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I so want to try this. XMas present hint: plane tickets to Wales. And a Kayak.
(Via Ben’s googleshares)
Teaching is great. It’s lots of work, but rewarding. My Monday/Wednesday schedule right now is: Wake up at 4:30 am; Get to work before 6 am; hopefully have a decent lecture ready for 9:00 am (General Chemistry I); then finish up the lecture for noon (Analytical Chemistry); Panic for the rest of the day about what we’re doing on Friday in Analytical Chemistry Lab; try to take care of some kind of professional development or service task; go home and grade stuff; go to bed. But, Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays are much less stressful and more easy-going, so it’s alright. The students are really great. One of the other new professors described them with a really appropriate word, “earnest.” They are earnest–they work hard, and are really kind and honest, and they understand that going to college is a big deal.
More on those labs for Analytical Chemistry: I’m making them up as I go! I really want the course to be built on what the pedagogy-savvy folks call “inquiry-based learning.” The basic idea is that students get more out of science courses if they’re designing experiments, asking questions, and taking responsibility for their own learning. That makes it interesting to write labs. Rather than spend time writing up an accurate and complete step-by-step cookbook (which would be boring for me and for the students), I spend my time looking for research questions and things we can explore with the scientific tools we have available in Analytical Chemistry. Then I write up an introduction to provide some background/motivation, and a bullet list of goals and questions students should address. In the writeup I make some suggestions of different options they might consider for their experimental design. But, really, most of the guidance is live, in the classroom, in group discussions. The art (which I could use plenty of improvement in) is to guide the conversation without giving people step-by-step instructions. In the end, I’d like the students to be able to design analytical chemistry experiments, carry them out, and analyze the data intelligently (using lots and lots of spreadsheets!). Every day, I have to repeat to myself, “What do I want them to be able to do?” Wifey taught me that line, and it really helps focus the learning goals. Maybe I’ll post some stories from labs we’ve tried. So far, they actually have been working really well!! The only lab that didn’t work was the one lab that I copied from a lab manual. Bah!
Since the dawn of Windoze 95, I’ve secretly (and not so secretly) hated all Microsoft products. That’s why I use OpenOffice.org instead of M$-Office! But, there is one thing that has been cheesing me off for the longest time about OpenOffice: You haven’t been able to graph data with different error bars on each data point. The only error bars you could add had to all have the same value. Which is stupid. Who measures numbers that all have the same error? Seriously. How useless is that feature? Well, worry no more! You can now graph data with independent columns of error data! Check out my data and all their gloriously variable errors!
I think I peed my pants. Just a little bit.
Hup Hup Hurrah! Hold onto your foam eyeballs, muppetics! Hulu is now featuring a large selection of videos from Sesame Street! Here is Johnny Cash telling Oscar the Grouch to have a rotten day:
SNL did a pretty accurate 10-minute version of Biden and Palin in the vice pres. debates. Spot-on!
Check it out, another awesome Jerry Schnoor editorial in Environmental Science & Technology. He keeps me feeling positive about whether scientists can communicate relevant and accessible commentary on public policy. Schnoor talks about the politics of writing energy legislation/regulation that would actually do something, and recommends an official ES&T-endorsed three-step plan. It’s pretty punchy. Here’s a good quote:
This year Congress debated the Climate Security Act. Last year we passed the Energy Independence and Security Act (but it hasn’t worked yet). If I wanted education reform, I’d label it the Stupidity Prevention and Security Act. But that’s a topic for another editorial.We need to have journalism awards for scientific journals. There are several good contenders in the ACS.
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