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...