sciencewoman | December 8, 2007doing just about anything than writing multiple choice questions and grading a last set of assignments. Especially, because there's been a number of intriguing articles that have come across my virtual desk in the past week or so, and I'd really like to blog about some of them.
So I just will. But which one to blog about? I'll ask you.
sciencewoman | December 6, 2007I'm all about tricking myself into productivity and rewarding myself when things get done. One way I've done that in the past was to reward myself with $10 guilt-free on iTunes when I got a paper submitted.
I haven't gotten any papers submitted (or resubmitted) yet this fall, but I did write two grant proposals (and received one) and I'm making lots of progress on the revisions (though you wouldn't know it from my counter at left). So I decided that it was time to reward myself a bit. Here's what I got:
Winter Wonderland sung by James Taylor
Masters in this hall sung by Bach Choir (a real…
sciencewoman | December 5, 2007Congratulations to Isha Jain, Janelle Schlossberger, and Amanda Marinoff, this year's prize winners at the prestigious Siemens competitions for high school science research. Jain won the individual competition and was awarded a $100,000 scholarship. Schlossberger and Marinoff will share another $100,000 scholarship for their team research, while Alicia Darnell took home the second place individual prize, a $50,000 scholarship.
That's awesome with no qualifiers. These students are being rewarded for thousands of hours of effort and research that is graduate-level and publication quality. I've…
sciencewoman | December 5, 2007I just caught my first piece of plagiarism. On a throw-away 10 point assignment that required students to write only 2 sentences. That the student in question copied directly from Wikipedia. How dare they!
sciencewoman | December 4, 2007Despite determination and actual effort, I didn't meet my InaDWriMo goal, but I suspect that I am a lot farther along than I would have been without the embarrasment of the little ticker over to the left. As for my other goals, while effort was exerted on those fronts as well, I can't honestly say that anything could be counted as completed. So I've been strongly tempted to restate my November goals again this month.
But instead I think I'll recast them. Maybe it is profgrrrl's post on how she picks a theme for the year rather than setting resolutions. Maybe it was the reflective (and…
sciencewoman | December 4, 2007The December edition of Scientiae, the carnival by, for, and about women in science, has been ably hosted by Kate. She issued the challenging theme of "transcending the debate" and her challenge has been well met. Head over there for some great posts.
sciencewoman | December 2, 2007I'm having a research crisis at the moment (watching a whole line of my post-doc work threaten to disappear in front of my eyes) with an imminent deadline looming. The last day of class is Tuesday and I need to write a lecture, a study guide, and eventually exam. Not to mention grade a bunch of very short assignments. We spent Saturday buying a car, and today grocery shopping and doing laundry and dishes (necessary for continued functioning). Minnow's asleep in her crib (and has been for an hour). Please excuse me if I haven't much to say for this Mommy Monday post, instead I'm going to spend…
sciencewoman | December 1, 2007Kate, our lovely host for the December edition of Scientiae has decreed that the theme is "transcending the debate." Here's my (late) entry. Look for the carnival up around the 3rd.
Much of what I've been blogging about lately has not particularly been about science or about women in science or about women at all. Sleep issues, daycare dilemmas, family-friendly cars, etc. are hardly the terrain I was writing about when I launched this blog 2.5 years ago. But they occupy a lot of my mental space today.
Since moving to Scienceblogs.com, the number of male commenters on this blog has increased…
sciencewoman | November 29, 2007I'm saying a sad goodbye to my trustworthy vehicle of 7 years that has been declared a total loss after a traffic accident last week.
But, I'm excited about the prospect of buying a new car this weekend. We've decided to get a hybrid. I spend too much of my commute stuck in traffic, and it vexes me to lecture my students about carbon emissions and global warming and then go idle in traffic for a half hour.
The question for you is: "Which hybrid should I get?" Do you drive a hybrid? What have your experiences been with it? Would you buy it again?
sciencewoman | November 29, 2007If you'll recall, in mid-October I had a disaster morning and ended up bringing Minnow to class with me. In the comment thread, Tara asked a great question: "What did my students think of it?"
So I asked them. (Honestly, it was the reason for instigating the mid-semester evaluations, which turned out to be helpful in their own right.)
I gave a list of possible answers and let them select multiple choices.
34% said it was "A chance to see that professors are human."
53% said "Great. Bring her anytime."
28% said "Acceptable under rare circumstances, but shouldn't happen on a regular basis…
sciencewoman | November 28, 2007Yesterday in class my students filled out one of those stereo-typical bubble sheet evaluations that supposed to tell me (and the administration) something meaningful about my teaching abilities. I won't see those results until after grades are turned in, but that's OK with me because I didn't find the questions asked on the standard form particularly useful.
Plus, I gave my own evaluation a few weeks ago and those results are already in.
So how's my teaching going?
31% of students said that my general performance was excellent, 47% of students said it was good, 19% said it was acceptable,…
sciencewoman | November 28, 2007Yesterday, after reading all your comments on my last post, and contemplating the sheer inanity of having so little evening time to myself (and my work and the housework...), I decided that we would try a new course with Minnow. Fish and I discussed it and we agreed that after we put her down at night, when she woke up we would do our best to comfort her in her crib as long as it wasn't escalating to screaming. If screaming commenced, we would pick her up, calm her down, and put her back down. We would try this for some gradually increasing number of hours (starting with 2) and then resort to…
sciencewoman | November 26, 2007Introduction: A wise friend has told me more than once that "child development is not a linear process." For example, teeth come in batches, often in fours separated by a few months of non-teething. As another example, just because Minnow is sleeping peacefully in her crib as I started to type this doesn't mean that she will be a peaceful sleeper the next night. As a matter of fact, our journey toward the mythical sleeping through the night* has been anything but peaceful...and anything but linear.
Null Hypothesis: Child development, specifically duration of night-time sleep, is not a…
sciencewoman | November 26, 2007There are less than two weeks of Minnow photos remaining before the grand finale. A couple of donors haven't yet made specific photo requests, leaving me with a lot of leeway in picking photos. If you donated to my DonorsChoose challenge and haven't requested a subject, there's still time.
Here's a photo from the archives (taken in June).
Actually, the pink is the antibiotic (for an ear infection) she managed to spit back out. I suppose I could have done some spectrometry and figured out what fraction of the teaspoon dose she wasn't getting, but instead I did the laundry and was relieved to…
sciencewoman | November 25, 2007My mom has been frenetically cleaning out her house the past few months, in order to make up for saving everything for the past few decades. (un)fortunately for us, she's not making many decisions about what saved stuff should be passed on and what should just be tossed. So the end result is that Minnow (and Fish) have now had a chance to examine the remains of my 6th grade science project.
Original title: Insulating with snow
sciencewoman | November 24, 2007I'm a little late today, but this photo is awesome. And it was highly supervised.
sciencewoman | November 24, 2007My post a few days ago has set people debating what the conventions are for addressing faculty at different universities. It seems that the form of address is highly dependent on where in the world you go to university.
Let me explain where I'm coming from in insisting that my students call me Dr. Woman rather Mrs. Woman. And then I'm going to ask for suggestions for next semester.
In my UG at an old-guard American university, everyone was Dr. lastname, except the really ancient and honorable profs who were Prof. lastname. In grad school, faculty were firstname or first + lastname.
The class…
sciencewoman | November 22, 20071. Happy Thanskgiving everyone. Minnow, Fish, and I are enjoying a mini-Thanksgiving meal of turkey, wild rice, and apple pie. Minnow will be getting her first taste of turkey. Photos will be taken.
2. On this day of feasting and family, take a moment to think of those who are less fortunate than you. This year you might send your compassion (and your money) to victims of Cyclone Sidr that struck Bangladesh last week. The latest news stories report more than 3000 people have been confirmed dead, with fatalities rising hourly. The area that was hit was already impoverished, and these people…
sciencewoman | November 20, 2007After class today, my best student confides to me that the most recent assignment was the toughest thing he's had to do in college so far. I take that as a tremendous compliment.
Why? The students had to get out into nature and observe at least four -ology features. Then they had to succinctly describe the features in 300 words or less.
I like the assignment because it does two things: (1) makes students apply what they've been learning in class to a real-world environment; and (2) learn to write more clearly and concisely. These are the two things that I think college first-years struggle…
sciencewoman | November 20, 2007Example 1: A significant portion of my students address me as "Mrs. ScienceWoman" despite my repeated email signatures, etc. to the contrary. On the other hand, the lecturer with an M.S. next door to me is constantly addressed as "Dr. Lecturer." Guess what gender "Dr. Lecturer" is?
Example 2: I had a meeting with the daycare director this morning and I mentioned that I teach at Mystery U. She said she'd heard that, but didn't think there was anyone in the education department with my name. Hmmm, maybe I'm not in the education department.
I don't think my students or the daycare director are…