Burned out yet?

I'm starting to feel burned out. Not a "I don't like this job" burned out, but a "I wish I didn't sit at my computer in my office until 2 AM every night" sort of burned out. I swear, the super late nights were fun the first few weeks. But now I'm just tired.

I've tried to give myself a break. The past few days included some sleeping in and some going out. Unfortunately, it didn't do a lot of good. It was nice grading with some tasty pretzels and beer, but that only took care of part of the grading. The rest of my grading is still sitting on my desk (or assembled in the electronics lab).

I'm not terribly behind on intro, mostly because I keep prioritizing it. I have my slides together for tomorrow, I have the reading quiz graded, and I've even started brainstorming questions for next week's test. I don't have the homework solutions written up (I have brief notes on most of them), and I don't have a practice test (or equation sheet) together yet. Luckily, because of the test, I don't need to have the next homework created this week. But I will have homework to grade this weekend and a test to grade next week.

Modern feels pretty bad. I graded the test, and it went more-or-less how I expected. The students are not masters of relativity, which I knew. I haven't graded their lab yet, since I was disheartened by none of them knowing what I meant by "draw a schematic". It isn't their fault - they haven't been asked to do labs at this level before. But I feel particularly ineffective as an instructor when I keep finding out after the fact what I should have been teaching them. So, for Thursday, I need to do grading, prep a lecture on solving atomic physics problems, create more labs, and figure out what to teach them about labs.

And then there is electronics. I graded the tests this past weekend and it went better than I expected. Yay! Well, the students did better than I expected. A number of my hardware test questions failed - the students had strange measurements that I saw as well, now. I swear the circuits were working at the beginning of the test. Anyways, we are now moving onto transistors. I knew this was going to be difficult, but it has proven impossible. It turns out I don't remember/understand electronics at all. I wanted to build a demo circuit for them - something cool, like an audio amplifier. I spent hours unsoldering audio connections from an old computer card. Perhaps it was a bad use of my time, given that I can't make the audio amplifier work. I think I understand why, but I can't wrap my head around how to fix it so it actually does what I want.

So the hours I put into electronics this week were all effectively wasted. I don't have the labs (from last week) graded, and I don't have a lab for them to start on tomorrow. I can't quite figure out what will help them learn transistors. And since my knowledge on transistors is so shaky, I must do the lab first. I have some ideas, but they might not work at all. Like the amplifier. This is quite problematic, as I either am staying up all night working on it, or I'm cramming it into about 2 hours tomorrow.

A few weeks ago, I found the prospect of working from 2 AM to 4 AM on the electronics lab exciting. Keep in mind, I have a 10:30 AM class tomorrow. Right now, I'm just tired. I want to go home and sleep. I want to have an electronics lab for the students to do and I want my grading to be done. Sadly, sleep is going to win tonight. And it might not make a difference.

Too many college events!

Apparently, Garrison Keillor - the Prairie Home Companion guy - will be at Agnes Scott at the end of October. Yay! I am particularly excited since Neil Gaiman came while I was on vacation this summer, and at Stanford it was impossible to get tickets to anything. I can't recall the last "big name" author event I went to, but it was probably at MIT.

So, am I going? Well, I already agreed to a different campus event that night at the same time. The college is doing a "professional attire" fashion show at a nearby (but not walking) mall. I agreed to be one of the models. I am excited to be there to learn about appropriate professional attire! They like having faculty be the 'models'. I always like helping physics be more visible among the students.

I'm quite torn. I've already agreed to participate, but it isn't hugely important that I (in particular) participate. There will be more opportunities to see cool authors here at the college, but possibly not Garrison Keillor. Though, Prairie Home Companion will possibly stop in the Atlanta-area someday when they travel.

And honestly, this might be a good teaching lesson. I should sometimes say no! Yes, college events are awesome and I want to participate. But I am rather busy (hello again, 3 AM!) and saying yes to one opportunity excludes other ones. So, Nicole, here is a lesson for you: don't always say yes!

First Test!

I've been incredibly swamped the past 2 weeks. I got a bit behind, because I was sick. Then students started coming for help very often due to the first homework being due in 2 classes... and tomorrow is the first test. I had a lot of grading from the homework, on top of my normal course prep and frequent grading (reading quizzes, electronics labs).

The test is actually helping give me a bit of a breather. I won't have a homework to grade this weekend and I didn't have a lecture to prepare for tomorrow. Because the test is half multiple choice, it won't be too bad to grade. The test is given in a 50-minute class, so it is quite short! I'm still behind in grading for two of my classes, but I have the next homework ready for intro, as well as the solutions. I learned from the first homework: I *must* do the homework before posting it so I figure out if the questions are unclear or impossible. I almost assigned a problem that required a non-analyticallly solvable differential equation. Oops.

I have mixed feelings about the test tomorrow. I've tried so hard to make it not hard. The 2 calculations are very similar to things the students have seen multiple times and can be done in about 5 lines of work each. The 4 multiple choice questions are closely related to clicker questions and workshop problems. I think I have made a test that is closely matched to the content and skills that have actually been stressed in the class so far!

Many students have come to my office this week. They've been working on the practice problems that I assigned, as well as the practice test I posted. Unfortunately I only posted the practice test yesterday and the solutions today, so it may not have been as useful to as many students as I would have liked. Additionally, the practice test sucked (confusing and a little too hard) compared to the real test.

So far, I don't have a lot of information on the preparedness/skills of the students in my class. I have one homework to go off of, the reading quizzes, and my interactions with them. I think that the students who are coming to my office might be some of the stronger students in the class. Most of the international students don't come, and I have a hard time telling whether they are learning - they sometimes have problems due to English comprehension (or understanding expectations), but seem to be really strong at calculations.

I'm really hoping the average will be high on this test - perhaps 80%. However, I might be vastly optimistic. Since there are so few questions on the test, each questions counts for a lot. Some of the multiple choice questions require deep understanding of the material, which makes me think that students could easily miss 2 of them... bringing their grade to a 75%. I'm expecting that the better prepared students will finish within 20 minutes. I'm hoping that helps them gain some confidence! However, if almost everyone finishes within 30 or 40 minutes I will be able to add more questions to the next test.

I expect some students will get less than a 50%. I don't want it to happen, but if a student misses 3 multiple choice questions and struggles with the calculations, it will. I like to be generous with the partial credit, but when the calculations are so simple, it is hard to give a lot of partial credit. Many of the students need to improve their arsenal of problem solving tools - drawing a diagram, sketching a plot, etc.

I really hope that the students who have come to me for help do well. They are putting in so much effort - it must result in learning! Many are in need of a confidence boost, and I worry that their lack of confidence may hurt them. They frequently do not commit to the easy "obvious" approach that they understand (and is right), but instead overcomplicate the problem. They've demonstrated the ability to explain certain concepts to other students - I hope that results in a correct answer on the test!

I'm trying to come up with some ideas of what to do if the test score are really low. Perhaps some meta-cognitive "let's think about your learning/preparation" sessions? Tied to extra credit? I don't want to give A's to every student for the sake of getting A's, but I feel that it is my job to provide every student with the opportunity for success. If they have taken every opportunity that I have provided, and still aren't successful, then I need to do something different!

Not fair!

I've now been sick for almost a week. I'm not the right type of Dr. to be able to fix my health. So far, it seems like DayQuil is helping me function.

I really did try to take it easy and get lots of sleep (like, over 12 hours a day) last weekend. That put me behind for prepping for this week. In addition, I ended needing to step in and run the (tutoring/recitation) section for my Intro class this week... at the last minute. I'm still behind, but I'm almost to the weekend! As bad as this has been, it has been a great learning experience:

1. My colleagues (and students) are very sympathetic. Had I needed/wanted, I'm sure I could have found people to cover my lectures, section, etc. I received some significant help with some in-class problems for Modern (for today) and Intro demos (for tomorrow). There were many offers of people retrieving medicine for me, including students. My cats however, are not sympathetic.
2. I can pull together an Intro lecture in 2 hours. I had a little done before that, but in that 2 hours I pulled together a number of illustrations and clicker questions... including a very "effective" clicker question. I had expected, based on the looks on the students faces, that the question was going to be easy. But, they ended up almost evenly split between all of the options. So, success - I figured out they haven't actually understood the topic and we have a helpful discussion that may have led to learning.
3. I need to see students work on problems. Running workshop (a small optional recitation/tutoring session) was great, in that I was able to access some students' abilities to do calculations. It was... eye opening. I've really stressed conceptual understanding and approaches in lecture, but the students were still approaching physics problems by trying to figure out what equations to use. You know, instead of thinking. I truly shouldn't be surprised, but I had hoped it would be different. Yesterday I had some students in my office asking questions and discussing the homework. I'm worried that none of them will get the last homework problem right. To do it, they need to solve/equate/reduce 3 different equations. I've posted a "hint" (a diagram) to the online course management site - hopefully it helps!
4. My priorities are slightly shooting myself in the foot. I have a block of time set aside for prepping for Electronics. I had hoped to grade their lab notebooks then, but instead, I was helping a student with their Intro homework. I don't regret this, and I'm pretty sure I will continue to prioritize this way. But this cycle: help students when I "should" be doing prep, prep when I should be sleeping (hello 2 AM!)... it isn't helping my health.

Hopefully Modern goes ok today - lots of problem solving! If my brain starts to get medication/cold-addled (like Monday), I'm doomed. Tomorrow's Intro class should be awesome - 2 demos! One will be outside and messy, so that should be good.

Meeting Me (as a teacher)

Am I starting to get the swing of this yet? Maybe. I've gotten into a pattern, though it perhaps is a pattern with less sleep than I had hoped.

There are other patterns I've noticed:

1. My slides are always too long for Intro. But, if I end with 2 or more clicker questions, I don't have to worry about not finishing "content". The clicker questions are useful and important, but don't need to be carried over to the next lecture.
2. I'm very willing to help students (for the most part). Today I went to my "lunch meeting" 45 minutes late because a student wanted help (and I knew our schedules didn't otherwise overlap). I'm happy to have students asking me for help (especially in electronics) and coming to office hours. I think I am much more effective on a 1-on-1 scale then trying to match everyone's learning styles in a lecture.

   But, I've discovered I have my limits. One of the post-bac students asked me for help on homework the other night. This student doesn't know me, but it was close to midnight and I was the only professor around. He had everything set up right, but didn't think the equation could be solved. I told him it could... and he asked if he could come back for more help. My answer was (without thinking) effectively "I'm here this late because I need to get things done", and he didn't come by again. I'm hoping that I haven't made him hate physics or the college.

3. I'm better at "winging it" than I thought I was. In Intro there was a good question that took me down a direction that I didn't have prepared in the slides. While it wasn't perfectly clear (nothing I say in there is), I think I did fine. I used someone else slides for Modern today - I was very nervous about it, but it went far better than anything I could made made - with far less work! I'm also handling the "random" questions ok - it is like I've actually learned things in the past 10 years or something.
4. My LaTeX, Beamer, and PGF(plots) skills help me put together slides and notes pretty quickly. Most importantly, they are slides and notes that I am happy with "on the first try" - no fiddling with alignment and colors. I claimed (long ago) that learning these tools would be worth it, and that is proving to be true.
5. My time/energy management skills are good, but need to be improved. I'm occasionally finding myself staring at my computer, feeling like I need a break. I haven't figured out what my "break" will be yet. Organizing folders? Organizing the electronics lab?
6. I'm complicated. I think complicated thoughts and I write complicated questions. I've decided that some of the students will think Intro lecture doesn't make any sense, no matter what. The thinking process hurts a little, and they might not like it. But, some of what I am saying/drawing/doing probably is too complicated and therefor less clear than it should be. I'm just loathe to skip (important?) details, and I don't want to oversimplify the class. After all, this is the harder physics track!

First Week Finished!

The first day of classes was last Wednesday, so I am officially through the first week. Here is what I have learned so far:

1. Students aren't particularly good at having the book right away, even if it is available as an eBook (that they could purchase and immediately access).
2. 100% completion of the reading quiz is only on the first one.
3. The "Just in Time Teaching" technique really does reveal a lot about students' knowledge and understanding.
4. The Fluke Multimeters keep blowing fuses, seemingly for no reason (but I haven't been a direct witness)
5. Most of the students here are incredibly hard working and intelligent
6. It is easy to make too many computer slides (which I know ends terribly)
7. There is not enough lecture time to cover all of the Intro material in a pedagogically appropriate way, let alone answer all of the questions the students have
8. The first year students haven't yet figured out to call me Dr. (rather than Mrs. or Ms.) Ackerman

Grading the electronics labs was less painful than I expected, probably because the students did so well on it. Finding/creating decent homework problems for Intro has been terrible. While I made progress on course materials this weekend, I'm still not ready for tomorrow!

When I don't remember learning...

I remember when I struggled with many physics topics. I don't remember high school (AP) physics particularly well, but I can recall my experiences in Introductory physics as a freshman at MIT. I remember the feeling of looking at homework and having no idea what to do. I certainly remember my struggles in upper division courses - I was frankly surprised that I was even capable of teaching E&M at the advanced level, since I didn't think I had learned anything about it in the 5 years since I had taken it.

I try to recall these experiences as a way to empathize with the students and to structure my teaching. It isn't enough to teach students the physics concepts and calculations, I must also teach them how to determine what concepts are important for a given problem. I also try to assure them that it is normal for them to struggle with this material and find that it is never perfectly clear. This is especially true with something like quantum mechanics. When I cover QM in a few weeks, I'm sure some of the students will find it upsetting that they can't quite wrap their head around it. At this point in my life, I have taken 6 quantum mechanics classes. I understand it much better than the first time (or second or third) time I took it, but I also have learned to accept that sometimes it doesn't make sense.

I heavily rely on these memories of struggle, but it turns out that I don't have (useful) memories of struggling with math. I certainly struggled with some math at MIT, but they were upper division courses - not the sort of thing that is used in Introductory physics. I don't remember learning Calculus for the first time, or vectors. I certainly can't recall a time when algebra was challenging for me.

Some of my Intro physics students are struggling with vectors, which I did not fully anticipate. It is a much bigger challenge than I expected. I spoke with a math professor (who is teaching Calc II to many of them) who said that many of them haven't encountered vectors in college math. They may have seen them in high school, but they would only see them here in Calc III. So what I assumed would be a 'review' for the students might be the first time they are seeing it.

I want to make sure they understand vectors before I blow ahead into the next section of material, but I'm not sure that another 50 minute lecture on vectors will help much. Additionally, when we get to 2- and 3-dimensional motion they will get more practice with vectors. The 'physics' way of using vectors can be quite different than the 'math' way of dealing with vectors, so I'm not sure that spending lots of time on vectors as an abstraction will actually be useful scaffolding. The current compromise I decided on was:

• Post lots of tutorials (video/text) on vectors that the students can choose to utilize
• Have some 'hands on' practice with vectors (from a math point of view) in Workshop this week
• Not put vectors on the first homework
• Make sure I drill vectors when we get to physics applications of the vector
• Think hard about how this can be improved for next year

I wish I remember learning vectors, but I don't. This week we will start using calculus, which I know will be a challenge for some of them. The derivatives they need to do are relatively simple, but many of them are learning about integration for the first time in Calc II right now. We'll start applying it to physics on Friday! I also don't remember learning Calc for the first time...

I survived the first week!

• 2 Introductory Physics Lectures
• 1 Modern Physics lecture
• 1 Demo for Modern Physics
• 1 Electronics "lecture"
• 1 Reading Quiz (intro) graded

I survived the first week, and it was even fun! It is much harder and way more work than I expected. I'm concerned about how I will be ready for the coming week - and I get Monday off!

I'm loving Introductory physics, but I can anticipate that I will not be able to teach all of the students as much as I want to. I've spent a good portion of the first two lectures setting up class structure and expectations. But even without that, it doesn't feel like I have enough time to adequately cover the content. A large portion of the students are feeling uncomfortable with vectors. I don't think the 30 minutes on it today helped much. I want to make sure they understand the basics, but I can't spend all semester on vectors.

The students are amazing. They are showing up on time and are very engaged in lecture. I had 100% completion rate on the first reading quiz. I'm optimistic that many of them will utilize the additional resources that I am posting on our online course management system. I know that not all of them will, and that some of the students who are struggling the most will be the ones without the skills to push themselves to do additional problems. I'm getting fewer students using the clickers than I would anticipate. I'm unsure if they need more time, or if they are unsure of the answer so don't want to 'vote'. I'll need to address that soon.

Electronics has also been amazing. I had them do an assignment before the first day. It is amazing - they all did it! We had a great discussion on the content of the worksheet on the first day of class. I also had them do a group activity, and it went much better than expected. Yay! I now need to get the second worksheet posted and prepare the second lab activity.

I made the first electronics lab way too long. I knew it would be long, but I think I still underestimated the time it would take them by a factor of 2 or 3. Ick. I do think I did a good job on the pedagogy behind the lab. I've seen students run into the type of problem that I was hoping they would see now and figure out how to debug. One student spent many hours in lab last night, and had many questions. I am somewhat worried that I won't be able to stay far enough 'ahead' of the students in my own preparation to adequately help them. Since the class ended up 50% bigger than expected, there isn't extra equipment that I can use to prepare the next lab. I have to use the students' equipment, which is fine as long as I am working on the lab before every student has started or after at least one student has finished.

Modern physics went ok. Since I hadn't expected the students to do any "beefy" reading yet, I wanted to mostly have a 'hook'. I showed them one motivational demo, and then we measured the speed of light. Aligning the laser was a huge pain, and we got far fewer data points than I had hoped for. I ended up asking them to fit the line for the measurement on their own, rather than do it in class. Hopefully that works out. I've looked at the data and we actually did fine on the measurement, even though we only had 3 points!

Modern is now the class I feel least sure about. The first day wasn't indicative of how the rest of the class will go. Additionally, I am less sure the best way to combine mini-lectures with group activities and interactive demos. Since there are 7 students, it is slightly too big to have everyone truly participating when doing things as a whole class. However, clickers feel superfluous. It is the course that I was most comfortable with how it has been taught in the past, but I now really need to figure out what lectures will look like.

Then there is everything that isn't lecturing. I graded my first reading quiz. It was somewhat a disaster, but I think I know how to better format it in the future. I had my first departmental meeting today! I enjoy meetings more than the average person. I'm sure that will change eventually. But this department meeting was great - we went quickly, had clear action items, and are implementing lots of new things. Because the department is small, there is no huge inertial mass (momentum) that opposes change. At the same time, we have reasonable financial resources and everyone is excited to try new things. I'm sure it won't be that awesome at the faculty meeting I get to go to next week.

This job is amazing. I'm getting less sleep than I did for most of grad school, and I expect that to be constant for most of this semester. I'm freaking out about how I will be ready for the next day, and whether I am teaching the students in a way that they can learn. I want to involve a student in my research, which I don't have time to start.

Even after the novelty has worn off, I will still love working with the students. I will still love my colleagues in the department and whole college. I will love the college's mission. I will love this job for a very long time. Right now, I am shocked that they pay me to have this much fun.

New Faculty Life: Night Before Jitters

It is 11 PM. I am teaching my first class as an Assistant Professor in less than 12 hours. I am feeling excitement, but also terror. There is so much that I haven't been able to do this summer, including in terms of course preparation. I could list so many things that I wish I had ready right now. For tomorrow. But, that will only increase the negative emotions. So, let me focus on the positive...

I am moved in to my office. I am moved in to my house. I know my way around campus, and a number of faculty and staff. I have syllabi written and posted to Moodle in all 3 of my classes. I have at least a week of material posted to Moodle in all 3 classes, as well as settings tweaked.

I have a nicely balanced lecture planned for Intro physics tomorrow. The students will learn a little about the structure of the course and how it will contribute to their learning. We will discuss actual physics - with a dash of math - but hopefully at a level that doesn't scare anyone off. There will be a demo! There will be a clicker question! There will be discussion! I think it will set the tone, pace, and expectations of the class well. I have a sign-in sheet printed, copies of the syllabus, and a rainbow sign telling students to take a copy of the syllabus (since there are multiple doors coming into the room). I have a contingency plan for the impossible situation that I have extra time, and some options to make things go faster if/when I am running behind.

I have the first Electronics labs written and printed. I have (repeatedly) reminded the students to come to class ready to discuss the first worksheet. I have checked the batteries in the equipment they will be using tomorrow, as well as making sure they have the right cables. I have distributed wire and partitioned the resistors they will be using. I have prepared a few demos. I have notes on what I want to talk about.

I have a plan for the first day (Thursday) of Modern Physics. I have an experiment prepared that we will do as a group (though I need to do the final set up). I have a demo that will hopefully get them thinking and help them transition into "Modern" physics. I have the first reading quiz posted.

I still have long lists of what I need to do. There is a lot more that I would like to have done tonight... but I'm going to go home and pet my kittens. I'll probably eat some food. I'll be reading the textbook for Electronics as well, but hopefully I can be to bed by 1 AM. I want to get up around 8 AM for my first day teaching. Oh my god.

Convocation, with a dash of Service

This morning is Convocation. I am very excited - I get to wear my robes! And, I rather enjoy rituals. I expect that this will be similar (in some ways) to some of the formal Sorority ceremonies I participated in during college: I take it seriously while many others don't care. I don't mean that in a negative way. But, I've already been warned that the faculty do not really abide by the procession order that I've been studying.

Today is a milestone in another way: I've been asked to do my first 'service' duty. No College service is expected from new faculty their first year, but this is a relatively minor physics-diversity thing. I'm excited to do it! I just need to make sure that I don't say the same thing about too many other service tasks, at least this semester.

Tomorrow is the first day of classes. Last night I worked on polishing my lecture for day 1 of Intro. Class is 50 minutes long - my lecture is about 70 minutes. I haven't entirely figured out how to solve this - I won't let myself cut down on the discussion time that I have allocated in places! Since I'm ending with a demo, it is important I don't run out of time. I might be doomed...

OMG, Students!

New students arrived on campus on Friday. I had no real reason to interact with them, but I ended up talking to two new students. It was glorious! One was a bit lost, so I walked with her until we found an orientation co-ordinator (given that I wasn't actually helpful). The second sat with me at lunch, clearly not guessing I was faculty (I was wearing grungy clothes).

Today was the Departmental Fair. I had extremely high hopes of having a cloud chamber demo. I tried. I failed. I think the problem might be the alcohol I am using; it is 95% ethanol which might not be pure enough. Most people use pure isopropanol or methanol. My back up plan was the Wimshurt machine. That also didn't work! Presumable humidity was the problem; it worked excellently in April.

Feeling like a scientific failure, I was kept up quite late by the kittens and thought about what else I could do. I recalled a cool circuit that responded to 'touch', but couldn't actually find record of such a thing in the Art of Electronics lab manual. A bit of googling resulted in something similar, which I had working fairly quickly and took with me to the Fair.

My circuit ended up being a bit more successful than I anticipated. I encouraged people to touch some bare wires - an LED would come on, but then stay on when they removed their finger. Touching different wires would turn it off. A few people were surprised that it stayed on, even after their finger was no longer completing the circuit. Some people seemed to be too resistive, and it didn't work for them. The mathematicians didn't trust me.

The best part of the fair, of course, were the students. I wasn't particularly helpful, since I don't actually know departmental/college policies yet. And most of the students wanted to ask about Astronomy. But, I got to meet at least one student that I will have this fall and talk to others who seemed really enthusiastic - I think I'll see them soon. My favorite quote of today "I want to learn everything!".

I definitely need to get my act together for the first day of classes on Wednesday. I have a lot left to do! I am still inventorying electronics components (they keep appearing in new places), but I also want to practice my lecture for the first day of class for each of the classes. And I need to put together more reading quizzes, homework, lab guides, etc.

On Tuesday, we have Convocation. I don't think MIT or Stanford had such a thing... or else I didn't go. But this time I get to wear my fancy-schmancy robes. The science building has a special closet for us to keep our robes in. I know that faculty eventually get sick of going to these sorts of things, but it is particularly exciting when it is my first one!

On Thursday, I have a meeting with a senior administrator of the college to talk about establishing a new scholarship. I've already pulled some notes together for the meeting. I don't know if this will be easy, or if I'll really need to do some work. But, this is part of why I wanted to be at a small college - I can easily set up meetings to talk with the person in charge of anything. I'm particularly excited to get this scholarship going - of course, setting up a meeting to talk to someone is easy, but creating the scholarship might be hard. It seems like it should work, both strategically and based on the values of the college.

I've been enjoying my 'job' this summer, but now it really starts since students are here. This job rocks!

One week to go! Yikes!

Yep, I don't feel ready. I felt fine, a few weeks ago. But now I'm looking at my non-populated course webpages, and I'm feeling dread. I knew there was no way that I would have all three classes finished (for the entire semester), but I certainly hoped I would be farther along than I am.

Part of the problem is the other things that are starting to appear and fill in the time that I would otherwise be making progress on course materials. Tomorrow I have a Title IX training. It is important, but it won't help me make lecture notes and homework. There is also a welcome party. I'm excited for this, but it is a potluck. I have to take some sort of food item. I went grocery shopping today, and did the first step of cooking. Tomorrow, after the Title IX training, I'll finish the cooking before I get picked up for the party. Fun, yes, but still another item on the agenda.

Prioritizing is challenging right now. There is the "minimum" I must do for the first day of each class, and then there is what I would need to do to feel comfortable. I have an outline of what I want to cover in each class (and the first lab guide for electronics), but I haven't timed it or gone through it in detail. I never did an inventory of the electronics components we already have, and I'm pretty sure I could use a few more components in the first lab (due to another student registering). I'm trying to pull together a list of the components I anticipate wanting (without having the exact lab guides written up), so that I can put in a component order ASAP.

Lastly, there is all of the non-class "stuff". I've signed up to help with an orientation excursion - to a baseball game. I got a book on the physics of baseball in anticipation of this - clearly I don't have to read it, but I like the idea of being able to explain some of the neat physics limitation in baseball at the game... given that I can't say anything intelligent about baseball.

The other big "time commitment" right now is preparing for the Departmental Fair this Saturday. I want to have fun physics demos. This is one opportunity to reach students who might never consider physics as a major - a student might walk by and see something cool and I could talk to her and possibly get her to take Intro. Possibly. I'd love to do a Cloud Chamber. I've procured an aquarium, but I need to do some modifications and get the alcohol and dry ice... and see if I can make it work. I've also though about doing Oobleck on a speaker, but I'd need to get an appropriate speaker. All of this, of course, by Saturday.

This week I've felt very tired. I hope that actually teaching will energize me a bit - I do love being in a classroom. Right now I don't know whether I should try to relax a little and 'take a break', or push myself harder to make some progress. I need to feel "better" some how, in a week, but usually being prepared is what it takes to make me feel good!

Measuring Modern Physics

Modern physics has the reputation of being esoteric - it is something to calculate, but can't be measured. This is wrong! While certain aspects of Modern Physics needs specialized equipment (say, a kilometer-long accelerator), plenty of it is accessible in a standard undergraduate lab.

On the first day of Modern, we are going to measure the speed of light.

Today, in a few minutes, I measured Planck's constant (within 5%!) - a fundamental constant in quantum mechanics. (I'm going to buy a few dollars worth of material, and hopefully we'll be able to get it to 1% or better then.)

My job is so awesome.

What grade do I expect in this class?

I've read that it is helpful to have students think about (and report to the instructor) what grade they expect to earn in a given class. The phrasing can be chosen to remind the students that they must work for the grade. It is helpful to know what students are going for a 'C' - talking to the student could reveal a lack of confidence (which could be addressed), or an incredibly busy semester (which might just need to be accepted).

What grades do I expect to earn this semester? In K-12, a large part of my identity was connected to my grades. (Perhaps too large a part of my identity is still connected to my grades from K-12.) In college, my GPA was far from perfect, but I knew that I was taking hard classes. In some cases, working my butt off was barely (or not even) enough to pass. In grad school, I knew that grades and classes were nowhere near as important as research. I survived writing my dissertation by telling myself it didn't need to be "A"-level work. It needed to be done, not perfect. I succeeded - it is done, but certainly not perfect!

Unlike my dissertation, my teaching this semester will actually be evaluated, though I won't receive a grade, per se. Am I aiming for an "A"? It feels like I am. However, it also feels like an unrealistic goal. I'm teaching 3 different courses, and I should also be doing research. Can I get an "A" in all 4 of my tasks? It doesn't seem possible. I'm trying to set up a good syllabus and pull in many pedagogical techniques that have been shown to be effective. I'm also trying to structure the courses in a way that will be sustainable all semester, with regards to prep and grading. Unfortunately, I've already hit conflicts between "reasonable time commitment on my part" and "good teaching".

I want to use pre-lecture quizzes. This is not a technique that I have used in the past, but is supposed to be effective in a number of ways. Some instructors use online quizzes to make sure the students are doing the reading before lecture. This is what I had planned to do. However, I started read a book on "Just in Time Teaching" and there are faculty who report varied success with this technique. Apparently, multiple choice questions result in unhappy students... I was hoping to do multiple choice questions, as a way to minimize my grading. Instead, the book stresses using "essay" type responses. This is a much better way to assess student understanding, but it will take longer to "grade" and compile the results.

Do I go ahead with my multiple-choice 'reading quizzes', or do I switch to a system of 'pre-lecture questions'? One is much easier - the online system can handle the grading, and I can pull multiple choice questions from the instructor materials included with the book. However, these types of questions might not be effective at doing anything other than annoying students. Switching to the "better" questions will require a number of changes. First, I'll have to find sources of good questions for my class. Second, I'll need to change the frequency and time-window that students can take do 'pre-lecture questions'. Third, I'll need to change the syllabus. Finally, I'll have to make sure I have time to actually read through the responses and prep lecture!

One of my priorities is to keep to my syllabus. So if I say that there will be 2 pre-lecture questions due the night before every lecture, I want to be able to hold myself to that. Likewise, I don't want to specify that there will be multiple-choice questions once a week and then see that they aren't working. Sure, flexibility is important. But I like to think of the syllabus as a "contract", and proof of the plan that I have for the semester. If I'm not sure about something, I'd rather leave it somewhat flexible on the syllabus than change it during the semester.

This job is hard. I knew that it was going to be, and I'm still really excited about being faculty. I'll be even more excited when there are students! But what do I think I can actually achieve this semester? "A"s in teaching, and a "C" in research? With my experiences at MIT, I think it might be possible... as long as I barely sleep, don't socialize, and de-prioritize my health. MIT taught me (ah, junior year) that I can pull of such amazing feats for one semester. Is it worth it? The only other option I see is to accept that my teaching might be at the "B" level. I know there will be room for improvement no matter what, it is just very difficult to create a plan for the semester that has obvious flaws in it.

Life as New Faculty: Technology!

I'm trying to sort out how to use laboratory experiments in my Modern Physics class. I plan on doing one lab as a "demo" on the first day - measuring the speed of light with a modulated laser. I think it is a cool experiment, and one that is finicky enough (and a little risky with the laser alignment) to do as a group. I had read the lab guide, which I found in a folder of past course material. "Cool" - I thought - "but what laser do I use?" Then, wandering around the Modern Physics Lab, I found a shelf... labeled "Speed of Light", with all of the equipment and the instruction manual. I got it working in less than an hour, a good fraction of which was spent looking for appropriate laser safety glasses. Because I am a big wimp.

Awesome, now I have a demo for the first day of class. Then the question was: how to do the data analysis as a group. I figure I will slap together a python program (basically, fit to a line) that will make it easy to enter in the data and quickly get the result. But I want to be able to show the class the data - I suppose it is a small enough class, we can just crowd around my laptop... but my classroom does have an AV system.

And what an AV system it is! I've met some nice AV systems before. There is a touch-screen interface, so you push one button and the screen rolls down and the projector warms up and then you tell it to use the laptop output (which Ubuntu can do nicely these days!) and maybe you can even control the room lights. But this goes beyond that. Way beyond. In addition to the "screen" and "projector" options... it can control the curtains. There are about 4 windows in the room, with "black out" roller blinds and a screening roller blind. And the AV system can control the blinds.

Clearly, I live in the future and work in a very fancy building.

Life as New Faculty: 2.5 Weeks to go!

I spent about a week "taking it easy". My mother visited and we spent lots of time at Ikea. Then I got two kittens and a friend stayed for a few days! While I felt very busy, almost none of that time was spent at work.

I'm finding that I need to push ahead with details of my syllabi when I don't have all of the information. I'm trying to track down information on the student-led tutoring session that will be held from my Intro Physics class, but it appears as if no one currently knows. I can e-mail some additional people, or I can give up and just not have those details on my syllabus. I've already hit one scheduling problem: avoiding religious holidays. I spent time trying to lay out my tests around vacation days (Thanksgiving, Fall break), as well as major college events. *Then* I looked up the major religious holidays this fall and found out that I managed to place both of my Electronics tests (and one Intro test) on Jewish holidays. I have no idea what percentage of the student population here is Jewish, and my electronics course is so very small. I decided to leave the tests as scheduled, and added a specific sentence on the syllabus about re-scheduling tests for students if they conflict with religious holidays.

I think I am "done" with my Modern syllabus, and very close to done with my Electronics syllabus. There are still some details to work on for the Intro Syllabus, but the schedules of assignments and lectures are finished. The college (helpfully) has a "Syllabus Checklist" that I have been using. It is fairly well in-line with what I would want to put on a syllabus. I find that many of the "example" syllabi that I have seen are 2-4 pages here. My syllabi are 7 or 8 pages! Hopefully this will work out for the best.

The downside to the length is that students might not read the whole thing. Some faculty believe that it is important to dedicate time in the first class to the syllabus to stress its important. Others feel that lecture should be spend on science. I'm going to try the second approach - since I am 'requiring' students to read the textbook, I might as well require them to read the syllabus as well. For intro physics, I will have some questions on the syllabus on the first reading quiz.

I have the first "reading quiz" entered in for Modern. That was easy, since I got most of the questions from the previous faculty member. I've typed in some questions for the first "reading quiz" for Intro, but I'm not finished with it. I'm about 1/3 of the way done with the first lab for Electronics. I need to go back and do some work on the pre-class worksheet for Electronics relatively soon. I've e-mailed the students to let them know that they will need to do work for the first day of class. I hope they don't hate me already! Students don't yet have access to the online course system - I don't know when that will happen. But I'd like to have the first week of materials up on there before that...

This coming week I have New Faculty Orientation. It is a joint session for full-time (tenure track) and contract (adjunct) faculty. It is only a half day, and it looks like it focuses on resources and policies that I either have already used/learned about, or things that I wish I knew a month ago! I'm sure I will get something out of it, and it will be a good opportunity to meet other new faculty. It also serves as a marker that the academic year is really beginning and that the summer is almost over.

I had an amazing nightmare last night. In it, my PhD advisor was telling me that I had to do another defense. The defense I had (back in May) was to get my PhD, but I had to do a second one to show that I was ready to be a professor. This is particularly amazing in that it simultaneously was a few different types of nightmares: the "you didn't really finish your degree" nightmare, and (presumably) the "tenure evaluation" nightmare. It also was a terrible reminder that I haven't made progress on research this summer: either my "old" grad-school research, or my "new" research. Yikes! If only those kittens could type...

New Faculty Life: All in the Details

You know how some people prefer Coke to Pepsi? A similar preference exists in the higher education community: The Chronicle of Higher Education versus Inside HigherEd. I've been a Chronicle reader for some time at Stanford - a weekly newsletter highlighted articles on faculty life, academic disputes, grad students, and general whining from the Ivory Tower. However, I have now turned off that newsletter and subscribed to Inside HigherEd. Why? Well, Chronicle is not free and Inside HigherEd is. Stanford had an institutional subscription to the Chronicle, so I didn't have to pay. Agnes Scott doesn't seem to have an institutional subscription, so I'm happy to give the free one a try!

I got to speak with a student today. It was very exciting! She is doing an internship here on campus this summer that involves writing faculty profiles. We were supposed to chat for 20 minutes, but it became (over) 90 minutes. It was great - we discussed quantum physics, philosophy, literature, and my research. See, this is why I'm here at Agnes Scott: the students. This "summer gig" of course planning and reviewing papers is not entirely what I signed up for. It is just the appetizer to actual teaching and interacting with students.

I've sent my first "professor" e-mails - asking my Electronics students about how they would like to procure the textbook. I'm usually overly thoughtful in my e-mails (ie, I overthink the details), but I felt it would be important to get a number of things right this time: my excitement to teach them, sufficient information, and not too long... I had a small crisis when I realized I didn't know how to "sign" the e-mail. Here at Agnes Scott, students tend to refer to their faculty as "Dr Lastname". But, it feels very strange for me to sign an e-mail as "Dr. Ackerman". I'm concerned that if I sign the e-mails "Nicole" that they may think I want them to call me by first name (which I don't). Because it is the culture here, and because I am relatively young, I would prefer the students to call me Dr. Ackerman. See - I overthink the details.

I'm getting better at requesting free textbooks. Visiting a publishers website, I noticed a message about the "free return postage" on books that are no longer needed/wanted. What? Who would not want a book anymore? I understand that they don't want the free instructors' copies floating around and being sold. But, they don't actually expect me to send any of these books back, right?

Life as a New Faculty Member: Should I freak out about tenure yet?

I'm having a pretty great week. I'm thrilled with the progress I have made on laying out my classes. I have amasses a significant number of resources to use in my teaching. I've reviewed two manuscripts this week. As far as I can tell, I'm much better at being a faculty member than being a graduate student!

So, should I be documenting my competency? Should I be keeping a log of all of the work I am doing to plan for classes? Would it be valuable to keep a list of all of the books I have evaluated for class and rejected? This would all have potential value - boosting my confidence, being a resource for future course planning... but would it help me with tenure?

Ah yes, I have hit the first level of craziness of a new faculty member. I'd like to think I'm not doing too bad (regarding the tenure crazies). I'm not panicking about whether I am doing the correct things to get tenure, I'm just not sure how to best document the things that I am already doing. I know there is some yearly form about professional activities, so I should be keeping track of concrete things like reviewing manuscripts. But what about the less concrete things, like evaluating a pile of textbooks? I know that it is an expected part of my job, but the whole point of tenure documentation is to show that you have been doing your job!

This has helped me realize (remember?) that I should find some mentors. The other physics faculty members are great and have been a huge help with many things - but it has been a while since they have gone through the tenure process, which constantly changes. Hence, I need to find some science faculty who have more recently gone through the tenure process who are willing to mentor me. Ideally more than one, in case my chosen mentor ends up being one of my tenure evaluators!

I expect that I may find out some helpful information during new faculty orientation (though that isn't just for tenure-track), but since I find myself ahead of schedule on everything else, I might as well try to get the ball rolling on the evaluation process. As easy as it is to put tenure out of my mind, I have a third year evaluation as well!

Week 4: One month to go!

I've made progress on almost everything in the past week. Most importantly, I feel like the fall courses are beginning to come together. I've laid out the topics for 2 out of 3 of the classes and have pulled together a number of resources for all three classes.

Electronics is the course I was most worried about, since I wanted to revamp the labs and the textbook. I've now been able to examine a number of textbooks from different publishers - I dislike so many things about them all! I'm still struggling to know exactly how much material we can cover in a week since I have so little classroom time with the students. It is difficult to reference other courses that have 2 labs a week and 1-3 lectures, when I'll only have about 1 hour of contact time a week. Luckily I've found a great resource for helping students to "teach themselves" electronics, which I will rely heavily on.

The labs are still a challenge for electronics. I can't easily recycle the labs that were previously used here since I want to cover the material in a different pace/way. There is a lab manual with the textbook that I plan to use, but it is extremely specific regarding the equipment (which is, of course, different from ours). At this point, I'm planning on modifying labs from the Art of Electronics Student Manual. I'm trying to avoid falling in to the trap of "I'll make this course just like the one I took", especially since the course I took was a graduate course! But I remember the labs being good, and the "graduate" level challenge primarily coming from the calculations and final project.

The next step is to get in to the electronics lab and start drafting up the first few labs. I know what content I want them to cover, so I need to verify that we have the correct equipment and that what I have in mind won't take the students 20 hours to do. I don't yet know the "conversion factor" between how long it will take me to do something, compared to the students. A factor of 3? I've already gone into the lab to play with the oscilloscopes. I consider myself pretty good with a scope, but these kicked my butt! They are analog scopes and the menus are far from intuitive. I was, of course, trying to start by looking at a very complicated (and unknown) waveform that I couldn't trigger on. After deciding the problem must be the scope, I tried the function generator and discovered that the scope was fine. I think I figured out most of lab 2 in the process!

I also have the topics laid out for Modern Physics. This isn't too hard, since I am sticking very closely to the way that the class has been taught in the past. Of course, there are multiple ways that it has been taught in the recent past, so I need to decide what type of projects I want the students to do. The labs for this course are also a challenge - I have documents for about 6 different labs, but a few of them haven't been done recently. I'm going to simplify my life by planning on incorporating about 3 labs into the course this year. I have a list of everything I want to do for next year, and it includes trying more labs and inventorying the equipment to see if there are other labs we could do. Originally, I had hoped to do all of these things this summer... but I'm starting to run out of time.

This week, part of my times has still been taken up with house-related issues. Yesterday the washing machine was fixed. While that was great, I had to be home to wait for the mechanic to show up. On Monday, a Tech came to fix the internet. Of course, the internet was working when he came, but stopped shortly after he left. I suppose this is a lesson from moving, in general, but I didn't expect to still be spending 20% of my time dealing with house stuff right now. I suppose it wouldn't be as bad if I wasn't living by myself. I feel sorry for the new faculty who are arriving in August!

Unfortunately, I put off reviewing the two papers. Last night I started to tackle one of them, which had originally looked pretty good. The science is fine... but had this been someone's lab report, I think I would have given them a B-. I need to finish up those comments and start on the second paper, ideally getting the comments in today! This is a good lesson for me: don't try to review a manuscript in one sitting, because I'll get too angry at the authors after about 2 hours.

The biggest lesson from the week is that I'm working too hard. I think I'm still going at the same pace that I went this spring - finish the thesis pace! I get up in the morning (not that early, typically), eat breakfast and get ready and go in to my office. Sometimes I come home for lunch, but if I'm going in after 11 I tend to just pack some snacks. I've been coming home for dinner around 6 or 7, and then usually going back to work. One day this week I went to a great restaurant downtown, but took a book on teaching physics with me. Because of internet problems I haven't been able to do much computer work at home, but I've been doing the refereeing at home.

Because I've made so much progress this week, I shouldn't feel too worried that I won't be ready to go on the first day of classes. I need to try to set up a little balance in my life. I shouldn't feel bad if I don't work 10 hour days, or if I actually don't do work one (weekend) day. The question is - what do I want to do instead of work? The weather hasn't been particularly conducive to biking or walking around the city. I'd like to have a paycheck in the bank before I do more shopping or eating out. My kitchen isn't set up well enough for me to have people over for dinner (and I am lacking a dining table).

I have a lot to look forward to in the next week. My mom is coming for a few days, which will result in the house (hopefully) being completely set up! Yay! It will be great to show her all of the cool things around Decatur. Of course, I won't get (much) work done while she is here. That might be good practice! Next Sunday, I will pick up my kittens. I've already bought supplies for them, so I just need to do some cleaning right before they come.

Week 3: Time to do work!

The past two weeks have brought to me everything I need to get work done.

1. My crates arrived from California! Wonderful people helped me unload them. I prioritized getting them unloaded, so at this point, almost of my "stuff" at home is unpacked and set up. It seems as if everything survived, which is great.
2. I brought my science books to campus, as well as the equipment I brought with me from California. Hence, my office feels like I've "moved into" it. It is still more messy than I would like, and my incredibly large number of books barely made a dent on the bookshelves. Awesome!
3. I ordered office supplies and received them quickly. There was a small delay because of transitioning fiscal years. This is an interesting lesson: ordering things at the beginning of July will have the most delays. Now I can make folders! My need to color-code things is perhaps a little over-the-top...
4. My office computer showed up! This is, of course, the most important thing. Originally IT (or ITS, as it is called here) had a delivery date of 7/31, but they were able to knock a few weeks off that for me. I'm now struggling to learn Windows, but it isn't going terribly.
5. I'm now trying to get my needed software/tools on the work computer. I've managed to copy (most) of my backed-up files onto it. I've installed Dropbox and Chrome and the main Chrome extensions that I use. Now the big challenge: emacs and LaTeX and all of the Linux goodies I'm used to. I'm trying to follow the steps listed here to get my Ubuntu toys working inside Windows. Unfortunately, it looks like the VMWare "unity" feature won't work with newer versions of Ubuntu.
6. I've gotten a crash course in using Moodle, the internet-based course tool that is used at Agnes Scott. It has a lot of great functionality, but I have to do a lot of work to do the initial set up.
7. I received two manuscripts to review! I like reviewing papers, and it is a nice reminder right now that I do have some sort of expertise.

I'm still waiting for the textbooks that I ordered during the first week of July. I think I know what textbook I will use for Electronics, since it is available as a PDF I have been able to preview it already. Of course, the book is just a detail. I still have a lot of work ahead of me to figured out the labs for electronics.

I have fewer obstacles preventing me from planning Intro Physics and Modern. Now that I have my office supplies, I can use the complicated technique that I learned in the Course Design Course - color coded post it notes! I can start laying out many parts of the Syllabi for both courses. Because I use LaTeX for documents like that, I need to get that working first.

I'm not feeling super rushed for time yet, though rationally I know that I am. It seems like I make progress every day, but I also keep having a number of stupid delays and distractions. I hoped to have a productive evening last night, and packed dinner. But, the fire alarm was going off at the Science Building. I was mildly productive at home, but certainly did not achieve what I hoped to.

Life as a new faculty member: Week 1

I've reached the end of my first week at Agnes Scott College and have mostly been pleasantly surprised. People here - perhaps it is a 'Southern' thing, or particular to Agnes Scott - are amazingly nice and helpful. This has made the week be very fun and not too overwhelming.

The biggest frustration so far is the timescales involved. I need to be ready with 3 different courses by August 28th. This is a very fixed deadline! For one class, I'm trying to find a new book. I'd like to get 'examination' copies of a few different textbooks to determine which one best meets the goals of the course. To request exam copies, I must have a registered profile with the publisher. I've started that process, but they must verify that I am actually a faculty member teaching a relevant class. I don't know how long that will take, and *then* they send the book and I can start reviewing it. So I might not be choosing the book for one of my classes until the end of July, which feels way too late for me.

I've been positively surprised by how much has already been done for me. I met with IT to discuss computers - they've already been ordered! Unfortunately they were aiming to have them ready at the end of July, but they said they would try to accelerate the process for me. My phone line has already been set up and my profile information is visible on the website. Things rarely happened this efficiently at MIT or Stanford, especially little details like website updates.

I've been challenged by juggling the 'personal' and 'work' things I need to take care of. I feel like I must start on course planning, but I also need to set up furniture and do shopping trips. Living across the street from campus had led to a lack of compartmentalization - I've spent afternoons at home and evenings at work, occasionally popping to the other for 5 minutes. I'm trying to cut myself some slack - now is the time to spend all day at Ikea, because I won't be able to do it when classes have started.

I have some panicked moments where I think that I won't have my courses together or that I don't know enough to be teaching these classes, but those moments are few. Mostly I've been excited about discovering aspects of my new life here. There are fireflies here! I haven't seen fireflies much in the past 10 years. My office comes with a (second) lab space! My house has so many closets! There are ginormous butterflies! I'm having great conversations about teaching with my colleagues that help me feel like a peer and that I will be ready for the fall. Only once has someone said I look like a student...

Next week: Will the publishers really send me a bunch of free books? Will I succeed in ordering office supplies? Does anyone know what my password is to get to voicemail?