimer From: Jennifer Cruise Sent: Thursday, April 30, 2020 12:17 PM To: Ellis, Grahamj Subject: Fwd: Greetings! Hi Graham, I hope this mail finds you well. I was a student of yours a long time ago and remember my days in Galway so fondly. Feel very lucky for the education I received there, so many great teachers in the maths department then, your good self high among them! Anyhow... I reached out to Rachel this morning in search of some advise which led me to Michel and now to you (please see mail thread below for more detail). Essentially, I think the time has come for a return to Academia and I have strong thoughts on the research I would like to persue. I would be so grateful if you could spare some time for a chat. I’m so removed from that world now that it’s hard to know where to start. Any advise you could offer would be most appreciated. Thank you in advance, Jennifer From: DONOHOE, SHARON Sent: Tuesday, February 2, 2021 1:43 PM To: Ellis, Graham Subject: Dear Mr. Ellis , I’m sincerely sorry for bothering you as I know you are currently on a break from college. I was just wondering if it would be okay to list you as an academic reference on my graduate application. I have thoroughly enjoyed each and every lecture you have given from first year and I look forward to having your class for my final semester. Throughout my college experience two lecturers have stood out to me and that is yourself and Dr John Burns. Your content, delivery and capability to make each lecture interesting has made your modules extremely enjoyable. I’d like to take this opportunity to thank you for all your help in choosing modules also. If you have any issue with being an academic reference for me that’s absolutely no problem. Kind regards, Sharon Donohoe. Sent from Mail for Windows 10 rom: BRULE GALLEGUILLOS, DIEGO Sent: Friday, January 15, 2021 1:09 PM To: Ellis, Graham Subject: Re: MA2286 Exam concern Hi Graham, Thanks for your reply. Thanks for your understanding, and thanks for the explanation. That makes sense to me. I feel like the exam felt harder because of the lack of choice, but now I can see why it wouldn't really be viable to put in the theory questions. I see that the numbers for working out most questions were at a normal level, but I had difficulties with questions 6 and 10, I know that question 10 was similar to one in the homework, but I never properly figured out how to do that kind of question (That's on me) and the cinema problem for question 6 had been an example in class but since the one in the exam was asking for more probability conditions I didn't know how to approach it at all (I do recognize that it was possible to prepare for question 6, but I'm clueless about how to work it out based on examples done in class). So yes, the lack of choice probably made it feel way harder than it was, since not being able to do a question immediately meant -10 marks instead of having another question for redemption like in previous exam papers, but I understand the lack of a question pool too. And I did enjoy this module quite a bit!, in fact, I enjoyed it so much that I spent too much time doing exam papers for this module instead of balancing study with other modules (probably going to regret that in the other exams, hah) Thanks and regards, Diego From: Ellis, Graham Sent: Thursday 14 January 2021 13:52 To: BRULE GALLEGUILLOS, DIEGO Subject: Re: MA2286 Exam concern Hi Diego, Thanks for your email which makes good points. If the class results are lower than previous years then I'll simply ask the external examiner to allow me to adjust scores upwards so that we get a similar number of A grades to previous years. When I came to write the paper I was faced with the problem of knowing that it is an open book exam and that students would be able to copy directly from lecture notes or Kelvin's tutorial solutions. So theory questions like Q4b, Q5b, Q5c on last year's exam couldn't be asked this year as the answers could be copied verbatim from the online lecture notes. It would have been difficult for me to ask more than 12 questions if no theory questions are allowed. When writing the exam I had intended for it to be a bit easier than last year: students this year were asked to answer 10 questions for full marks, whereas last year they were asked to answer 11 questions for 99marks; and in some questions I chose numbers that work out easier this year. But maybe students didn't like the absence of choice! Anyway, thanks again for your email. And, despite the exam, I hope you've got to like the topic of differential forms. All the best, Graham School of Mathematics, Statistics & Applied Mathematics National University of Ireland, Galway tel: 091 493011 From: BRULE GALLEGUILLOS, DIEGO Sent: Thursday, January 14, 2021 1:02 PM To: Ellis, Graham Subject: MA2286 Exam concern Hi Graham, I'm writing to you to let you know of a few concerns I have about this year's exams. I'm aware that the situation is obviously different this year, and sitting exams online practically means that it has to be sat open-book, and in light of that and the email you sent around last week about people cheating in the previous test, I can see why you wanted to change the format and make the exam harder. But, in the same way that this year's circumstances made us have 'easier' open-book exams, it also made the learning process of the entire semester much harder. In a normal year, sitting a normal open-book exam after sitting normal in-person classes and normal in-person tutorials, would be super easy. But this year, I really feel like the open-book could've been a way to balance out other hardships to have an overall exam + learning difficulty equal to past years, and extra difficulty in this exam was not necessary. Let me try to explain my point of view: If the exam had been kept the same as previous years- with 15 parts worth 9 marks each capped at 100 marks, it still wouldn't have been an easy A for everyone, because of the difficult learning process this year: We've spent the entire semester learning online, and even if, in my opinion, you're one of the professors who has been the best online teacher, learning online, with strict lockdowns for most of the semester is so much harder anyway because of several reasons: -Online learning simply isn't as effective as in person learning. I'm sure that the exact same contents and qualifications of any course in the university can be found through online courses in online academies too- for much cheaper. But there's a reason we choose to come to university instead. -We have no real study breaks: Since we can't physically leave the classroom and go home to mark a difference between learning and resting place, there is less attention span, less willingness to attend classes, and less absorption from content passed in class -We can't socialise: because of the strict lockdowns for the majority of the semester, it means that most likely, most people haven't socialised with people outside of their homes for months. Humans are social beings, and being deprived from this makes many become depressed- which just makes 'attending' university, and learning, horribly hard. -We can't go outside for fresh air: Maybe this is a minority(including me) opinion, but semester one goes hand in hand with the winter setting in, which makes going outside undesirable, taking away the main coping mechanism present for most people during the first big lockdown back in May. Lack of fresh air and sunshine (both because of cloudiness and short daytime hours) is yet another thing that pushes people into depressive states of mind. Maybe this point is not relevant to everyone, since people growing up in Ireland may be used to these climate and seasonal changes, but I know that many coming from abroad, including myself (even after 5 years living here), suffer psychologically from not getting sunshine and even in non-pandemic years, we suffer from seasonal depression as winter sets in. You can imagine it's not any easier with a pandemic on top of that. -Most of us can't do the sport we love. Sport is a key element in keeping a good mental health, especially around exam times, but for anyone who plays team sports, or trains with several people, or practises indoor sports, that just isn't an option anymore and hasn't been for most of the semester. Even if it was allowed, anyone with a common sense about the pandemic probably didn't do it anyway to take care of their and their loved ones' health. I do surf myself, but the nearest surf beach is a bit under a 2hr drive away, so any time we are restricted to a certain radius of our homes, I can't do my sport. -And the obvious, there is a pandemic going on. For anyone who cares about their health or the health of their loved ones/ the people they live with, it's going to be a stressful, fearful and depressive time just because there is a virus going around. I hope you can understand where I'm coming from. I'm sure I'm not alone when I say that this year has been horribly hard. We, as university students, as the generation we're part of, have gotten little to no help from the university and government at all during the pandemic, and as a demographic, we are up there with one of the groups with their lives disrupted the most. What I'm trying to get to is that our exams shouldn't be any different or harder than usual. In your module specifically, if someone who didn't do all the lectures and didn't put in the work went and did the exam open-book, they would not do well at all. The contents of this module are complex enough that unless you really grasp them, there's no way you can just look at your notes, do all questions on time with getting the majority right. I know this because when I started studying for this exam and I did a practise exam from one of the past years' exam papers, in two hours I wasn't able to do enough questions to reach the 100 mark cap. And I'm a good student, I attended all your lectures, studied for all the tests, did my homework, etc. (Also, unlike with secondary school calculus, calculators on the internet will be useless for most questions!) So for a stereotypically bad student to be able to pull an A or any good grade out of just an open book, it's just impossible( Rightly so, obviously. I'm just pointing out that it's not needed to make the exam any harder this year). So I hope that with this email you can take into consideration how hard of a year it's been for everyone. I know it has also been hard for university staff, and I want to thank you for doing such a great job of your online lectures. Honestly, learning such a hard course online wouldn't have been possible if you had put in any less effort. This email is probably too late for this exam too- but I hope you can take all the hardships into consideration when grading the papers. Thanks for your time and understanding, Regards, Diego From: GALLAGHER, LUKE Sent: Wednesday, December 16, 2020 3:06 PM To: Ellis, Graham Subject: RE: 2021-MA180 Mathematics (Honours): Second mini-project and second quiz Thanks for all the effort put in in semester one. Regards, Luke Hi Graham, Thanks for the time, preparation and planning you obviously put in to this semesters teachings. It was appreciated. Happy Christmas to you and yours. Regards Dave From: CAMPBELL, CIARAN Sent: Thursday, December 17, 2020 5:50 PM To: Ellis, Graham Subject: Re: 2021-MA180 Mathematics (Honours): Good luck Hi Professor Ellis. Thanks for teaching me these last 3 months. I have really enjoyed the course. As you said in the email, question 9 for MA180 test may have had an incorrect answer appear on the test. However, you sent the email not long before the test finished so I never got a chance to see that it was meant to be to 2 decimal places so I put 10 instead of 10.07. Also, question 2 seemed a very simple question and having checked over it I think the answer may be (d), not (e), as the marking scheme showed. Thanks for reading this and I hope you have a nice Christmas. Regards, CiarĂĄn Campbell. From: TALBOT, MATTHEW Sent: Friday, December 18, 2020 5:43 PM To: Ellis, Graham Subject: Re: 2021-MA180 Mathematics (Honours): F Dear Prof. Ellis, As the class rep for 1FM1 I would like to thank you on behalf of the class for all your work with MA180 this semester. As someone who has always enjoyed maths your lectures were always very enjoyable and every morning I looked forward to them. Your module was also the only one that my course had regular live lectures which was great, being able to chat and interact with my classmates was excellent. I know from talking my classmates that they all felt the same and really enjoyed your module. You were a great teacher and lecturer and we all really appreciate everything you done for us this semester. We will miss you in semester 2 but hopefully we might have you again in the future. Thank you for everything. I wish you and all your family a Merry Christmas and a happy New Year. All the best, Matthew Class Rep 1FM1 From: DUFFY, EVAN Sent: Sunday, January 17, 2021 3:40 PM To: Ellis, Graham Subject: RE: MA180 Ah that makes more sense! Thanks for getting back to me. Also I just want to thank you for semester 1. The MA180 module was extremely interesting and enjoyable and you’re a brilliant lecturer. Thanks again, Evan Duffy. Hi Graham, I hope this email finds you well. I'm writing to ask about both Quiz 2 accommodations (due to my LENS report I attached in my email for Quiz 1) and transferring to MA160 for semester 2. I would like to request the same accommodations you made for me for Quiz 1 if possible, I have attached my LENS report in this email again for your reference. I have really enjoyed your MA190 course and found myself enjoying maths more than I have before, however I feel as though I am not capable of managing my time and stress well enough to continue in this course, and so am requesting to be transferred into MA160 for semester 2. I would hope I can use my MA190 results as a 'Pass' for MA160, so I don't have to repeat MA160 material and/or assignments before semester 2 begins. Any advice or recommendations on who I must email to complete this transfer to MA160 would be greatly appreciated. Yours sincerely, Ruben Lewis (19401532). Hi Graham, An extension would be much appreciated. I only received my group for the project yesterday. We haven’t received any other information about the project from our workshop tutor and are yet to receive our project topics. On another note, I am really enjoying this module. It is both interesting and challenging and I always look forward to your lectures. Many thanks, Dara Kelly From: GILLANDERS, TOMÁS Sent: Friday, January 22, 2021 2:24 PM To: Ellis, Graham Subject: Re: MA180, Problem Sheet 6 Dear Graham, Thank you very much for the response and the clarification. Happy New Year to you too and thank you very much for everything you did in Semester 1. I very much enjoyed all the lectures. Regards, TomĂĄs