goal setting

What I'm working on

sciencewoman — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 14:59:37 +0000

What I'm working on

I'm not going to apologize about lack of posting over the last month or so, and I'm not going to make any promises for the future. That said, here's what I'm up to for InaDWriMo this month.

Here's what I wrote at ring-leader Dr. Brazen-Hussy's kickoff post:

Finish revisions on the paper-that-won't-die (goal: November 6)
Internal release time application (due November 15)
NSF proposal (due ~December 1)

After one week, I haven't finished the revisions, but I'm 90% done. No question as to me getting it done this week. I've got 3 pages of first draft of the 5 page release time application. This also will be finished this week, because it has to be finished. And...I've given up on the NSF proposal.

A combination of things (less free-time this month than anticipated, re-reading one of last year's InaDWriMo posts, assessing what I could ask of collaborators) made me realize that the NSF proposal was simply an unreasonable goal for the month. At best, I'd throw together a piece of shit application, give my new collaborators inadequate time to improve it, and get terrible reviews in my first PI NSF application. So, while a 6-month delay in getting this exciting new research plan submitted is a bitter pill to swallow, there's no question that it is a good decision.

Instead, I'd like to take my reasonably available science time this month to actually make sure I am setting my new grad students down reasonable courses for their theses. Any science time left over from that, I'll devote to finishing analyses from my 2008 AGU poster (subject of a InaDWriMo goal last year). This should give me everything I need to start really writing that manuscript next time I have a chance (say, next June).

So, at the end of week one, the score stands like this:

Finish revisions on the paper-that-won't-die (goal: November 6 13)
Internal release time application (due November 15)
~~NSF proposal (due ~December 1)~~
Read around proposed grad student topics enough to ensure we're not reinventing the wheel/pursuing proven dead ends (amorphous, I know)
Finish GIS work left-over from 2008 AGU poster.

sciencewoman Sun, 11/08/2009 - 09:59

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academic adventures

goal setting

publish or perish

what did they say about "balance," again?

Good for you on the progress! Bummer that the NSF proposal isn't feasible, but good that you decided early on to scrap it since it really sucks to continually fail to meet unrealistic goals.

I wonder if you could start to lay some of the groundwork for that proposal now, though, since you don't want to be in the same place you're in now one month before the next deadline. Could you get yourself in a better position to execute the thing next time by doing a little bit of it now and continuing slowly in the coming months? Maybe even enlist the new students to help so they can see how to develop a research plan?

Guilt versus intentionality

skookumchick — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 07:49:36 +0000

Guilt versus intentionality

Hi, I'm Alice. It's been 11 days since I last blogged.

Things have been busy over the last couple of weeks - even more than usual. I started listing out the stuff I've been doing, but rather than making me feel like I had gotten a lot done, it was just making me tired, so I deleted it.

Instead, I'm going to share a thought with you that I had yesterday. Well, maybe more than one.

Some of you may know (or remember) that I've been seeing a therapist off and on over the last 3 years. I started going for reasons other than why I kept going - when I moved to West Lafayette from Illinois, my visits went on hiatus because I couldn't rationalize the long drive to Normal IL (yes, ironic that my therapist was there, right?) and back, let alone find the time during the week. And I felt guilty that I wasn't going to therapy anymore because I felt like I must be avoiding it, and all that made me feel worse.

This semester, I actually made a commitment to myself to start going again, if only because I knew I was in some unhealthy work patterns and I knew I needed some help. So I started seeing this therapist my doctor recommended. I go Mondays at 1.

Yesterday was Monday at 1, so I had my appointment. And I don't remember how we started talking about this, but we were talking about how I get into these patterns at night where I say I'm just going to do some small work-related thing, and then all of a sudden it's 2 hours later and I still haven't done that one small thing, but a whole bunch of other work instead.

The therapist started off asking me why I thought I did this. I was thinking about a particular case on Sunday night where I said I would write this student's letter of recommendation and then call it a night. 10:15 pm rolls around and I still haven't done that letter. Instead, I had sent off a lot of emails and uploaded a lot of files associated with our graduate recruitment efforts -- we have delegated various tasks across the committee members and I needed to send out the information I had from the last chair so they could get their work done. I felt I was being a bottleneck. And maybe I was procrastinating a little on the letter of recommendation because I wasn't too sure what I should write.

The therapist immediately started trying to "solve" my problem for me - that I should get this student to write his own letter for me and I would review it and edit it and send it back to him for his review, because I shouldn't be spending more time thinking about his career than he does. (Or something similar.) I felt like this was not actually helpful to me - I have my graduate students write the letters they wish I could write for them when we're done working together as a device to have a conversation about priorities and goals. I in fact already have a pattern of letters I write for undergrad students who I meet in my large 120-person course. I said I wasn't finding this direction of questioning helpful, as this was only just one instance of the "I'm just going to do one thing and then do a whole bunch of other stuff but not that one thing" problem. I felt the problem was in this pattern, rather than in the letter of recommendation per se.

Then she hooked onto the "procrastination" word I had used, and asked me why I was procrastinating. I corrected myself, and said what I had a hard time doing was ordering work in a useful way -- both of these tasks needed to get done, but was the order in which I did them the most efficient or productive way? I wasn't sure, and I feel I need help in organizing these tasks.

That led her into telling me about the difference between "important" and "urgent" and she wanted to draw that square where some things are important but not urgent, and some things are urgent but not important. You know the one - like this.

I also objected to this "simple" distinction - I don't think it's always that easy to determine which things are "important." Important to whom? If this student is a first-generation college student and this scholarship is critical to his being able to stay in school and become a role model engineer, maybe my letter of recommendation is the most "important." If I'm holding my colleagues back from doing their work to recruit students to the department, and the result is that key colleagues don't have any students to work with next year, maybe *that* is the most important.

I feel like I don't have any problems knowing in my life what is "important." Important to me is spending time with my husband and now Maggie, is gardening and cooking food for others made from what we have grown, is video chatting with my mom, is reading books that will help me think differently about my research.

What I have a hard time doing is keeping those things in mind over the day, when there are a million fires to put out for other people, or I've gotten so behind in my 700+ items in my inbox that people are now coming to my office door to ask for things (no wonder I prefer to work at home). I need some skillz to separate out the wheat from the chaff, and then some help from senior colleagues who can run interference for me.

Then the conversation took a weird turn, and started in on my problems with guilt. I confess excessive guilt is something I wrestle with, and I have a very catch-22 cycle where I don't let myself escape my guilt. The therapist kept pointing out how much guilt I was laying on myself, which just made me feel more and more guilty. As in, "this shitty situation you find yourself in? It's your fault, and you're keeping yourself in it." Then she started saying things like, "When you're on your deathbed, you want to look at your life and see the things that really matter to you, your values" which I heard as "when you're on your deathbed, no one ever wishes they had spent more time at work, and if you're not careful, you're going to be one of those people." Also another gem: "It hurts your husband to see you beating up on yourself like this." Great -- guilt to get me to recognize my guilt. Thanks for helping me beat up on myself.

So pause this story for a moment, while I tell the second thread of the tale.

Mondays are also yoga nights. An hour and a quarter of ass-kicking yoga is really good for me, and I wish I could go more often. I missed last week because I had a 4-day migraine, and the week before that I can't remember why I missed. Anyway, yesterday I went. The term is broken up into 2 courses, and the yoga instructor tends to apply themes to the courses, probably so it is not so dull for her to teach. Last spring we "did" chakras; this course we're doing various "rules of yoga" that she's reading from a book. Yesterday was the fifth rule, about intentionality and desire, and linked to the solar plexus chakra. I confess I hold little faith in all this spirituality stuff but I find it interesting to think about, especially in contrast with my usual techno-rational days.

So yesterday was about intentionality and desire. And in the middle of the session, it suddenly hit me how useful this idea was in my current predicament. What I was allowing myself to do was be directed by others' intentions, rather than by my own intentionality. Maybe I could think about changes I need to make in how I do my job not as "change your patterns or you will hurt others as well as yourself" but "be more intentional in how you do your job" with no consequences. It may seem like a small switch, and yes, I suspect I could connect guilt with failure of intentionality (I'm gifted like that) but so far, I'm actually finding the distinction helpful.

So. Bringing the two stories together.... Rather than beating myself up over how I do things wrong, I can praise myself for successfully being more intentional in how I spend my time. So my mantra for the week will be, "I am grateful for doing my work in intentional ways." We'll see how that goes, but already I don't feel the heavy weight of guilt sitting in my chest the way I usually do.

Maybe I should tell my therapist to go visit with my yoga instructor.

skookumchick Tue, 10/13/2009 - 03:49

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Alice shares...

goal setting

Just wondering, before you go too far down the road with this therapist, if you've taken the opportunity to shop around? I benefitted a lot by having an initial session with three different therapists before choosing the one I felt understood me best and was most helpful to me. This gave me a sense of having made an informed choice that alleviated some of the tension in the early part of the therapy relationship. I think it also gave us a jump start based in real compatibility because we didn't have to negotiate some of the basics.

Hmm, yeah it also sounds to me like this therapist might not be very useful for what you need... She definitely seems to want to simplify things into soundbites and cliches without recognizing that you're actually pretty smart and good at analyzing, and can appreciate much more elegant analogies and dissections of your situation.

Yoga v. therapist? Yoga wins this round for sure!!

2 things to ponder:

1) I rarely feel "guilt", because I recognize that we, as humans, make the best choice at the time given the data we have, even if it is an unconscious choice. We rarely intentionally choose the wrong path. And you can't change the past, so why feel guilty about it. Yes, your intention was to sit down and write the letter, but based on all the data you had, you unconsciously chose to take care of the recruitment items because at some level, you considered them to be a higher priority.

2) I agree that the 4 box organizational model is somewhat limited. They are binary representations of continuous variables. For me, I actually tend to represent my tasks along 2-axis, one for how long I expect a task to take and the other on what I call the Monkey-Shakespeare scale. The M-S scale is essentially how much do I consider the task to be "monkey work". I classify this way because I can usally gauge what level of mental function I'm able to exert in a given time frame. Some days, I can to monkey-tasks, and some days I'm capable of writing Romeo & Juliet. This lets me pick tasks that are impending and that I'll be productive at. I don't know if it would work for you or not, but at least an option to consider.

Hi yoga and mindfulness exercises will definitely improve things.
But noone is perfect and I just thought this might help - it's humorous for sure but it really is a real phenomenon for many people: http://www.structuredprocrastination.com/

I agree, at least from this one story, your therapist doesn't sound like a great match for you. Of course you may have found other sessions more useful but if this is an indication of your general sessions, I'd advise shopping around.

As for the guilt, I think this is a profession where there is always someone you are disappointing. Since you know your priorities (your husband, your dog, your time to yourself, your family, your research) perhaps knowing you are intentionally fulfilling those needs but perhaps not always meeting less-essential (to you) needs will help?

Hi. I know the feeling, believe me. Actually, I know both feelings - yours of procrastination and your therapists' of wanting to "solve" your problems. I am a psych grad student (so...therapist in training) and I have definitely felt the need to solve my clients' problems before, even with the full knowledge that the particular issue at hand isn't really the thing that needs solving...it's just the thing that seems simplest to solve first. But hearing your story makes me cognizant of this, and I will try harder not to fall into that trap again - so thanks for sharing! Btw, I really enjoy your blog.

Goodness, after that description my intention would be to see the therapist zero times per week, and do yoga two times per week!

Thank you! It helps a lot to know that other people are going through this too--especially the meta-guilt. Your closing comments on intentionality are especially helpful.

Minor suggestion:

You're trying to change your behavior. Apply behavior modification techniques to yourself.

when people say stuff like this:"when you're on your deathbed, no one ever wishes they had spent more time at work" (what you heard her say if not her actual words) - it sort of irks me. If your job is actually making the world a better place or solving some big problem for society or something, and you are on the cusp but don't quite do it, then hell yeah you might wish you spent more time at work.
If you're an assembly line worker or cubicle dweller(has its own pleasures), sure, this makes sense, but some jobs are more important than some leisure time activities. Some jobs are even more fun than some leisure time activities. Sometimes "work" is rewarding and it's ok to both love it and spend a lot of time doing it!
(btw - I agree that this particular therapist doesn't seem to be the right one based on how you paint her)

Kudos to you for putting the effort into making life better through therapy and yoga. Since your epiphany centered on the idea of intentionality, I'd love to hear some more about that and how you'd apply it to your daily schedule. Also, I wonder if what you're feeling should really be characterized as 'guilt' - which implies a moral judgment, and often injury to someone else - but instead it's really anxiety that results from what you maybe perceive to be poor choices or indecision. Our culture (especially Judeo-Christian culture) emphasizes guilt issues that might be inappropriate to a situation where you're doing the best you can with the best of intentions. I suppose I comment on that because I tend to feel lots of anxiety but very little guilt (even though as a working mama I'm supposed to feel guilty all the time, but, meh, I don't really). Just a thought.

What a great revelation! It sounds like what you're wanting in more coaching than therapy- someone to support you as you solve your own problems. Or at least a new therapist! Good for you for calling her on the unhelpful line of questioning. Here's to an intentional day!

I have to say I often have the same problem. I procrastinate doing something I intend to do by doing other small tasks that need to get done, but are not "important" at that moment. They need to be done, but they are not the "big stones" that I need to accomplish, or even the little ones. I find I have to schedule time to do X and close my email (outlook). It does get into a cycle. I do agree about a different therapist too. I just don't like the way she is saying things and I think a coach might be better. Have you tried the academic writing club? That helped me for a while last fall when writing a grant. Daily accountability to set aside even 30 minutes of focused time on my important task (grant writing) led to progress and for me starting is the big barrier.

Hey Alice .... sounds like you're getting lots of good advice and support here, and your focus on intentionality makes a lot of sense. There's a difference, I think, between legitimate guilt when we act in ways that hurt people close to us (sometimes intentionally, sometimes ignorantly, but still directly hurtful), and that vague, illegitimate sense of guilt/burden that climbs on our backs when we feel like we're "disappointing someone" or "letting people down" or "not meeting our obligations" in some loose, undefined way. And I do think your desire to focus on using your time intentionally, making good conscious choices about what you do when, is an important step forward. There's something in there about our own ability to control and manage our time - something incredibly elusive (almost typed "illusive" and maybe that's true too).... A good counselor will help think through these issues in ways that help you address them productively.

This therapist sounds like a fucking idiot.

Aloha Alice,

I also fall into the same trap - doing everything but the short task I set out to do. My solution for that (and the mythical balance) is to CHOOSE what I am going to do. If I make the choice to go to the SWE mtg away from my family, I feel very little guilt about that. If I choose one competing priority over another, that's different than struggling over what's right. Good luck on your path!

kick-ass yoga? :o)

Thanks for blogging about this, Alice. I finally got around to reading it. Have you tried a different therapist yet? Also, how is the new mantra working for you? It's really helpful for me to read this because I think I tend to feel a lot of guilt about work, too.

Sunday meeting with myself: hey, I got stuff done!

skookumchick — Sun, 30 Aug 2009 19:43:26 +0000

Sunday meeting with myself: hey, I got stuff done!

I just had my 2nd "Sunday meeting with myself." I looked back at my list from last week, and was thrilled to be able to cross almost everything off. It helped to map tasks onto my available schedule, although I completely underestimated how much time I needed for class prep this week. I'll get better on that (both in decreasing the time, and more accurately estimating), I think. It felt very satisfying to cross off all those things, and see a full but completed list. Yay for me.

Priorities this week:

Revisions on a paper due Tuesday
Page proofs on a paper due Wednesday
Reading over a friend's grant proposal and sending a coherent review on Monday
Being prepped for class by Wednesday morning (this one is going to be hard)

What are you going to get done this week?

skookumchick Sun, 08/30/2009 - 15:43

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goal setting

The first thing I need to do is figure out exactly what I need to accomplish this fall, when I need to accomplish it, and how I'm going to do it. Basically, I need to make a huge to-do list. That's on my to-do list for tomorrow. :-)

Congrats for doing so well last week, and good luck this week!

Alice - are you familiar with the "getting things done" methods? I've been working towards using them to, well, get things done, myself. The weekly review is the key. Glad to hear it is clicking for you too.

1. Finish reviewing a grant proposal for my boss.
2. Finish project that the high school intern in our lab was supposed to do this summer. It really was too much to ask of the poor guy.
3. Finish my part of the project that really ought to have been done by a grad student from another lab.
4. Start second round of experiments to justify my existence in the lab, so that I can quickly move on to more exciting stuff.
5. Start a small experiment that will allow me to wrap up the last paper coming out of my dissertation.
6. Take kids to swim/dance/gymnastics/tutoring/therapy classes as necessary, without being late, and without driving faster than the speed of light.

Busy? Who? Me?

Mike - I am, but through OmniFocus, which I use obsessively but somewhat ineffectively. I can't seem to just get a whole bunch of ideas out of my head, and then process them afterwards - I want to process them one at a time. But I'll get there.

And go go go Karina and Makita!

Sunday meeting with myself

skookumchick — Sun, 23 Aug 2009 18:17:33 +0000

Sunday meeting with myself

As usual, I find myself at the beginning of a semester trying to figure out how to balance my life a bit more better, and perhaps contradictorily, how I can structure my days better to be able to find time to recharge.

Because of my work with ADVANCE, I'm interested in understanding the work experiences of all women faculty in STEM, including and particularly women of color. To this end, when a colleague who is the director of the Black Cultural Center on campus recommended the book The Black Academic's Guide to Winning Tenure Without Losing Your Soul by Kerry Ann Rockquemore and Tracey Laszloffy, I bought a copy immediately. This summer, I had time to read some of it.

The book is packed with good ideas for all academic folks, and may be particularly eye-opening to white folks who haven't questioned their own privilege lately. In particular, one idea that caught my attention was the idea of a Sunday meeting with one's self, where you focus on committing to the things you want to get done this week. This sounded like a great idea; after all, so much of my time during the week is spent in meetings for other people, so why not one with me?

I put it on my calendar, and set the alarm to go off every Sunday afternoon to remind me to do this. It starts at 8:30; I'd better get to it.

skookumchick Sun, 08/23/2009 - 14:17

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goal setting

let's talk about solutions

what did they say about "balance," again?

Glad you enjoyed the book -- I am sitting down for my Sunday right this very moment so your blog gave me a bit of inspiration!

I'm having that same talk with myself. It seems the balance gets out of whack in the summer and then needs to be re-evaluated each fall.

Setting goals for a course on Experimental Design and Data Analysis (Course design 1.2)

sciencewoman — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 07:09:11 +0000

Setting goals for a course on Experimental Design and Data Analysis (Course design 1.2)

As introduced yesterday, I'm blogging my way through the SERC tutorial on course design, for a new graduate-only course on experimental design and data analysis. Yesterday, I explained the context and constraints on the course, and today I'm mulling on the course goals. I'm supposed to identify 1-3 over-arching goals for the course and 1-2 ancillary skills goals. Below the fold, I'll share my overarching goals and how I got to them. But I'm struggling with the ancillary skills goals, dear readers, and I'd love your help.

Task 1.2c: Set one to three overarching goals for your course.
The SERC tutorial lays out some very specific guidelines for the over-arching goals. They should be student-centered (not teacher-centered), involve higher order thinking skills, concrete, and have measurable outcomes, and provide clear direction for course design. They should be phrased as "Students will be able to..." or "I want students to be able to...". Before we get to the stage of actually writing the course goals, however, the tutorial asks us to read some example goals and assess whether they meet the guidelines above. The tutorial also asks us to think about what I do as a professional in my discipline, in the context of the course. Here's what I came up with:

I identify questions that advance understanding of my field and which I have at least some of the skills and resources to answer. I form collaborations and write proposals to gain the necessary skills and resources to answer the questions. As part of the proposal writing process, I: (1) design field, lab, and modeling studies; (2) hypothesize the expected outcomes of those studies; and (3) plan the sorts of data analysis necessary to answer my questions based on my study design. I carry out the studies, usually as part of a team, adjusting the experimental design as necessary. I then analyze the data, attempt to answer the original question, and formulate next questions so that I can begin the process over again.

I also review proposals and manuscripts from other researchers working in my field, and I evaluate the scientific and technical merits of the project design, data analysis, and interpretation of the results.

Given what I do, here's what I want my students to be able to do:

I want students to be able to evaluate the connections between: (a) knowledge of existing literature and/or preliminary data; (b) research question and hypothesis generation; (c) experimental design; (d) quality of the collected data; (e) methods of data analysis; (f) ability to answer the posed research question.
I want students to be able to work in teams to formulate a research question, design a study to answer the question, and analyze the resulting data using appropriate statistical techniques.
I want students to be able to critique experimental design and data analysis techniques that appear in proposals or the published literature of their field.

The first goal may seem a bit redundant to the scientific method, but what I want my students to understand is a bit more nuanced. I want them to realize that you have to design the your data analysis at the same time as the experiment or you won't be able to answer your question. I want them to understand the importance of preliminary data and intensive literature review for ensuring that the question they are asking is relevant and answerable and for ensuring that good data is collected once the project is underway. I want them to realize that if you design your experiment in an ad hoc fashion (as so many of us do), you risk collecting data that will be useless for answering the question you really wanted to answer.

The second point is asking them to apply and operationalize the concepts from the class. Maybe I'm getting ahead of myself, but I'm envisioning having the students work in teams to write an NSF-style proposal by the end of the semester. I've also toyed with the idea of asking them to collect some preliminary data to support that proposal, but I think I'm getting the cart ahead of the cart now.

The third goal is another application of the same concepts, but now applied not to their own research but to that of other researchers. I designed the goal to help teach the skill of peer-review, something on which I think many graduate students lack adequate training and mentoring.

Do my over-arching goals seem reasonable for a course on experimental design and data analysis, given the constraints and context of the course?

Assuming for the moment that I don't experience a massive commenter uprising against the over-arching goals, what do you think the ancillary skills goals for the course should be. Here's what SERC has to say about them:

What ancillary skills would like to have your students improve on during your course? Ancillary skills might include writing, quantitative skills, 3-D visualization, self-teaching, peer teaching, oral presentation, working in teams/groups, critically assessing information on the Internet, accessing and reading the professional literature, and so on.

Task 1.3: Set one or two ancillary skills goals for your course.

Which ancillary skills are important enough in the context of your course that you are willing to provide timely feedback and repeated practice so that students actually improve their skills? Be realistic. You can't do everything and still address the content of the course. Choose one or two ancillary skills to work on - ones that you can commit to integrating from the beginning to the end of the semester.

I find myself oddly struggling with this one, maybe because the course seems, by its very nature, to be a skills-oriented course that will touch on many of those things. But how do I pick one or two to focus on? I'd really like to hear your comments, and I'll try to participate in any comment thread discussions. Then in a day or two, I'll have to move on, set the goals, and start choosing content to support those goals.

sciencewoman Wed, 07/15/2009 - 03:09

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care and feeding of graduate students

I think you've answered the question about ancillary skills already: the course seems, by its very nature, to be a skills-oriented course that will touch on many of those things. My reading of the "ancillary skills" is that the question is aimed at courses that focus on scientific content. For example, my goals for structural geology would be full of things about rock deformation, but wouldn't say anything about writing. But I want the students to work on writing throughout the major, so I the lab write-ups double as writing assignments.

Given your course goals, maybe improved proposal-writing would be a good ancillary goal. (Especially since some of the students speak English as a second language.) Improving writing involves a lot of work on the part of the professor, though, so you might also want to think about ways to make the students help each other. (Because an unspoken goal should be to keep from killing yourself, too.)

Your course seems very similar to a course I just designed and taught for the first time last semester. Although my field is quite a bit different from yours, the basic goals and skill sets are the same. I had my students work on designing a collaborative study (collecting preliminary data was way too much for this course) but they also wrote individual grant proposals (I only had 5 students so it wasn't difficult to handle the grading/feedback). I then had them do a mock peer review of each others grants. The ancillary goals I chose were: writing, collaborative work, and peer review.

My challenges were the diversity of academic backgrounds of the students and that very few had taken a graduate stats course--at all or within the last 3-4 years. Therefore the connection between data analysis design and answering the question was particularly hard to achieve. They simply didn't have the skills for it and it wasn't possible to give them the skills and cover the rest of the course materials (they do have a series of stat classes they will be taking but only this one research design course). I believe they left understanding the importance and they made some headway in being able to approach how one might design the analysis and the experiment to answer the question but it will be a long time before they have the ability to do so. I have no idea if your students will have similar issues, but it is something to think about.

I want them to realize that you have to design the your data analysis at the same time as the experiment or you won't be able to answer your question.

If not before; I'm rather enamored of dependency graphs myself. Among other things, doing the analysis first makes it possible to scope many of the experimental requirements (sample sizes, instrumentation precision, etc.)

Which leads to my suggestion: by all means give them some flawed proposals to rip into. Junior investigators are like baby predators: before they can kill their own prey, they need to practice on some that their parents have wounded for them.

Maybe, just maybe, one of the ancillary skill sets would be to use a standard piece of software for their data analysis. If you have students from multi-disciplines, a grounding in how to apply a software package might be a good ancillary skill. That package could be as simple as Excel, or Matlab, or whatever fancy-shmancy stats package you use routinely. I know this isn't a How To Use s/w Course, but it IS part of your analysis and it does go into your methods.

I see many suggestions to have the students look at flawed proposals and evaluate them. Is there any reasonable way to get them some poor *data* so that they can get their hands on why data collection and analysis design go hand-in-hand? *Especially* for field work, because it's one thing to re-do a lab experiment (not that you WANT to do that either) and an entire other thing to try to redo a survey of the Indian tiger cub population in Spring (for example) because your observer didn't understand how the data was to be analyzed..

What carrie said, although I would vote for r, despite its horrendous learning curve. R is free and open source, so students will be able to use it whenever and wherever. A highly relevant ancillary skill is critiquing research papers - again, some bad science will go a long way here. Finally, you said you're also getting sociologists? Be careful - that's a whole other methodological ball game.

@Perceval: social scientists not sociologists.

More generally, I love the ideas you all are providing. At this point, I'm learning towards peer review as the primary "ancillary skill" I'll focus on. I'm not sure I have the bandwidth to stress writing skills with this group, and by focusing on peer review I can justify having them critique each other's drafts.

Hi Sciencewoman,

One way to think about learning objectives and course development is to ask yourself three sets of questions:
(1) What do I want students to be able to:

know
think
do, and/or
feel

at the end of the course, and why do I want this? The next question is -

(2) How will I, and the students, know that they "know, think, do and/or feel" what I want them to? And finally,

(3) what can I and the students do to help the students get there.

The first question gets at your goals and learning objectives, the 2nd at your assessment methods (and here I like to think of assessment "for", "as" and "of" learning - but that can be for another post), and the 3rd at what you and the class will do during the term.

The reason I'm saying this is that I think your first goal is actually answering Question #3 and not Question #1. This comes through in your answer to the "why" part of Question #1 -- i.e. your rationale for Goal 1. Your rationale explains that doing an evaluation of "the connections between ...." is a way for students to get to particular realizations and understanding. The realizations and understandings are your ultimate goal. Doing an evaluation is a process that may (or may not) help students get there.

Similarly, the rationale for your third goal suggests that what you really want is for students to improve their peer review skills. Reviewing proposals is one way for students to do this (provided they get clear, formative feedback from you.)

It strikes me that maybe your overarching course goals are something like ...

1. Students will be able to design and propose a research project that will (a) have a relevant and answerable question, and (b) have data collection and analysis procedures that can produce an answer to the research question.

2. Students will understand the following factors that affect the success of a research project, and will successfully apply these factors to their own proposal:
- "you have to design your data analysis at the same time as the experiment or you won't be able to answer your question."
- preliminary data and intensive literature review are important for ensuring that the question they are asking is relevant and answerable and for ensuring that good data is collected once the project is underway.
- "systematic design of an experiment will help to ensure the collection of data that will answer the question you really wanted to answer."

3. Students will improve their skills at peer-reviewing research proposals.

4. Students will work effectively in research teams.

What do you think?

I'm learning towards peer review as the primary "ancillary skill" I'll focus on.

Wind to your sails, Madam -- even from out here in industry, it can't be overemphasized.

Peer review is an excellent idea. I have a colleague who's used it to good effect. When I teach juniors next spring, I'm thinking that their final class project might be a proposal for their senior project, and I'll run the last few class meetings like a review panel, with them critiquing each other's proposals. If nothing else, it's good to get them to think about senior project before, say, spring quarter of senior year.

My colleague is seriously thinking about collaborating with people at other schools, and having their students critique our students' papers while our students critique theirs. The only question mark I have is privacy laws. Can student work be shown to people at other schools? I know that if it were human subjects research there'd be an IRB to sort this out with, but nobody is producing a pedagogical study here (well, not yet, anyway). Removing student names from the papers would be important, obviously (and recent research shows it produces fairer peer review anyway), but I don't know if that's enough.

Anyway, I'm excited to hear that peer review experiments in teaching are catching on.

This may seem very basic, but it is something that was an ancillary skill articulated by the instructor in a course I took as an upper level undergrad. This is to be able, in reading a research report, to extract an understanding of the procedure, results and conclusion even if the technical details of the stats or math modelsl are unfamiliar, in other words, the art of "reading around" that stuff. If you have a really good ability at this, you can be unfettered by the details and make contributions to any study.

But as for your overarching goals, they seem "spot on" to me. Good stuff!!

As I mentioned, I teach a similar course though probably at a slightly lower level. My 'key skill' emphasis is on critical thinking - analysing literature, creating research designs, communicating analyses and reasoning - because I find that to be a very weak area. In my context, students who've made it to this grad course are smart, which means that some of them have managed to get good or excellent grades in undergrad classes via hard work, extra reading etc. rather than by being genuinely doing the right kind of thinking - coursework does rather tend to allow a hard-working student to achieve good marks without doing top-level thinking, I find, especially in the sciences. I think that's just How It Is. But, in this module, I aim to get them to address that (and have found that that feeds really strongly into their other grad modules, by helping them across that divide from undergrad success to grad success).

The group is generally all English-as-first-language but with very mixed interests and backgrounds - pretty much any kind of science, blue skies or very applied. I teach it via three elements: a seminar series where we discuss controversial topics, a research design seminar and a group project.

The seminar series (5 x 1 hour 40 minute classes). I pick topics that are controversial, poorly defined, political or emotive - and give the students a choice from a list of which we will do. For each seminar, we all read two or three papers which are contrasting - sometimes they totally disagree with each other, sometimes they use very different methodologies to ask questions about the same problem or process. And I encourage the students to do a little extra reading to find some additional examples or voices. In class, we discuss the topic, focusing on identifying the facts, outlining the arguments people are making about the facts, and trying to come to some kind of overview. The students then write 400 word summaries on the topic - short enough that I can give really focused line by line feedback if necessary, and hand it back in the next seminar. If the majority have problems with e.g. referencing (sigh, even at this level), paragraphing, opening and closing sentences, then I spend 15-20 minutes in the next seminar outlining the issue and then getting them to work in small groups to improve each other's work from the last exercise. Then on to the next topic.

The research design element also has 5 x 1 hour 40 classes, and is effectively spent preparing the proposal for their master's thesis (which is perhaps less research than in your system? For these students, it's the equivalent to 1 semester of full time courses, and they don't go through the same process of proposal defense and upgrade and committee that PhD students do). They have to work with a supervisor to produce a proposal to a standard format, of passing standard, and these classes take them through the different stages of the design.

In parallel with these classes, the students are working on a group project; this was introduced because I found that many of them had real difficulty making the links between reading. writing, designing and DOING, or in talking to their classmates since their backgrounds are so different, so having an actual project ongoing meant that they had common ground and immediate practical experience. Designing these projects is challenging - I get students into groups of 4-7, and usually have to offer three alternative projects. Students then indicate their preference for a project and are sorted into groups on that basis. Projects need to draw on a range of skills, use relatively simple lab methods that they should all have some idea about, and be pretty open-ended - I won't give examples here as they're quite identifying, but email me if you'd like to see some examples (mollimog at gmail).

Students get a half-page brief of the problem, meet once a week with an academic advisor for a short period, keep minutes of group meetings (submitted for very small amounts of credit, but it keeps them on track), give oral presentations of their design, their pilot study (or an interim report) and of their findings to the rest of the group (who are expected to act as peer reviewers), and present a final product (this varies - it has been a talk, a poster, a formal report, a submission-format manuscript) and an essay reflecting on the process of doing science.

I've come to the conclusion that the doing is more useful, especially in helping the weaker student, than having them do more literature review or essay or proposal-type writing - because making a simple design then carrying it through to a conclusion really emphasises the importance of integrated planning in a way that lectures and reading don;t, especially for students who don't learn well that way (and for non-English-native-language students, and indeed for students with dyslexia and related issues, who come through in ever-increasing numbers at the moment).

I look forward to reading the rest of the series!

I agree that teaching students how to use a software like R for data analysis and presentation could be nice.

Also, I just wanted to point out that sociologists *are* social scientists!

Looking for some motivating music

skookumchick — Sun, 24 May 2009 13:31:16 +0000

Looking for some motivating music

Now that the semester is over, I have no excuse not to do a lot of home-maintenance-y things, like:

installing a rainbarrel in my backyard
installing a dual-flush mechanism on our upstairs toilet
setting up the other dehumidifier in the basement (we had one in each house when we had 2 houses, and hadn't set up the 2nd one in WL over the winter. However, it will soon be the case I need to empty the 1st dehumidifier every 2 days, so time to press #2 into service)
picking up everything post garage sale, before the cleaners come tomorrow
sorting through boxes unearthed through garage sale prep and whose contents really belongs at my office or in the recycling bin
Deep cleaning the "clutter" spaces - where we dump stuff whenever we come in the house
breaking down boxes in the basement
non-critical laundry which is not in weekly rotation but still needs washing

and so on.

But I am not feeling the motivation.

In the course of my cleaning so far, I came across some iTunes cards that have not yet been used. So, dearest readers - what tunez should I buy to get myself grooving for cleaning?

(FYI: Currently what is coming across the house-wide stereo is Ben Folds, Way to Normal, just purchased just right now because he mentions our former hometown, Normal, IL in Effington... plus it is a groovy song, which is a requirement for me to houseclean...)

skookumchick Sun, 05/24/2009 - 09:31

Tags

goal setting

All people deserve good life and personal loans or just commercial loan can make it better. Because people's freedom is grounded on money.

Effington=Effingham?

some of my favorite upbeat songs (assuming you want song suggestions, not full albums):

Gardenia - Stephen Malkmus & the Jicks
Catherine the Waitress - Teitur
Can't Stand It - Wilco
Right Moves - Josh Ritter
I Don't Wanna Die in a Hospital - Conor Oberst
Moab - Conor Oberst
You Are the Best Thing - Ray LaMontagne
Nikorette - Conor Oberst
Long Division - Death Cab for Cutie

Ah I love dual flush toilets. Last month, we had to do an "emergency" toilet replacement and got this one http://www.americanstandard-us.com/products/productDetail.aspx?id=2055 and it was half the price of the regular ones!

Try this!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6EDEfmpUv58

I strongly recommend the go! Team

Personally, I like to listen to 'Wait, Wait Don't Tell Me' or 'This American Life' while cleaning. Both free! Once those are over, I usually run out of ideas though. A cleaning playlist is a great idea. Although I suppose these song choices will date me, I like 'Life is a Highway' by Tom Cochrane, 'Right Now' by Van Halen, and 'End of the Line' by the Traveling Wilburys. As albums, Shawn Colvin 'Steady On' and 'A Whole New You', Dave Matthews Band 'Recovering the Satellites', They Might Be Giants (I actually like their kid music too), Toad the Wet Sprocket 'Dulcinea', Tom Petty 'Into the Great Wide Open', and maybe a little Beastie Boys 'Ill Communication' or Harry Connick Jr. I also like a band Sonichrome 'Breathe the Daylight' and the 'Garden State' album from the movie is good.

I recommend:
1. In the Middle by Jimmy Eat World (my pre-tenure inspirational song)
2. The "I Get Knocked Down ..." song by ChumbaWumba. I think it's called Tubthumpin. I know it's about being a stumbling drunk, but in my mind I'm thinking about the tough days at work when I jam to it.

I also like songs by Vampire Weekend.

These are great suggestions! I've downloaded some so far, and I have cleaned out the back porch and made it somewhat liveable, successfully installed the toilet retrofit, and made a hack of the basement. Now to tackle it again...

I would concur on the recommendation of the Garden State soundtrack [especially 'Let Go' by Frou Frou] and add 'Australia' by The Shins [the video is really fun!]:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WIwA0zRW8Es

and 'Ragged Wood' by Fleet Foxes:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0-CEfY9CDLw

I hope your home-maintenance-y things are progressing well!

Sorry, no music recommendations...but can you tell me where you're getting the barrel for your rain barrel? Or are you driving to Wisconsin? I really want to put a couple in, but haven't found where to get the actual barrel from.

If you want to go bigger than a rain barrel, there is a guy in Indiana who sells 275 gallon food-grade tanks that work the same way as rain barrels. You just have to do a little engineering on the spigot and make an overflow outlet hole/hose at the top. You also probably want to build it a little patio to live on, since it will weigh at least a ton when full. We found that our tank fills up in just one major rainstorm, and we use up about 25% of the water in about half an hour's worth of soaker-hose time on the garden.

Good grad student advice from the Chronicle

skookumchick — Tue, 17 Feb 2009 08:51:04 +0000

Good grad student advice from the Chronicle

A colleague of mine sent around this link to the Chronicle (behind firewall, boo!) for some advice on how to stay healthy, even perhaps happy, while working on your dissertation. See the ideas after the fold.

By author Piper Fogg:

Learn to recognize the signs of depression and anxiety and don't be afraid to seek medical evaluation and treatment. Consider various options -- such as therapy, medication, relaxation techniques, and other forms of alternative medicine. Familiarize yourself with the campus counseling center as well as off-campus options.

Follow your mother's advice: Eat a balanced diet, try to get enough sleep, and exercise regularly.

Find and nurture a social-support network. Make an effort to meet new people by getting involved in sports activities or a campus club. Friends outside academe can be especially helpful in giving a fresh perspective, while those on the inside can empathize and give practical advice.

Work on time management. Make schedules, figure out your most productive times of day, turn off phones, and shun e-mail, if necessary, and find a place that is conducive to working. Take breaks to relax.

Find allies in your field. They can help you navigate the world of publishing and help you make contacts to further your career. If you are unsure you want to stay in your field, contact scholars in related disciplines to see if a transfer might appeal.

Try to fix a problematic relationship with an adviser or mentor. Switching advisers, when feasible, can make a world of difference for some, while simply communicating better can help in other cases.

Find a dissertation coach or online support group if you are having trouble getting down to work. PhinisheD.com is one Web site where graduate students having trouble finishing their dissertations can find advice and support. The Chronicle has an online forum called "Grad-School Life" that includes a discussion focusing on dissertation and thesis support. See http://chronicle.com/forums/index.php

Consider a break. A temporary leave to seek counseling or reassess priorities does not brand you as a failure, and taking time off to work outside academe could reveal new possibilities. Leaving academe altogether may be the best choice for some. Talk to advisers, mentors, and others about whether sticking it out is the right decision.

This actually reminds me of what a friend of mine in undergrad and I used to say to each other, and in fact, still say: "Remember to get more sleep, and eat properly." As if remembering was really all it took to make sure we did indeed get enough sleep and eat properly. That being said, my sister reminded me last year that my job should allow me to both eat and sleep, and that it is okay to do both. Something that I actually do need to remind myself.

skookumchick Tue, 02/17/2009 - 03:51

Tags

care and feeding of graduate students

goal setting

in the news

Great post!

However, I think the website in the second-last bullet is actually "http://www.phinished.org/". I took a look, and it seems pretty helpful.

Thanks!

Thanks for the post - I'll have to check out those sites.

[Find allies in your field]

This is a big problem in academics I think...too political. The system should not operate this way. What are smart rednecks supposed to do who want to work in academia? lesbians? conservative females? femme-nazis? normal people? abnormal people?

Is academia truly about free thought? or just political connections as in the business world?

Its why I am for direct government funds to graduate students...let's skip giving it all to those use it to make slaves out of us.

@Swish: Since humans are involved, there is no way to avoid politics entirely, but even so there are good reasons to find allies. Most obviously, if you want to be a postdoc (which is often a prerequisite for a tenure track job, even at a small liberal arts college) you have to find somebody to hire you, and other people in your field to write recommendation letters for you. Navigating the minefield that is publishing is also something where having the advice of a more experienced person is a plus, as Alice pointed out. If you are in a field such as experimental physics where large research teams are common, having contacts on one or more teams is helpful.

It's not even that hard to find allies, if you have a healthy relationship with your advisor. The advisor him/herself is an obvious candidate, and often it is in his best interest to help you succeed in your career (indeed, he may hear that one of his colleagues is hiring a postdoc, and reply that his student who is about to finish the Ph.D. would be a good fit for the job). If he collaborates with scientists at other universities, these scientists are also natural allies. Presumably you will attend at least one conference in your field, and among the people you meet there (who may be senior scientists or even fellow grad students) will be potential allies. So are other students or postdocs within your group or department.

Of course, if you have a toxic relationship with your advisor, things are that much harder for you. If you are in that situation, consider switching advisors, as Alice suggested.

Eric:

Yes there is a way to disinvolve politics entirely. Give grad students small grants who want to work for themselves. Since we are switching to a socialist society (bank bailouts etc.) no since playing capitalism in academia anymore.

If a person doesn't want to fit into a group, is law abiding, and has something creative to offer society. They should be allowed to pursue it without hassles.If we could ask Einstein, I think he would agree.

I am not saying giving lone wolves large sums of money is the way to go. That should go to those who work in collaborative groups. But if you don't fit in politically or ideologically there should still be a spot for you.

Publication from your work in that situation can then be used as merit for graduation and job placement. No pubs...no graduation and no job. No need for a needling advisor.

Alice, I think this was exactly what I needed to hear right now. I will be checking out that website.

You assume, without good evidence, that plenty of money is available for such things. There isn't. Either there is a competition to determine who gets such funding initially, or at some point you come up for a renewal, where the choices are (1) compete against others who are up for renewal and/or initial funding or (2) be dropped from funding because you have reached the maximum allotted time for such funding. One way or the other, you are likely to encounter politics.

Actually, the system I just described already exists in most science and engineering programs in the US. First and second year students are generally on teaching assistantships (here the competition, if any, is for admission to the program). If the department needs and can support third-year TAs, they will support a few, but you are expected to have found a research group by the start of your third year, and those who fail to do so will probably either have to drop out or be steered toward a terminal masters degree.

You are more likely to find the sort of funding system you advocate in the humanities, but again, the competition for limited resources is brutal, and many people have to find outside jobs to support themselves. I know at least one such person myself: the guy who replaced my roof last summer is a Ph.D. candidate in history at Local U. who does construction work to pay the bills.

Finally, there is the not-so-minor detail that your Ph.D. thesis has to be a significant piece of original research. Which is not impossible to do as a student with no formal advisor, but being able to talk to someone who knows what has already been done is a big plus, and if you plan to do any kind of experimental work you will need access to a laboratory--this requires either an advisor, or substantial savings from your Wall Street job to equip your own lab. Einstein himself already had a Ph.D. or the equivalent when he took that job in the patent office, and he is one of the few people (even post-Ph.D.) to make substantial original contributions to science after 1900 without some research group affiliation.

If despite all of this you still want to be a scientist who has no affiliation with an advisor, your best bet is to be an amateur astronomer. Observational astronomy is one of the few fields where such people still make original contributions, mainly because it's a big sky and the pros can't possibly watch all of it.

Eric:

Interesting info. Thanks for your thoughtful reply.

February 13th is my start-over date

sciencewoman — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 22:07:13 +0000

February 13th is my start-over date

According to my self-declared theme, 2009 was supposed to be the year of sustainability. The year when I planned to "focus on trying to live my life that is sustainable in the long run for my body, my mental health, my family and my career." Instead, I feel like I could write another post with the title "Hi, I'm ScienceWoman and I sometimes blog around here." The last few weeks have been insane. I've been staying up later than usual, putting in less teaching prep time than I feel comfortable with, feeling like I'm not making any progress with my research, and missing time with my family. Somehow a combination of travel and continued sick (SciOnline09 will live in infamy for being the beginning of this misery) has wreaked havoc on my best laid plans.

So I declare that this Friday is my day for starting over with my theme. I have nothing but an office hour on my schedule and I'm going to use the day to clean my office, write two exams that I feel good about, take a walk outside, and have a pre-valentines lunch date with my husband.

Below the fold, I'll take stock of just how badly I've been ignoring my thematic mandates. But before I do, anyone else want to join me in starting over on Friday the 13th of February? Or are you too busy whacking moles, jumping through hoops, or otherwise being distracted from the things that are really important to your health, happiness, and success?

From my list of "guiding principles" for 2009, here's what's going well.

Recognizing that graduate students are the building blocks of a successful research program, I will more coherently mentor my students, including scheduling regular meetings and progress reports.
I will make dedicated time each day to focus solely on Minnow and enjoy her. I will not multi-task during those times and I will not feel guilty about it.
I will take some days and nights away from Minnow and away from work in order to do the things I love by myself or with my friends.

What's not happening that's making me feel bad?*

I will transfer the time and mental energy I have used to write grant proposals into writing up papers, with the goal of submitting two first-author papers this year.
Now that I've done most of the tremendously difficult work of developing new classes, I will aim to take better notes and revise my materials as I teach a course, so that I'll have a clearer idea of what works the next time I teach the material.
I will regain some control over my body this year.
By the end of year, I will be in a yoga class again.
I need to connect with this place where I live and where I may spend the next several decades. In order to do this, I'm trying to take an outdoor picture every day.

OK, so what stands out from this list is that I want to focus more on teaching and I want to take time to take care of my body and soul. I can do that, right? May the next 6 weeks be more sustainable than the past ones.

*If not on either list, then at least I'm not feeling bad about not doing them.

sciencewoman Tue, 02/10/2009 - 17:07

Tags

goal setting

SciWo says...

new year's resolutions

I agree, I need a do-over too for the last month and a half. I've been away, which throws most plans out of the window, but there are lots of seemingly simple and quick things I needed to take care of that are still hanging over me. Perhaps I'll write a post on this later today... I'm glad to hear that you're taking the time with Minnow and alone/with friends! Those are really important

Ugh, Sciencewoman. Are you in my life? I declared last week that I intend to spend next week in my office, not to be bothered except by the few commitments I have, because I need sometime to regroup my life.

And I intend to try to get some running in because not running is bad for my soul.

I'm in. Friday is a perfect time to reset.

I have found a yoga DVD can work when I can't get to a class. They even have some that you could probably do with Minnow?

Glad to see the stuff with Minnow made your good list! Taking care of body and soul in academia seems to be a universally difficult task.

Sounds like a good day for this:
http://digitalcuttlefish.blogspot.com/2009/02/uncommon-valentine-poem.h…
Good luck, ScienceWoman!

I thought that list was fantastic the first time I saw it - many of those should be my goals as well - though I also thought it was pretty ambitious. Alas, my Friday is already taken up with two Valentines parties at daycare and school, and two more kid parties on Saturday.... I'll try to remember to enjoy them and not mentally multi-task during them!

I'm in too. Am currently struggling to find any motivation to tackle the overwhelming piles of... stuff, both literal and on-the-list-eral in my life and work, and I'd love a fresh start.

I have a deck of yoga cards in my office, because I found that I didn't have time to do a full yoga workout at home, but that I will often have 5-10 minutes here and there where I need a healthy form of stress relief. Sadly, I often don't even have time for that these days....

These past few weeks have been crazy for me, too, so count me in for the do-over!

I started my makeover last Thursday! It must be something going around. High on my list are, leaving work on time, using my work time wisely, and submitting two first author papers this year too. Go SW!

We need time for ourselves! I think it will makes us better people all around, and we shouldn't feel guilty about doing it. Just when to make the time...that is the problem.

SW, I hope this new regime works for you in 2009! Despite my best intentions, I don't think I got much personal time during academic years while my children were at home, and once they went off to college, I just worked harder on my research and classes. 30+ years later I have some regrets.

2009 theme: Sustainability

sciencewoman — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 06:58:23 +0000

2009 theme: Sustainability

Like many others in the blogosphere, I've adopted the profgrrrrl model of defining a theme for each year rather than a list of resolutions. In 2008, my theme was "Seeking Strategies for Survival, Sanity, and Success." As I said a few weeks ago, the survival part was achieved, but beyond that, I'm not so sure.

This year I'm going to take a slightly different tack on the same general idea, and I'm not moving from my spot in the alphabet. My theme for 2009 is Sustainability. As in, I'm going to focus on trying to live my life that is sustainable in the long run for my body, my mental health, my family and my career.

I spent all of last semester frantically running from one deadline to the next, and I constantly felt like I was in triage mode, fighting only the most urgent fires. I was physically and mentally exhausted by the end of the semester, and time with good friends at AGU and concentrated time with Minnow over the last few weeks have only begun to recharge my energy. I am a bit dismayed by the rapidly approaching first day of class, and I already feel myself starting to be sucked into the frantic vortex. But I am trying to stop the rising sense of panic, and while acknowledging that there is a lot to be done, remind myself that I must also allow time, energy, and mental space for things other than the nearest blaze.

Though I claim to have eschewed resolutions per se, I am at heart very much a list maker, so my theme is accompanied by a list of ways that I will seek to incorporate long-term perspective and sustainability into my life. Because these are not resolutions, I will not feel guilty if I don't live up to them, instead I will think of them as guiding principles to help keep me on theme.

Professional

Recognizing that graduate students are the building blocks of a successful research program, I will more coherently mentor my students, including scheduling regular meetings and progress reports.
I will limit the number of grant applications that I submit, and I will focus my efforts on projects with larger payoffs and longer time-lines. Instead of submitting four proposals, I will aim to submit only two.
I will transfer the time and mental energy I have used to write grant proposals into writing up papers, with the goal of submitting two first-author papers this year.
Now that I've done most of the tremendously difficult work of developing new classes, I will aim to take better notes and revise my materials as I teach a course, so that I'll have a clearer idea of what works the next time I teach the material.
I will continue to be strategic in my selection of service tasks.
I will continue to seek synergy between my professional career and my women-in-science interests.
I will stay better abreast of the literature by not only perusing abstracts and TOCs, but by actually reading at least one article per week.

Family

I will not begrudge Spouse's working hours and instead I will be thankful that he is working and that I get one-on-one time with Minnow.
I will make dedicated time each day to focus solely on Minnow and enjoy her. I will not multi-task during those times and I will not feel guilty about it.
I will prioritize responsibilities to ScienceGrandma and Brother ahead of career, as much as possible. (ScienceGrandma is having surgery on Friday and will be disabled for several months. Some of that time she will be living with us in Mystery City. Keep her in your thoughts.)
I will continue to push Spouse to address his issues, and I will continue to be dedicated to our marriage, but I will not let his problems be an unending excuse for poor behavior.

Physical and Mental Self

I will regain some control over my body this year. Having weaned Minnow, I need to finally stop eating for two, and I'd like to get my waist back. I'm down with the mom jeans, but I always prided myself on a thin waist and it greatly distresses me to see the paunch there now. My passionate love affair with chocolate and chai will have to be tamped down, I'm afraid.
I've got some kick ass running shoes thanks to Dr. Isis, and I'm actually going to use them on occasion for their intended purpose. But I am not going to commit to ScienceMama's challenge because I want the running to be something I want to do, not something to check off the list in pursuit of a goal.
By the end of year, I will be in a yoga class again. I miss the physical and mental aspects of the practice.
I need to connect with this place where I live and where I may spend the next several decades. In order to do this, I'm trying to take an outdoor picture every day. This will (a) force me to get out of the house/office every day, preferably during daylight hours; (b) indulge my interest in photography and maybe even learn something along the way; and (c) most importantly, help me to see the beauty in my everyday environment and encourage me to seek out the beautiful spots in the surrounding region.
I will take some days and nights away from Minnow and away from work in order to do the things I love by myself or with my friends. There's talk of a girl's hiking or rafting trip this summer, I'm going to ScienceOnline in a few weeks, and my heart yearns for some solitude in the mountains. I will work to make such time away from home logistically comfortable so that when I do go off on my own, I will be relatively free from worry of impending deadlines or Minnow's well-being.
I will start to make our suburban-hell life in Mystery City somewhat more sustainable in the ecological sense, because that is important to me personally and professionally. On top of what I already do, I will start composting kitchen scraps, replace the sunlight-all-around back door, and add insulation to the attic door. I will seriously investigate how to use graywater around the house (we already don't use much water outdoors).
In order to make all of the things listed above come true, I will need to reduce the amount of time I spend procrastinating, especially on the internet. Thus endeth this post.

sciencewoman Mon, 01/05/2009 - 01:58

Tags

goal setting

SciWo says...

what did they say about "balance," again?

You go girl!
But seriously, "down with the mom jeans" ?!?!
May I point out the great thing about a really nice pair of dark wash boot cut trouser jeans from Ann Taylor Loft is that male STEM colleauges are not usually fashion saavy enough to know I'm wearing jeans to work. Wide leg trouser jeans often flatter the postbaby body. Mom jeans not so much.

Having spent two frantic hours in the mall on Saturday because both pairs of jeans ripped out in the knee in a two day period, I can tell you that I've only found two styles of jeans that fit well and flatter my body. The Ann Taylor loft curvy fit bootcut shown here (Unfortunately, they were out of my size this time around.) and the Eddie Bauer curvy fit jeans shown here. Fortunately, they lack the elastic back of the prototypical mom jeans.

So much for not wasting time on the internet.

I love the theme of sustainability! Your goals are inspiring.

Inspiring as always Sciencewoman. I'll being thinking about ScienceMama. Any advice to a wants to get started in yoga lady?!

I love the photography idea. It's weird to get into a science because of attachment to places, and then move to wherever there's an academic job. (Sometime I should blog about my emotional reaction to Steve Semken's work on teaching place-based geology - I actually cry during his talks. Very unprofessional. Good thing the lights are out for the powerpoints.)

My thoughts are with ScienceGrandma for her surgery, and with you taking care of both parent and child! (And also with the post-weaning body. I trained to run a marathon after weaning my son, and that helped, but then I kept eating like a marathoner while trying to dive back into research and teaching an overload and doing afterschool care and... well, it's a good thing I've got a couple sizes of clothes around for my weight fluctuations.)

Wonderful goals for the year, ScienceWoman! I especially like the one about connecting with MysteryCity through photography. I find myself complaining so much about where I live that I'm probably missing out on a lot of beautiful things.

Thank you for the thoughtful and positive post! I wish ScienceGrandma all the best. Being a graduate student I appreciate #1, under the professional list. May 2009 be fruitful in all aspects.

Great list of goals and am hoping things go well in 2009!

If you need advice on composting, I have some information from helping our apartment complex take those steps. It has cut down quite a bit on our weekly trash bag and we don't have to worry about the summer fruit fly invasion. As an initial step, you may want to see if Mystery City offers deals on composters as many cities are now subsidizing them for residents.

As for the body plan, I always recommend a site like fitday.com to see where your Caloric intake is. It is not always necessary to entirely cut out your goodies. Plus chai isn't too bad with skim. ;) I like coming up with 30 min circuits (e.g. squats, plank, pushups - 3 rounds) that can be done in the house since it can be hard to get to the gym. I find it is a nice way to pick up energy in the morning.

It seems I wear the only size neither website has in stock right now. I might be interested in the cords at Eddie Bauer as long as they are at least as cheap as the site shows now.

I'm not a mom yet and I wear curvy-fit jeans anyhow. I found that boot cut Rider jeans from Wal-mart fit me and my budget pretty well.

Good luck with your goals, SW!

Best of luck with the running plans, SW! I am on my way out for one now. But, don't fall into the Mom jean trap, SW. Don't do it!!!!! The Eva bootcut jean at Express have changed my life.

"Yes, but what do you do?" A new response.

skookumchick — Sat, 03 Jan 2009 15:30:24 +0000

"Yes, but what do you *do*?" A new response.

I've been spending the past week or two trying to get my groove on with respect to work. I scared myself quite badly with how overwhelmed I got at the end of last semester, and how quickly. I vowed to myself not to let myself get sucked into such unhealthy patterns, and then beat myself up over and over because of how often I tell myself not to get sucked in, and then how I get totally sucked in again.

However. It is a new year. So I have another chance to start over. And am apparently trying to do so publicly, as what else would a blogger do? Besides, I don't want to give anyone the impression that I hate my job. I don't. At least, I don't hate it when I actually feel like I'm spending my time doing important and useful things. And I wasn't feeling that much or often in December.

So, how to do my job differently? It comes back to reminding myself what I am supposed to be *doing.*

Over the holidays, when people at parties asked me what I *do,* I tended to say, "I'm an assistant professor of engineering education at Purdue University." Sometimes I got questions about what that actually means, but I didn't really realize until today I don't describe what I *do.*

In November, December, if you'd asked me, I would have said that I attend meetings, and jump when other people tell me to. And then I would go crawl into a little cave of self-loathing.

So, early in 2009, I'm trying to clear some mental space. And to start with, I'm going to restate what my job is, what I'm supposed to be *doing.*

Ready?

My job is to think creatively about gender and engineering education, and to think about, write, and teach in ways that result in a change in how engineering education is done in the US. That is supposedly why they pay me the big bucks.

My job is not to jump to the email whenever someone needs something from me. My job is not to bend over backwards for others because I am a nice person. My job should be structured so I eat and sleep enough, and should not twist me into a horrible person to be around (my husband, in case you haven't figured it out already, is a saint.)

In fact, Merlin Mann of 43folders fame sums up my predicament pretty well here:

Who Moved My Brain? Revaluing Time and Attention

View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: gtd time)

So I'm trying to clear some space to actually get down to *doing* what I *do.* Here is a start I've made:

Pure procrastination is not really a problem for me, but brain static is. So I've made my first page of Safari go to this page. I'm not sure it is helping too much yet, but it is having me think a second about whether I should be interrupting my task to do whatever it is online.
I've bought copies of OmniFocus (on the advice of a friend) and OmniPlan and I am planning my research out for the next 6 months. I'm doing mental sweeps on OmniFocus, and setting time estimates for how long each task should take. I know this risks overplanning and making me inflexible, but at the moment I'm paralyzed by the thoughts of how much I have to do -- so far, these have helped unclutter my mind and start to grapple with the broken-down tasks that will build up to the big tasks. We'll see.
I've redug out ATNFM and put it next to my bed. I'll try and read a little each night again.
I've started writing down what I've done in a cool little book so I can see what I've done, as well as what I have yet to do.
I've done massive triage on my email and I'm going to try to be more vigilant about a) doing email at the end of the day, and b) not feeling guilty about not being able to respond to everything.
I'm going to start holding meetings *only when there is no other way to accomplish what needs to get done beside meeting face to face.* And the Law of Two Feet will hold, especially for me.

I know, this is just a start.

All of this is intended to help me learn to actually spend time on the creative, innovative work I was really hired to be able to do, and to be WAY more intentional about how I spend my time. Hopefully that will include more thoughtful and content-rich blogging, and less whining. Which should be good for both me and you.

Wish me luck...

skookumchick Sat, 01/03/2009 - 10:30

Tags

Alice shares...

engineering education

goal setting

let's talk about solutions

what did they say about "balance," again?

My job is to think creatively about gender and engineering education, and to think about, write, and teach in ways that result in a change in how engineering education is done in the US.

[...]

Wish me luck...

Oh, indeed I do. Because it's important in its own right, because as a practicing engineer it's near to my heart, and because (as noted previously) the subject touches my family directly.

Oh, yes -- I'll second the suggestion to reward yourself for deliverables. For me there's nothing like having a fine-grained project plan on my wall and coloring in progress arcs. "Fine-grained" as in, "something to color in every day."

Woo! Good skill to you!

I have the same problem... I can say I'm a grad student and even explain the basic gist of our project, but what do I actually do? Fight with code? Fight with data? No, I need to better define what positive things I do. Thanks for the inspiration!

Very inspirational post! I like your idea about only checking email at the end of the day. I tend to be a slave to email, and constantly let it interrupt what I am doing - not a great way to be productive.

I'm also very bad about doing things for others - I have a hard time with confrontations and saying 'no'. One of my resolutions is to stop feeling guilty about putting myself first sometimes.

Good luck for 2009!

I have installed GMail notifier and I will be notified each time a new email arrives. I process all my emails immediately as soon as they arrive because I thought that increases productivity. But you do have your point too -- that checking emails at the end of the day isn't a bad thing at all :D

Hi Alice,

I have been doing this for a few years and I am still rubbish at keeping on top of things.

Anyway, I thought you might appreciate looking at this book when it comes out in April.

http://brucemhood.wordpress.com/about-supersense/

No matter whether you are a believer or a skeptic, it has something really important to say from the world of child development about the origins of adult belief.

Best

Bruce

I have installed GMail notifier and I will be notified each time a new email arrives. I process all my emails immediately as soon as they arrive because I thought that increases productivity.

Just the opposite. There's a good bit of research showing that every interruption to a high-level thought or work process costs close to a half-hour. If you check mail more than twice an hour, you're very unlikely to enter your most productive mental states at all.

The industrial psychology peeps suggest structuring your day so that you have most of the short tasks grouped (e.g. meetings always in the afternoon) so that you can have a solid block of uninterrupted time for deep thinking (e.g. in the morning.) One of the reasons that so many "knowledge workers" find themselves working late into the evening is that it's the only time that they can actually get anything done without interruption.

Happy new year, and good luck with all of these. I need to do a bit of that myself...

I'll start with also taking my copy of AFTNF out and continue reading it (and applying it).

Reading my email not before 11am is something I did last summer and it worked quite well for me(as opposed to jump at each incoming email). I seemed to spend much less time dealing with them.