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.