Academia
drorzel | June 9, 2010I'm back in Niskayuna, dealing with mountains of end-of-term paperwork. Which means you get a poll to pass the time:
The best end-of-term evaluation method is:survey software
This poll is brought to you by the number π, the letter q, and the two take-home exams I'm waiting for before I can finish my grading.
terrasig | June 7, 2010As you begin your week, I was hoping that I might impose upon you for some suggestions or examples from your neck of the woods.
Working with my talented and forward-thinking university Web Services colleague, Damond Nollan, I have the opportunity to craft from scratch a website for an academic department.
I've found many examples of good, individual laboratory websites and The Scientist even ran a contest two years ago for such sites.
However, I've not seen much attention on what makes a good academic department website, what people want to see in a departmental website, or good examples of…
drorzel | June 6, 2010A great clip from his World Science Festival appearance the other night, especially the bit toward the end:
"One thing I think that as a nation we should be embarrassed by is that the scientists-- you can do this experiment yourself, I've done the experiment-- the scientists, by and large, know more liberal arts than the science that is known by liberal artists."
Or you can read my longer, less funny version from a couple of years ago. Either way, it's an important message: It should be exactly as embarrassing in educated company to say "I'm no good at math" as it would be to say "I'm no…
jstemwedel | June 4, 2010Even though I got my grades filed last Friday (hours before the midnight deadline), this week I kept encountering colleagues for whom the grading drama Would. Not. End. As you might imagine, this led to some discussions about what one should do when the grade-filing deadline approaches and you are still waiting for students to cough up the work that needs grading.
I'd like to tell you that this is a rare occurrence. Sadly, it is not. Before we get into speculation about why students may be failing to deliver the deliverables, a quick poll on your preferred professorial response:
Final…
drorzel | June 4, 2010Over at Inside Higher Ed they have a news report on complaints about the content of required reading for students entering college. This comes from the National Association of Scholars, a group dedicated to complaining that multiculturalism is corrupting our precious bodily fluids pushing aside the shared heritage of Western civilization, so most of it is pretty predictable. I was surprised by one thing in their list of commonly assigned books this year, though:
What are the freshmen reading? Based on the report's analysis of 290 programs (excluding books that are required parts of courses),…
catdynamics | June 2, 2010Carleton College, MN is one of the very good Small Liberal Arts Colleges in the US.
It houses the Goodsell Observatory and has produced many excellent astronomers, some of whom retain the famous Carleton sense of humour, still.
Goodsell Observatory then
This week, the Observatory got dressed
click to embiggen
With sound effects.
I predict these students will do very well indeed in grad school.
Awesome.
Carleton: Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger - A Capella
jgoldman | June 2, 2010For the Doctoral Candidates at the Keck School of Medicine, Class of 2010, Eric Schulze was asked by his colleagues to give the student commencement address. The theme of his talk was, "Things I Should Have Been Taught About Science."
(video below the fold)
drorzel | May 31, 2010Today is Memorial Day in the US, which is a holiday to honor the dead of our various wars. It's also the traditional start of summer-type activities, and most people spend it at cookouts and parades and that sort of thing. I say "most people," because our trimester calendar means that we're still in session, and today is a class day like any other, except most of the administrative staff are taking the day off.
In honor of this, a poll:
Which of the following holidays is most annoying to have to spend at work?online survey
The serious options in the poll are all official holidays that are…
jgoldman | May 29, 2010
I am exhausted. Today was a very long conference filled day followed by a very long baseball game at Fenway Park. My labmate, who is a bit of a baseball freak, in a moment of sheer brilliance, bought us STANDING ROOM ONLY tickets for the game. And so we stood. For >3 hours. My feet hurt. At least the Red Sox won. Plus it was pretty cool to see Fenway Park.
Figure 1: The view from our standing-room only area.
So here's the tweet rundown from today. I think everything is pretty self-explanatory, so I'll go easy on the commentary. Also, have I mentioned I'm tired?
We'll start with the end…
jgoldman | May 28, 2010
Another awesome day of psychologically scientific hilarity and awesomeness.
The day started for me with a session entitled "Teaching Applied Cognitive Science," given by Roberta L. Klatzky. Fascinating to learn some of the ways that cognitive science gets applied in the real world (some things were even new to me), and also some of the best ways to incorporate these real-world applications into classroom curricula.
I tweeted one thought derived from the session:
Teaching: Disconnect btw apps of psych according to students, profs, and curricula. Should focus on concrete, not just "relevant…
jgoldman | May 27, 2010
Today was the first full day of APS in Boston. Well, sort of. The main APS program began this evening, but starting last night and continuing through the rest of today was the pre-conference APS-STP (Society for the Teaching of Psychology) Teaching Institute, which I attended, and during which I presented a poster.
Here's a review and recap for the conference thus far.
Last night there were only two concurrent sessions, I went to a session on teaching about the chemical senses presented by Debra Zellner and Scott Parker. Demos abound for teaching about visual and auditory sensation and…
drorzel | May 27, 2010
Confessions of a Community College Dean: Thoughts on DIY U
"Eleemosynary institutions have real and serious flaws, but they exist to empower the weak. They are necessary to empower the weak. If you rend them asunder, you will expose the weak to the predations of the strong. This is so fundamental that I'm surprised it even needs to be brought up. If it weren't scandalously unethical, I'd propose an experiment: take two sets of kids who barely got through a weak school district. Send one set to the local community college, and tell the other set it's free to educate itself under digital…
jgoldman | May 26, 2010I have a confession to make. I would wear a pair of jeans any day over something more formal. I just find it more comfortable, and I maintain that you can look just as good in the right pair of jeans as in a pair of, for example, black slacks. As a result, I often try to justify the wearing of jeans in times that, if really pressed, I would probably admit it wasn't entirely appropriate or proper. But then again, jeans can be nice. Jeans can be professional-looking. Obviously I wouldn't wear jeans during the days of a conference in which I'm presenting my work - but what about the other days?…
jgoldman | May 26, 2010
So who is going to be at APS this week in Boston?
I'll be there for both the pre-conference teaching institute as well as the main conference.
Find me presenting a poster during the teaching institute:
Teaching Institute Poster Session - Board: TI-054
Location: Back Bay Ballroom
Date/Time: Thursday, May 27, 2010 11:30 AM - 12:30 PM
And during the main conference:
Poster Session XII - Board: XII-027
Location: Grand Ballroom
Date/Time: Sunday, May 30, 2010 10:30 AM - 11:30 AM
I will also be attending the workshop on scientific writing on Thursday afternoon, the Psi Chi Distinguished…
drorzel | May 26, 2010The conference I'm at this week is the annual meeting of the Division of Atomic, Molecular, and Optical Physics of the American Physical Society (which this year is joint with the Canadian version, the Division of Atomic and Molecular Physics and Photon Interactions, or "DAMPΦ." The Greek letter is a recent addition-- as recently as 2001, they were just DAMP.). As the name suggests, this is a meeting covering a wide range of topics, and in some ways is like two or three meetings running in parallel in the same space.
You can see the different threads very clearly if you look at the different…
jgoldman | May 25, 2010Want to get experience working with marine mammals? The Dolphin Research Center, in Grassy Key, Florida, is looking for interns for the Fall semester, and the deadline to apply is next week!
The DRC is home to a pod of Atlantic bottlenose dolphins (you might recognize A.J. from my banner image, used with permission of course) and a group of California sea lions. While the DRC hasn't yet been hit by oil from the BP oil spill, they are monitoring the situation closely - this may be a great opportunity to learn a ton about marine mammal research and help in the conservation effort.
Check out…
jdupuis | May 25, 2010Another terrific issue. I'm going to list everything but the book & database reviews & reports so as not to clutter the post too much.
Five Voices, Two Perspectives: Integrating Student Librarians into a Science and Engineering Library by Eugene Barsky, Aleteia Greenwood, Samantha Sinanan, Lindsay Tripp, and Lindsay Willson, University of British Columbia
Collection Assessment in Response to Changing Curricula: An Analysis of the Biotechnology Resources at the University of Colorado at Boulder by Gabrielle Wiersma, University of Colorado at Boulder
Browsing of E-Journals by…
jgoldman | May 25, 2010Found this in my inbox the other day. Looks like a cool workshop and a really rich dataset. And the great part is if they accept your application, it is all entirely funded!
The National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) is sponsoring a three-day advanced studies seminar on the use of the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, Kindergarten Class of 1998-99 (ECLS-K) database July 14-16, 2010. The ECLS-K allows researchers to examine the relationships among a wide range of child, family, teacher, classroom, and school variables and children's development and performance in elementary and…