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.
No comments:
Post a Comment