At a revision tutorial tonight, one of the students told me this was the hardest science course she had ever done. In all her other ones, she had just had to learn stuff and regurgitate it.
Monthly Archives: October 2012
The power, the beauty…and the discipline?
In previous years, I have spent some of my creative juices during Fall semester trying to figure ways to convey to the SC200 class the Power, The Beauty and the Joy of science. This year, some of my enthusiasm is being absorbed by discipline problems in class. I have NEVER had discipline problems in any class room. EVER. This year:
- Insights on the Comment Wall like “my penis is caught in my zipper” and “the blond in the fourth row smells” and “why does my anus move like a flap when i fart?” and “if the circumference of an acorn is 12cm, why is my right testicle 36cm?” and “is it bad for me to ejaculate on pregnancy tests in order to skew the results?”. Despite my very visible anger, the comments continued over several weeks, so I pulled the comment wall from public viewing.
- People tried to chat up my TAs via the Comment Wall: “where’d that hot TA go”, “are the hot TAs here? I’ve yet to do my blog and could use some help”, “xxx is hella fine not juss pretty”
- Inappropriate comments on the hand-in sheets attached to the pop quizzes.
- People signing in for other people on the quizzes.
- Plagiarism of blog material.
Sometimes it works
I had a fabulous lunch today with one of the students. She is doing very well on the course, and has been to both revision tutorials – just to argue with me. She is not used to getting less than an A, so she is pissed she is running A-‘s and B+’s.
The view from the front
The way it looks
A photographer came to class today. I am presenting to the Dean’s Advisory Group on Friday about developing a strategy for the Eberly College of Science about how we are going to lift the Gen Ed game.
Class Test 2
Class Test 1 had the weirdest grade distribution. Nothing like the bell curve, it was the shape of a shallow dish, with 34 fails and 34 A’s.
The good things
I had a staggeringly bad day. I am fighting the NIH over deeply unnecessary red tape. It’s been a shock to me how much worse the bureaucracy is in America compared to any where else I have lived (NZ, UK, Germany). Even buying and selling a car privately, which I did yesterday, involves way more bureaucracy than it does in those other countries. I am also trying to deal with bad chemistry between key people in my working life. And there are ongoing discipline problems in the class (which I will blog about when they are sorted).
(2) I had a breakfast coffee with one of the SC200 students. She is highly motivated about the course, loves the critical thinking aspect, and is enjoying the topics I am teaching (these are the vehicles I use for getting across hard concepts). She is a theater major, and we had a very interesting discussion about performance art. My sort of teaching is performance art. Clearly, she had not thought about teaching like that before, though she got it as soon as I raised it. She made me think it would be really great to do a class (be student) in Professorial Theater 101. I wonder what we could do for PSU teaching if we got into that.
How big?
Calming chickens
I spent the morning on chicken farms. We have an EEID grant to look for Marek’s disease virus in Pennsylvania. MDV has evolved to become seriously nasty. We’re working on the possibility that vaccines made it so. To me, it’s a fascinating question (although I have no deep understanding of why). And the context is fabulous. The efficiency of the poultry industry is mind blowing. It is incredible what smart people and market forces can achieve. Chickens used to be more expensive than oysters. Now… If humans can make chickens dirt cheap, and go to the moon, how come we can’t do simple things, like Middle East peace?
Last Thursday
I have been on the road, without time to blog. Last Thursday’s class amazed me.