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!