18 Nov, 2008

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!