The COVID-versary

Today is March 12. It’s my COVID-versary. Like an anniversary, but with 'rona. (I’ve been lucky and careful, and have so far avoided actually getting COVID-19.) Thursday, March 12, 2020 was the last time I taught classes in person, on campus, in an actual classroom. Nothing special happened. My advanced perception class did not have a quiz (it was a skip week); I lectured on face perception. In my human factors and ergonomics, I lectured on APA style (boring) and groupthink (much more interesting). I picked up my eldest daughter from school, and asked her if she minded of we went to Best Buy on the way home. I had picked out a nice microphone and was getting worried that I’d need it soon--you know, with the way things were going. In fact, I’d need it the very next day.

On Friday, March 13 (ugh, Friday the 13th) at 12:33am, the University of Alberta sent out an email announcing that classes would be “temporarily suspended” that day. After fiddling with the setup of my mic--it did not like one of my USB ports--I recorded and posted a lecture video to YouTube in time for my regularly scheduled behaviour modification class. I was off and running. And it feels like I’ve been running ever since. On the morning of Saturday, March 14, the inevitable happened and classes were moved to emergency remote delivery. And that’s where we are today, a year later.

Looking back, here are some numbers that summarize my past year:

• lecture videos recorded: over 300
• emails handled/received/sent: ~9,600 (Probably over 10,000 if you include automated notifications about meetings, exams, etc. That's more than two dozen emails a day, on average.)
  
• Zoom meetings, seminars, and webinars attended: ??? (A lot. Really, really, a lot. I don’t even want to know how many. Got pretty familiar with all the video meeting software: Zoom, Google Meet, Skype, Webex, Facetime...)
• major awards won: 1 (William Hardy Alexander Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching, 2020)
• awards that I nominated someone else for: 1 (my colleague Dr Jennifer Passey, who won the 2020 Remote Teaching Award)
• professional haircuts: 0
• haircuts by my wife (who is not a trained barber): like, 10? (I am NOT complaining. I think it’s amazing that in addition to being a physician, wife, and mother, she can also cut my hair so I look like a normal person.)
• things ordered online: around 100 (Not all from Amazon. I ordered most things from local businesses online that I picked up in-store or curbside. I try to buy local first if I can to support local businesses.
  
• online orders gone wrong: at least 5 (Just about everything that could go wrong did, with one exception: to my knowledge, no porch pirates stole any of my packages.)

Although I did pop in to my office a couple of times last spring, that was apparently prohibited (oops) so I have not returned in 11 months. There are no plants in my office, and on my last visit, I took home any perishable food. The last thing I want to see when I eventually return to my office is some infestation, like sentient plants, or sentient chocolate bars--or sentient plants that have survived by eating sentient chocolate bars. (Don’t laugh--I once had a mouse in my office.)

In the Before Times, I had a certain routine. I liked my routine; everything was...predictable. When the pandemic hit, that routine went out the window. Although we never had a true “lockdown” (just various restrictions), life was turned upside down. What to do but make a new routine:

• get up and make coffee (priorities, people!)
• get my kids up for online school
• shave, personal hygiene, etc. (It’s important--it makes you feel like an actual person. In the short term it depletes your willpower, but in the long run it builds it up.)
• get dressed: no sweatpants, no pajamas, no underwear-only days--ever! (Again, doing things like getting dressed signal that things are happening; it gives you some purpose.) On the other hand, I don’t wear ties anymore. (Ok, just on special occasions.)
• get to work: check email first for fires that have to be put out, and disasters that have erupted overnight; send messages that I forgot yesterday (oops); check eClass message forums
• then, it’s lunchtime, signaled by one of my daughters arriving at my desk announcing “Lunchtime!” Yes, lunchtime. That’s how long it takes me to deal with email: basically the entire morning.
• Spend lunch with kids. Difficult times can create opportunities. I don’t want this all to go by and all I have to show for it is...work. We eat and talk and joke. Then, back to work!
• record lecture videos: I try to be ahead by a class or two. Some of my colleagues have recorded lecture videos for an entire course over the summer. I thought I would do that, too. Ha! is all I have to say to that.
• Throughout the day, there are problems. There are always problems. (Like the day the power went out. Hey kids, no school! Luckily, I had already uploaded my lecture video for the day and just had to flip the switch to activate it, using my cell phone.) Over the months, the technical issues have decreased, but there are phone calls to make or answer, appointments to take kids to, snow to shovel/grass to mow.
• My wife will come home in the late afternoon, which is my signal to log off for a while. Mostly, it’s a signal to WHERE IS DINNER!? WHAT are we EATING!? Oh, the drudgery of making dinner. I don’t mind cooking, as long as it doesn’t take hours of standing and washing/peeling/chopping. Most days, I’m a put-the-ribs-in-the-oven-for-3-hours or slow-cooker-meat-and-veggies guy. Or, “It’s only -10 C out, that means firing up the grill outside!” When you’re at home all day, your spouse may come to the incorrect conclusion that all you’re doing is cooking dinner all day. You must disabuse your spouse of this notion. I wish she read this blog. Sigh.
• After dinner is another bit of routine. We go for a walk as a family. After sitting on my butt for literally hours, my back is aching and I need to move around. There is a pack of coyotes living in our neighbourhood, so we try to go for our walk as early as possible. Sunny summer days are great. Dark, cold, snowy winter evenings when the windchill is -20 C are not so great. Any colder than -25 and I’m staying inside with my sore back and a mug of hot something with a splash of adult beverage in it.
• Fridays we order takeout and have it delivered, again to help support local businesses. We don’t want our favourite restaurants to disappear! Cố Đô Huế forever!
• Sometime we have family game night. I don’t think that would have happened had there not been a pandemic. (Silver linings?)

My kids have, by objective measures, been doing pretty well with their online school. Some members of my family have concerns about COVID-19 due to certain health conditions, so we all decided together that the kids would not go in person when the schools reopened. Subjectively, though, it’s been hard. Motivation is tough. Not seeing peers is tough (there’s only so much interaction you get playing Among Us for the millionth time). My eldest daughter has now been doing high school at home for longer than she was at her actual high school. Will that be something she will look fondly back on in 10 years? Doubtful. On top of my IT duties and role as cook, I also have to be the family psychologist. Unfortunately, I’m not a “real” psychologist, so this is one of the most difficult aspects of this WFH situation. I do what I can. Sometimes it’s just sitting and talking. I hope it’s enough.

I’m not a teaching robot. (Once I was called a “teaching ninja” by my Department Chair which was pretty cool.) All of this is wearing on me, too. I have to plan, record, and upload videos. I have to answer the never-ending flood of questions. I hear from students who have gone through all kinds of unimaginable difficulties, including death, disease, and abuse. There are days when I can’t even.

And I’m not alone. This recent report done by The Chronicle of Higher Education reveals that most faculty are feeling anxiety, frustration, and stress. More than half are considering changing careers, or even retirement. Me too: one of the seminars I signed up for over the summer was retirement planning. The way the Government of Alberta is funding (or rather, NOT funding) higher education, I may have to retire sooner than I expect.

Now there’s the imminent prospect of vaccination and the hope for a return to normal life. It can’t come soon enough.

Screw you, COVID.

Why aren’t you...oh, nevermind. I’m sure you’re doing your best.

What I Did on my Summer Vacation (2020 COVID Edition)

I write these “what I did during my summer vacation” posts every year, and I know there’s a certain sameness to them. Well, not this year! *heavy sigh*

To a large extent, I was ready for the pandemic. The first mention of an “unusual flu” caught my eye in the news in late December. I had paid close (horrified) attention to the SARS outbreak almost 20 years ago, and lived through the (fairly frightening) H1N1 pandemic (yes, it is classified as a pandemic) in 2009. During the latter, I stood in a line of hundreds of people for hours with my family to get immunized. My youngest daughter was still a baby. It was a sobering experience.

After that, I made sure we had a good supply of hand sanitizer, much of which I still had when it was otherwise impossible to find this spring. I dug into closets and cabinets, surprised to find how many containers remained after 10 years. I even had the foaming dispenser in my university office. So when the situation began spiraling out of control in China, I began to prepare. Let me be clear that I did stockpile important supplies, but I did not hoard anything. (What’s the difference? Stockpiling implies that you are storing things that you will later use; hoarding suggests that you have so much, you will never need or use them.)

Remember the whole toilet-paper shortage thing?

I spent early March getting ready for remote delivery, reading reviews of high-quality mics and webcams. By the time in-person classes were “temporarily suspended” on March 13, I already had a lecture video ready to go for my class on the 13th. How seriously did I take this? Let’s just say that some people treated the movie Contagion as entertainment--I took it as a training film.

Being the designated household IT guy, I had to help my wife set up her Zoom meetings and troubleshoot my kids’ Google Meetings for school. I upgraded our home internet, doubling the speed. Knowing that I’d be spending even more time than usual sitting at my computer, I tried to make my setup as ergonomically correct as possible. (Are you feeling sore after being at your computer for too long? Check out the recording of the Faculty of Rehab Med’s webinar on five tips to create a healthy workspace.)

This is what you get when you leave your phone
lying around and tell your kids not to touch it.

After rounding out the challenging Winter term, I was plunged immediately into Spring term with only a day or two to prepare. I learned a lot, very quickly, from being dropped into the deep end. My colleagues also rallied in an amazing way. I’ve been in more teaching-related meetings via Zoom in the past two months than in the past two years. (Thanks, too, to students in that spring term class who were incredibly patient, understanding, and gave great feedback.)

With spring term over, I could finally relax, right? Do what I heard that other people were doing during the lockdown? Binge-watch The Witcher? Learn how to knit? Sing opera to my neighbourhood? Nope. As usual, I worked. Among other things:

• learned about and prepared for more remote teaching (note that there is are important differences between emergency remote teaching and online learning)
• served as external examiner for an MSc student
• Zoomed (it’s a verb now, right?) with colleagues across the university on an interrupted research project evaluating and redesigning a cognitive aid used in neonatal resuscitation

It has been a difficult time--for me, as for everyone. What do you do when the daily routine you have relied on has been shattered? You mourn the old one. And you create a new one. Having a defined structure to the day helps. You don’t have to decide what to do. You don’t have to burn through your precious, limited motivation and willpower. You just follow your routine. Every day, I get out of bed, shave, get dressed, have a coffee (not in that order). Spend the morning working. Take a break and make lunch for my kids. Eat lunch standing up. Go back to work. After the first wave crested, we were even brave enough to order food delivery (however, we treat the packaging like it’s radioactive).

Although I had a lot of work to do, I didn’t want life to pass me by, either. I won’t have this opportunity together with my kids again, so I wanted to make the most of it. In the evening, after spending too much time at our computers, we’d all go for a walk as a family. (There were so many great supportive chalk messages and pictures on driveways.) Then we’d watch a movie together, like Trolls World Tour, Onward, Hamilton, Batman Begins. Or play board games. Or Animal Crossing: New Horizons.

My memories of this time will include making Dalgona coffee (a.k.a. quarantine coffee or covid coffee). All the baking (pretzels, cupcakes, cheese buns, banana bread, nalysnyky, green onion cakes, and so many cookies).

Nalysnyky: Ukranian cottage cheese-filled crepes. 

And the “vacation” we had: a day trip to Lacombe. My old home town only had only one active case of COVID-19, so it felt very safe--like we were on a pandemic-free planet. (Yes, we all wore masks the whole time.) We did some shopping at the Lacombe Centre Mall, including scoring two dozen cannoli from Sweet Capone's. It turns out that after five months, the whole family was shopping-deprived.

Cannoli: Italian cream-filled pastries.

Now, I can feel the weather turning cooler. There are more leaves on the ground. Yeah, it’s time. Time to go back to work and school. But it’s going to be strange going back without leaving the house.

I know that many people are struggling--emotionally, financially, and not least of all, health-wise. My family has been lucky, and careful. I now have five different face masks, among them an X-Men one and a Ravenclaw one. I don't have these because they look cool. My wife is a front-line health care worker who is concerned for her patients' health, and for her own and her family's. My kids haven't given their auntie a hug in five months. I haven't come closer than 2 metres to my elderly parents; I don't want to give them a virus that could kill them. We've all lost things this year, but maybe we've also gained some perspective...on what's important.

Stay safe, everyone.

Why aren’t you studying?

The Remote Delivery

What a long strange trip it's been. TBH, it hasn't even been that long--just 3 weeks at this point. But it seems like forever ago that UAlberta announced that it was "preparing" to move to online delivery of courses (it was actually March 12). To show how fast things moved, literally the next day it was abruptly announced that classes were suspended, and then the day after that we were told to move to "remote delivery" of courses. (Note that remote teaching is not the same as online learning.)

Although it was announced that in-person classes were suspended on "lucky" Friday the 13th of March and were to resume with remote delivery on Tuesday, March 17th, I was prepared for this. Having kept an eye on the effects of COVID-19 across the world since late December, I already had a webcam for my office computer, and bought a new microphone right before they sold out across the city and online. My mic is a Blue Yeti Nano. (It's not the Wirecutter's top pick, but it's cheaper, smaller, and still pretty good--and way better than a crummy cellphone or laptop mic. Why spend money on an expensive mic instead of an expensive HD webcam? Research has shown that impressions of content are strongly influenced by audio quality.)

The green ring means we're go!

Because I've never recorded my lectures or taught an online, hybrid, or blended course before, I also had to decide on lecture capture software. The plan was to go through some of the different options, evaluate them, and pick the best. But because the landscape was changing so fast, I wasn't able to do that--I just went with the one recommended by my colleague Dr Jenn Passey: Screencast-O-Matic. I bought it the day before Loom (one product on my shortlist) announced they were offering their product for free to educators. The day after that, IST announced that they were making some lecture capture tools available for free: Stream2 (which I had never heard of), and Zoom (which I knew had serious existing privacy and security issues). Again, things were moving fast.
 
If I had waited, I wouldn't have had to spend any money and I could have carefully weighed the pros and cons of all the options--but I couldn't wait. It was important for me to have continuity for my classes. In a time of uncertainty, I wanted students to be able to rely on me. I hope I've been able to make the transition from in-person to remote teaching as smooth as possible.

 Note to my kids: daddy's busy!

UAlberta's The Quad blog recently featured some work-from-home photos of UAlberta employees. It was interesting to see the diversity of setups people have. I'm lucky to have an actual home office. Some people are working at their kitchen table, rec room, or in their windowless basement. Although that might get the job done, the ergonomics of it makes me cringe. (Here's a checklist for your desk setup, courtesy of Edmonton-based ergonomic company EWI Works.)

I miss being in front of a class, experiencing the energy of students. One law professor went viral with the Zoom videos of him teaching to a Pinocchio doll in an empty classroom. I'm comfortable doing my lectures in front of my computer, but like the law prof I'm not alone. Somehow I've managed to accumulate a variety of, um, companions? Apparently my wife has a thing for buying me cute hedgehogs (no, I don't know why). The blue M&M on the right is actually a computer screen cleaner. And then there's Hack & Slash for some '90s nostalgia.

Say hello to my little friends.

Next up, I'm teaching a spring class that's going to be remote delivery. I don't know what's going to happen come September. That seems too far in advance to even consider. Until classes resume in person and life gets back to normal, take care of yourselves!

Why aren't you studying?

The Academic Misconduct

For me this past academic year was a bad one for academic misconduct, a general term that refers to a number of violations of the Code of Student Behaviour. These include cheating, inappropriate collaboration, plagiarism, and substantial assistance. This year, I had three cases that were sent for review (the most I’ve ever had in one year).

I am obligated to send these cases to the Faculty because making decisions about academic misconduct (and academic sanctions) is beyond my pay grade. When I notice something suspicious, I am required to document my findings and send them to a higher authority. No, not God: the Faculty of Science Associate Dean (Undergraduate), who then forwards the case to the discipline team, which includes a Special Advisor (Discipline) in the Faculty of Science, to determine whether there has been a violation of the Code of Student Behaviour.

The Academic Offenses
Obviously, for reasons of privacy, I cannot say much about the particular cases, or give any information that may identify the offenders. However, it is informative to look at what got these students into trouble. In all three cases, the common thread was that students misrepresented others’ work as their own. More specifically, in all three cases, there were passages from published works that the student either failed to attribute to the original authors, or did a poor job of attribution.

In all three cases this year, there were numerous incidents of direct quotes (or poorly paraphrased near-direct quotes) from other sources that appeared in the student’s written work. Including direct quotes is not inherently bad, and won’t necessarily get you in trouble. (In scientific writing, it is considered poor practice to include direct quotes; in a paper for an English class, on the other hand, direct quotes from the source material are used to support an argument.) When a student submits a paper, it is assumed that they are handing in their own work--with the exception of passages drawn from external sources, which must be clearly indicated as such. It may be that it’s an oops! moment. A student just forgets to put in quotation marks, or misses citing a source. You know what? That’s still academic dishonesty. If it happens once in a paper, it’s more likely to be forgiven than when every page contains substantial passages from someone else’s work that are not cited. In the cases I dealt with, there were many, many problematic instances--dozens, in fact. Don’t underestimate your instructors; we are pretty finely attuned to the difference between the writing of an undergraduate and that of a career academic, and the more there are, the more likely we are to find them.

The Academic Sanctions

In two of the cases, the penalty was that the students were given a mark of zero on their assignments. In the other case, however, there was a particular combination of factors that resulted in a harsher penalty of a failing grade and a comment of Failure Due to Inappropriate Academic Behavior added to the person’s transcript. This is not something you want on your transcript, whether you’re applying to graduate school, or for a job. It does not look good.

Although I don’t have any insight into the mind of the Deans, some factors that are known to affect the severity of academic sanctions include:

• previous history of academic dishonesty
• the level of the course and student (first-year vs. fourth-year; the latter are expected to be fully knowledgeable about what constitutes academic dishonesty and how to avoid it)
• the nature of the offence (a couple of slip-ups, or widespread copying-and-pasting)

The Prevention
One reason why cheating occurs is that a student doesn’t know they are doing it. An easy way to address this is to develop skills in citing, quoting, summarizing, and paraphrasing. The Centre for Teaching and Learning has a collection of brief videos to help you learn these skills, and introduce you to academic culture.

Another reason given for cheating is that students run out of time to do a proper job. To avoid a time crunch, start early. There’s loads of good advice on how to avoid procrastination. Students in my classes know the details of every assignment in the term on the first day. You could start working on your end-of-term paper on the first day of classes! Okay, I realize that’s not practical. So I gave my class a soft deadline: they are to email me their choice of term paper topic by the mid-point in the term. In this way, I am making them start to think about their paper well before it’s due. (What’s a soft deadline? There is no penalty for not submitting it--but students will get an annoying reminder from me.)

Cases of academic misconduct make me cranky, for different reasons. First, in cases of willful misconduct, the student thinks they can get away with it. That’s a gamble I wouldn’t take. My teaching assistants and I are pretty sharp--and TAs get a mercenary glint in their eyes when encountering suspicious activity.

Second, it take a lot of time to write up a misconduct report. Two of the cases this year took me 10 hours just to go through the papers line-by-line and determine which sentences were plagiarized. Then it was another couple of hours to write the letters to the Dean. All this took time away from marking term papers, which is literally my busiest time of year. I will not be feeling any kindness or sympathy when I write up the academic misconduct report.

Finally, thanks to the vast majority of students who maintain their academic integrity, and earn their grades the hard way!

Why aren’t you studying?

The Classroom Technology

 

See this screen? I have come to hate this screen. Let me take you through the journey of why...

I teach in “smart” classrooms. (Ugh, I hate that term. It just means there are computers and projectors. Computerization should never be touted as “smart” or “intelligent.”) Classroom computers are vital to teaching, allowing instructors to run PowerPoint, use iClickers, show videos, and a myriad of other things. If there are problems with the classroom computers, it impairs the classroom experience for everyone. In the worst case, it brings everything to a crashing halt (foreshadowing).

Having used computerized classrooms since they were first introduced, I have a lot of experience with them. That means having a lot of experience with failures, as they’re called in the human factors literature. Here’s an example. In recent years, the classroom computers were not set up to boot like the normal computer you have. At boot time, the classroom computers load an “image”. That is, they do not load Windows 10 from a hard drive inside the computer, they load it completely from scratch over the local area network. There are a number of reasons for doing this, including security. (We wouldn’t want another computer security breach, would we?)

But here’s the problem with this approach. If (when?) the local area network goes down, the classroom computer will freeze. Now, if it was a typical computer, it would still run. That is, I would still be able to continue showing PowerPoints and keep on teaching--I just wouldn’t have Internet access. But with the network image approach, the classroom computer is dead, and basically class is over. (Or I could use the whiteboard, in classrooms that actually have one. Or I could use the document camera. These options are awkward, and obviously very limiting.)

In July, IST announced upcoming “summer upgrades” based on VMware Horizon to classroom computers. According to the blog post, these so-called were being done “To improve efficiency and effectiveness...faster boot times for users, provide access to current technologies (Windows 10, Office 2016), and provide increased security.” First, I hate when a change is called an “upgrade.” This was not going to be an upgrade; really, it was a downgrade. Here are some of the specific issues:

• The computers were already running Windows 10 and Office 2016, so the upgrade was not going to provide something that previously did not exist.
• Applications would now be run not on the computer in the actual classroom, but on a virtual computer running on a server across campus.
• Classroom computers would no longer be able to play actual DVDs, despite having a DVD drive. If you want to play a DVD, you would need to ask for a portable DVD player to be brought to the classroom. (Not all instructors know exactly when they will need to play a DVD; some of us play things off DVDs in nearly every class. This is an inelegant, cumbersome workaround, known in computer jargon as a kludge. It is a derogatory term.)
• Using “large files such as video clips... through their USB key will experience extremely poor playback performance and is not advised” (emphasis in original). Er, WTF? I spent hours over the summer converting my content on DVDs to digital files, and now they won’t work? And how large is “large”? I asked that question, and never got a response.
• IST recommended playing videos off YouTube. So I spent more time uploading my DVD video files to YouTube, only to have them rejected because they contained copyrighted material. No shit.

In August, I tried out their new system in a computer lab on campus. It did not go well. Even though I followed their recommendations (which now included Google File Stream, which streams content from Google Drive), videos stuttered and audio was out of sync with video. The iClicker application just crashed over and over.

Last semester did not go well. Almost every video I showed in class stuttered--some just froze completely for a solid minute, as did even PowerPoint. (There’s nothing like twiddling my thumbs in a class full of hundred of increasingly restless students staring at me while I nervously mumble, “It’ll start up again. Soon. Probably.”)

Every colleague who I talked to complained about the new system--they brought it up even if I didn’t. Not a single person liked it; not a single person had anything good to say about it. I guess some feedback made its way back to IST, who finally released an email on September 14:

IST has made technical changes to the way we deploy operating systems and applications to centrally booked classrooms and computer labs, and we apologize for the frustrations the issues have caused. We are working diligently to find solutions to common issues that are impacting podium computers in the classrooms. We do have mitigation strategies in place and want to ensure we apply the right solution going forward.

Due to technical complications uncovered during the upgrade, we will be restoring a number of targeted classrooms back to their original state starting Friday, September 14, 2018, in order to improve the instructors’ overall teaching experience in these classrooms.

We are aware there are still ongoing issues arising in classrooms. We are actively working on solutions to ensure you are able to utilize classrooms to their full capability.

The rest of the email is basically a list of the problems with either a) we’re-working-on-it language, or b) claims that everything should work. Both of these are, obviously, not helpful in any way. And sadly, the “targeted classrooms” did not include rooms for my two biggest classes.

That is why I hate the VMware login screen at the top of this post. First, I have to log in with my UAlberta credentials, then I have to enter my UAlberta email address, then I have to log in to Google Drive with my UAlberta credentials again. And if I want to get into eClass, I have to log in one more time. That's four times that I have to enter my UAlberta credentials. (If I look stressed and frustrated at the start of class, now you know why.)

Despite my complaints and kicking and screaming about how awful they've made the workflow, IST did...nothing.

But then, at the end of November, IST did something. They sent around a Classroom Technology Survey. From the email:

This survey provides an opportunity for you to help influence decisions as IST plans for the future needs of our centrally managed classrooms. In particular, we would like to know how you use the technology in the classrooms and what technology issues you encounter while teaching.

What is this? At long last, IST has actually started to consult with stakeholders on the deployment of classrom technology. By January, IST had compiled a list of “functional requirements” based on the survey results, and I was asked to meet with the Manager and Project Coordinator. This is the first time in 25 years of teaching that I’ve been asked to provide my input on the technology provided in classrooms.

There were some issues with their requirements. Like “Ability to set up and be ready to teach within the 10 minutes between classes”. Sometimes I have to run to class from a seminar or meeting; often the previous instructor has not logged out and is still standing in front of the computer. I need the computer to be ready in 5 minutes--no, less than that. Another one: “Having the latest version of MS Office”. Classroom computers currently have Office 2013 installed; the “latest version” is Office 2016. Or actually, the continually updated Office 365 insider fast build is. (No, I certainly do not want to be running beta builds of software in a classroom.)

The bottom line for me is that I just want the classroom computers to work. The best technology is the one that gets out of my way and lets me do my job. As part of my meeting with IST, I suggested that they should also consult with another important stakeholder group: students. We'll see what happens with that. In the meantime, your continued patience and understanding during in-class technical glitches are appreciated.

Why aren’t you studying?

Update: 7/19/2019
Just got a memo from IST. They're rolling back the classroom computers to the way they were before, effective this September. That means all the time and effort I spent to make my lectures work with VMware is now out the window. Argh! So now I have to go back to using a USB drive?

I have mixed feelings about this. Clearly, rolling out VMware was a mistake. (Whose mistake is not clear. Would IST buy this enterprise solution without planning its capabilities in our IT environment? Would the vendor oversell its capabilities?) I'm glad I won't have to deal with the embarrassing freeze-ups in the middle of class anymore. But I did like using Google Drive as a sort-of backup (which I will continue to do). Now I'll have to run my lectures from my USB drive. I just better not forget it in my classrooms (again). But that's another story...

The 25 Years: The Skills

I taught my first class 25 years ago: it was PSYCO 354: Foundations of Cognitive Science. The regular professor, Dr Michael Dawson (who was also on my PhD advisory committee), was going on sabbatical and chose me to teach his course. My emotions included surprise (that he didn’t pick one of his own graduate students) and terror (at having to teach an actual course in front of actual students). Lots of terror.

Fortunately for me, Dr Dawson generously gave me the slides that he used to teach the course. Back in 1994, “slides” did not mean PowerPoint--it meant actual slides. Like in a slide projector. I remember lugging the 20-pound projector to and from the classroom in Tory twice a week. But carrying heavy objects was the easiest part of teaching the course. I was completely on my own in terms of teaching--I hadn’t taken a single seminar, read a book, or anything related to teaching. In fact, I figured/hoped that teaching would NOT be a big part of my future.

Cut to today. Aside from the occasional research study, teaching is what I do. It’s all I do. Wanting to do the best possible job, I have invested a lot of time and effort into developing my skills. Being a half-decent instructor at one of the top 5 universities in Canada takes a lot of work, and an incredibly diverse set of skills. Here are some of the tools in my toolbox:

The Content:

As a psychological scientist, I have to know what’s what in the field of psychology--not an easy thing when global scientific output doubles every 9 years. In fact, it’s impossible: there is too much to know. Although a lot of my knowledge is targeted to the courses I teach (behaviour modification, cognition, perception, human factors & ergonomics), there still is the moving target of introductory psychology.

The PSYCO 104 course cuts across most (but thankfully, not all) of the field of psychology. How could I possibly consider myself an expert in the history and methods of psychology, neuroscience, behavioural genetics, and consciousness? At least there’s overlap with my knowledge in perception, perception, and memory from my other courses. But I still struggle to keep up with current thought in motivation and emotion.

Albert Einstein was reported to have said, “The more I learn, the more I realize how much I don't know.” That’s how I feel--even about subfields in which I’m supposedly an expert. There’s always more to know...

The Pedagogy:

Pedagogy, according to the Google, refers to “the method and practice of teaching, especially as an academic subject or theoretical concept.” In other words, How do you teach? As a scientist, the way is clear: apply evidence-based pedagogy. Of course, that means keeping up with another whole set of research literature. I am thankful that psychology intersects with learning theory directly, so it’s not too much of a stretch. But understanding how teaching and learning work is not exactly “my area.”

Over the years, I have applied all kinds of pedagogical best practices. Active learning? Check. Hybrid learning? Yup, dating back to 2000 in fact. Learning outcomes? Ever since day 1, back in 1994. Way ahead of the curve on that one. I don’t think of myself as a leader when it comes to pedagogy--I’m just trying to be the most effective instructor I can be. But I’m getting to an age where people are starting to see me as some wise old sage. If I can pass on my knowledge to help my colleagues, so much the better. I have tried to do some original experimental research on the scholarship of teaching and learning myself, but it’s hard to find the time. Which reminds me, I need to write up some of my research into a paper when I have a spare moment...

The Presentation:

Both behind and in front of the scenes, I rely on Microsoft Office to help me get the job done. I start with Word, developing learning objectives, writing outlines, and then lectures. It seems silly to say that “I have Word skills.” It’s taken over 20 years, but I am finally able to grasp the subtleties of styles, headings, and macros.

Next come the two formats students see: I convert lecture content into both HTML and PowerPoint, formatting as necessary. I use Notepad++ to hand-code HTML, with CSS and some limited Javascript. I’m on HTML 4.01 (strict) now, and am contemplating the pros and cons of moving to HTML5. Although I’m still struggling with PowerPoint (especially customizing slide masters and layouts), I’m able to embed Flash objects

For some technology components, I’m at the mercy of third parties. In many of my courses I use iClickers. The software that runs the polls has changed a lot since they bought Reef and integrated it into their existing software. I have to keep on top of what has been updated or changed. Likewise, UAlberta’s eClass (running the open-source LMS Moodle) gets regular updates, which rework the UI. Yup, I’ve got to learn how that works, too. Just when I think I’ve know how to use something, it gets changed. iClickers will no longer be supported later this year, so there’s a replacement I’ll have to spend my summer figuring out. Yay.

The Everything Else:

The final component is the glue that holds all of the above together: organizing and planning. If I cannot organize all of the above in a coordinated and comprehensive way, and if I cannot formulate a plan to deliver on my learning objectives, I will not be an effective teacher. There are a lot of great tools that help me with time management, from checklists to online calendars to an early PDA back in the day (a Handspring Visor, which I still have somewhere).

This list is not meant to be a boast about all the mad skillz I have. Partly, it’s a reflection on all of the skills and abilities that I have developed over my career. But I also wanted to show a behind-the-scenes look at the work and effort that goes into delivering a course that students may not realize.

Why aren’t you studying?

The 25 Years: The Numbers

This year marks my 25th year of teaching. Over that time, I have taught:
  • 12 different courses (2 were co-taught)
  • about 200 classes
  • over 20,000 students
  • at 3 different institutions
In a typical academic year, I teach seven classes, and about 1,000 students.

I have been fortunate to have been given awards for my teaching, including:
  • Instructor of the month (Faculty of Science)
  • Kathleen W. Klawe Prize for Excellence in Teaching of Large Classes
  • Instructors of Distinction Honour Roll, Faculty of Science
  • Instructor Appreciation award from the Interdepartmental Science Students’ Society
  • Teacher Excellence Award from Delta Chi fraternity
  • Department of Psychology Teaching Award

In addition, based on USRIs, I have been placed on the Department of Psychology Teaching Honour Roll 20 times, and the Honour Roll with Distinction 144 times.

As I reflect on all of these numbers and awards, I wonder what they all mean. Am I bragging about them? (No. Seriously.) Am I a good teacher? Students often give feedback that they enjoyed my course, which is all well and good. But did I teach the material effectively? That is, did I do something to help students learn the material well? And to what do I compare these outcomes--to myself 25 years ago, or to other instructors now? There’s no way to know. So I went to the research literature (you probably saw that coming, eh?).

A study by O’Connor and Cheema (2018) found that when a course was offered several times, grades given by the same instructor increased (from about a B+ to an A-). That sounds good, but this finding can be explained a number of ways. Is it because instructors get better over time, leading to better student performance? No: much research (e.g., Marsh, 2007) shows that teaching effectiveness tends to decline with age and years of experience--unless there is “systematic intervention”. Maybe it’s because students are getting better, year over year? Nope again: no significant effects were found on GPA as a factor of calendar year.

So what is responsible? The authors could not say for sure, but suggested that with increasing experience, the decision-making process “contaminates” evaluations--and seems to contaminate them in the upwards direction.

Well, that sucks.

Of course, I’d like to think that I’m the exception to the rule--that I don’t give higher marks now just because I’m older and have all this experience. I’d like to think that all the time and effort that I’ve put into my courses over the years has not been for nothing. But what can I do? Well, there is that “systematic intervention” business. The research on that indicates that using student evaluations of teaching along with consultation actually improve teaching effectiveness. The consultation is based on the ratings, and is used to target specific areas for development and selected strategies for improvement.

So, at this point in my 25-year-long career, it’s not time to sit back. It’s time once again to roll up my sleeves and dive in to some hard work.

Why aren’t you studying?


References

Marsh, H. W. (2007). Do university teachers become more effective with experience? A multilevel growth model of students’ evaluations of teaching over 13 years. Journal of Educational Psychology, 99, 775-790. doi:10.1037/0022-0663.99.4.775

O’Connor, K., & Cheema, A. (2018). Do evaluations rise with experience? Psychological Science, 29, 779-790. doi:10.1177/0956797617744517

The Awards: Fall, 2017

I am honoured to have achieved the Department of Psychology’s Honour Roll with Distinction for my PSYCO 104: Basic Psychological Processes and PSYCO 494: Human Factors & Ergonomics courses. I also got on the Honour Roll for my Fall PSYCO 282: Behavior Modification course. Thanks to all who gave their feedback on these courses--good, bad, or ugly!

Although my rating for PSYCO 282: Behavior Modification was high enough for Distinction, not enough students completed the online surveys for it to qualify. I appreciate the time you spend doing the evaluations. I do take them seriously. I read every comment and make changes in my courses based on your feedback. Your voice does count!

Warning! My parenthetical responses to selected comments below may contain sarcasm. Please avoid if you have an allergy or sensitivity.

PSYCO 104

notes are hard to study

(Comment is hard to understand.)

if there is more picture in the lecture notes that will be more helpful to the visual leaner person

(There is no evidence supporting auditory and visual learning. I include pictures where they are relevant, but I do not include extraneous clip art.)

he keeps us all very engaged by relating to real life situations that are relevant to students. very funny! by far the best psychology professor i’ve come to contact with

(I try NOT to come into contact with students, as I've been told that is inappropriate.)

dislike.

This is a great class, and I think instructor is good professor.

This was an awesome course taught by an awesome instructor, will be scouting to take classes from this professor again for his enthusiasm to teach us objectives that would otherwise be deemed as boring

This prof. was my favourite of the term. He was very knowledgeable and passionate about psychology and I enjoyed that about the course; he was the reason I showed up to this class and I would loooooovvveeeeee him to teach all of the rest of my courses forever.

(Okay, so one "dislike," one "good," one "awesome," and one "loooooovvveeeeee.")

I thought my professor was very good at teaching in the lecture times. My only issue was with the style of the exams. I found it hard to study for since we were not provided practice or example questions from the prof. The questions provided with the textbook did not help prepare me for any of the exam questions and overall I found the textbook incredibly useless. In the future, I would strongly recommend that the emphasis on the textbook (ie 50% lecture, 50% textbook) on the exams be reduced. This was too much information to be studied thoroughly and as a result, made the exam much harder than it needed to be. Perhaps if study guides or at least practice questions were provided with the exam would've been much more achievable.

(If you get the Connect online content, you will have access to literally thousands of practice questions based on the textbook, presented as adaptive testing. This is an incredibly powerful tool that changes the difficulty of the questions you get to suit your learning. Evidence has shown that this improves learning and exam performance significantly. It's frustrating that more students do not take advantage of this option.

The textbook pages were messed up and didn't match the glossary in the back which made trying to learn a concept from the textbook extremely difficult.

(Thanks for letting me know. I will pass this along to the publisher.)

The professor was very interesting to listen to, which made the topics he was educating the students on much easier to understand and learn. His examples often came from personal, humorous experiences, which also added to the overall course experience. He is very intelligent and I would love to have him for all if my psychology courses!

The instructor was fantastic he always made the class interesting and tried to connect to the students. He made the class enjoyable and always made us laugh a bit. He also had really good example of the material to show us.

The class was very interesting and the way Loepelmann taught it was filled with enthusiasm, passion and interest. He provided great study material that helped on achieving good on the exam. His iclicker quizzes were helpful and even funny. He was so passionate about the material he made coming to class fun. Best prof this semester.

Karsten was an excellent teacher, he made the class interactive and fun. I have told my friends if they have an option to choose him for an instructor for one of their courses to definitely pick him. Tests were fair, you needed to read the text book for sure to do well on the exams. Overall a very good course.

(Thanks!)

Overall my professor was outstanding, he’s a great speaker and most of the time the class was entertaining, but there we’re a couple things that stood out to me as kind of unacceptable during the course. First of all he said he wasn’t going to do review classes, which I think is very inconsiderate as a teacher; I understand wanting students to come for more than just a review class but I don’t believe he has the right to make it harder for the students who do come to class and just want to know what to expect going into the exams. I also don’t think that it’s his decision to make whether or not students attend his class considering we are paying him to teach and it’s the students own waste if they do not attend. One more thing that didn’t sit well with me was the fact that he would just start class without any warning, no hello, no welcome, he would just start talking which would sometimes lead to missed notes or missed comments. When 200+ people are all talking at the same time it can be hard to recognize that the one we’re here to listen to has already started.

(Thanks for your detailed feedback. No, I don't do review classes, as I've explained before (it's not because I'm lazy, inconsiderate, or trying to make things harder). It sounds like what you're looking for is not a review, but a preview of the exam, which is a very different thing.
Each class, I did say "Good afternoon" and then said "Last time..." and briefly summarized where I left off. I do this to give the class a moment to settle down before actually starting the lecture. I'm sorry that you weren't able to hear me over the noise of the class.)

I really enjoyed being in the class as you taught us in a way in which we could remember things. I also appreciate how you are really patient with students leaving early. Would like to be in one of your other classes in future!

(I understand that students often have good reasons for leaving a class early.)

Instructor could cover more material in the textbook. A lot of the textbook material was never mentioned in class

(No, I can't cover more material. I filled the classes covering what I could. And you do NOT want me (or any instructor) to cover all textbook material in class. If you thought it was boring before...

it was very boring and the instructor often just read from his powerpoint slides

(See? Boring. Maybe next time, I'll ignore my PowerPoints entirely and just do freestyle rapping.)

I usually hate taking 100 level courses because they're often tedious and hard to appreciate. Doctor Loepelmann changed that for me. He incorporate's humour and anecdotes into his lectures, which make the course material fun easier to learn. He has a genuine love for teaching and wants to help the students share his love of psychology. His personal website is also incredibly useful for navigating the course. One of the best instructors I've ever had.

Dr. Loepelmann is a great instructor. Even though the class had ~400 students, it was one of the most engaging I had this semester purely due to his enthusiasm and teaching style! I hope to take PSYCO 282 with him in the future!

(Thanks!)

Can I just say... wow! Completely LIT COURSE WITH LIT FRIENDS AND A LIT PROF. The textbook was half lit, the physical version would only become lit if someone LIT IT ON FIRE. But the online version was fantastic and the questions were wowza! Completely recommend the online, would only recommend the physical copy if... idk you get the electronic when you buy the physical current edition copy but you can't access questions as fast in the physical edition. The in class activities and iClicker and jokes were LIT. If this prof taught math I'd probably take it, the jokes are your classic dad jokes but well thought out so you'd remember the jokes and examples on the exams. His name is a little hard to spell, but shoutout to Loepelmann the mann and looking forward to Yummie Treets being trademarked or patented.

(Whoa. Now I wish I was teaching English Lit. Geddit?)

PSYCO 282

great lectures with excellent examples. Instructor disagrees with textbook a bit and it seems like there must be a better textbook option.

(Nope. I've picked one that is one of the best in the field, with helpful pedagogical features, and at a great price. You can check ratings of behavior modification textbooks on Amazon and see that Miltenberger is the most highly rated one at 4.5 stars.)

Very interesting course material with lots of relations to real life examples. Excellent course. One complaint is that the assignments are marked so finely, so specifically, that I lost marks for not italicizing a title and journal number and for having an axis labeled as "Days" instead of "Time (Days)" even though the textbook uses "Days". Another complaint is that when I emailed Dr. Loepelmann asking a question, he merely replied with a riddle and did not help me find the answer at all, and I ended up failing that assignment because I didn't know what he was asking or what he was looking for. In the future, it would be great to answer students questions directly or maybe providing some examples.

(Science is about precision and accuracy; I explicitly pointed out the requirement for labels and units in the lecture. To your second point, I sometimes get questions from students about the assignments, along the lines of "Here's my answer to question 2. Is it right?" Of course, I cannot answer that. Do math profs say if you got your answers to calculus homework sets right? If I "pre-mark" someone's answers to the assignments, I am obligated to do that for the entire class. That, of course, is impossible. The point of an assignment is to assess your learning. If I give you the answers, it obviates the pedagogical intent of the assignment. Sometimes, the answer to your question is going to be "I can't tell you.")

This was my favorite class. It made me love psychology so much more. The prof made all the difference.

This course was amazing! I looked forward to it every Monday, Wednesday, Friday. The professor was enthusiastic and made the subject matter interesting and easy to understand. The notes provided for the class were thorough and the blanks in them kept me coming to class. The iClicker questions helped review material and engage the class. Marking on assignments were fair and midterms were the appropriate level of difficulty.

This course was awesome to come to. The project component was interesting and valuable because we were able to directly apply what we learned in class to real life behaviour modifying.

Prof is fantastic, the website is extremely handy and easy to use, the textbook is essential if you wish to do great in this class. Self-management project was also interesting and quite fun to do, a different take on learning outside the classroom. I would definitely recommend this course to other people.
Passionate prof, made his classes enjoyable and learned something new everyday.

(Thanks for all the kind words.)

This course was taught in a very effective way. The fill in the blank notes used were helpful and made it easy to take notes while still listening to the professor lecture.

The way student notes are given is somewhat unhelpful. Having a ppt or pdf with blanks in it would be much better than the text based notes that were provided.

(These two comments were literally right next to each other. *Sigh*)

Overall the course was excellent, the only comment that I have is to be aware of using person-first language, especially since the research in this course focuses primarily on people with disabilities.

(Dang it, I really tried to do this. I will go through my lectures again to correct them. Thanks for your important feedback on this.)

It was great and there should be some sort of assigned readings

(Er, what? Like the assigned readings in the syllabus you mean?)

I appreciate the fact that the notes could be easily pasted into a word document for easy note taking (as opposed to notes posted in PDFs)

(You may be the first person to thank me for that. I'm glad it worked for you.)

Manipulative and obnoxious instroctor. I won't take any class with again.

(I know, right? I'm so obnoxious, manipulating you into taking my class, reading the textbook, taking exams.)

Loepelmann is not very approachable. Seems slightly obnoxious and cold when asking questions. Get the feeling he is offended at questions getting asked, since it could mean he did not explain a concept clear enough. Cheerful personality when presenting/teaching and a good prof, but has some underlying attitude issues when one-on-one.

(When did you ask questions? At the end of class when I'm trying to pack up my stuff and get out of the way of the next instructor while dealing with a line of students all asking questions? Or during my office hours, when I don't have to rush through my answers in a quiet atmosphere? I'm sorry if I gave you the impression through our interactions that I have a bad attitude. I respect students, try my best to answer questions, and try to learn and improve by paying careful attention to student comments.)

Karsten was an excellent and engaging instructor. I have told all of my peers to take this course with him along with any other courses he may teach. This course has inspired me to widen the scope of my degree and look at extra certifications in the subject area.

Karsten Loepelmann is an excellent instructor, and my designated TA taught me things about APA formatting I should have learned a very, very, very long time ago. Thank you both for that. I really appreciated all of Karsten's supplementary materials on his websites, which helped me extensively on the Self-Management Project. While I wasn't extremely interested in the material, the structure and enthusiasm in lectures made them easy to attend.

Karsten was very successful in creating an amazing classroom experience. I never missed a lecture because he made them so interesting and enjoyable!

The instructor was really good and always replied to emails promptly. He was always very helpful and answered questions in a meaningful way.

Karsten Lopelman is a God" Okay, but actually. Karsten is the most pleasant professor I have ever had a course with. He is caring about his students, he lectures well, he gives great examples and has clear notes. Karsten's exams are fair, the textbook is a very useful resource (I read it religiously) and the fill in the blanks are the best idea since peanut butter. I would take absolutely any course Karsten teaches and when anyone tells me that they might take PSYCO 104 or PSYCO 282 the first words out of my mouth are " You have to take it with Karsten". I truly enjoy that you start every chapter with a research focus, it helps centre the idea and focus on where these ideas might be going. Once again another amazing course taught by Karsten, Bravo !

Dr. Loepelmann is a very nice professor and accessible outside the classroom. I have encountered some professors who refuses to answer students' question through emails and will refer them to the TAs but Dr. Loepelmann always answers my emails promptly and with detail and care.

(Thanks!)

PSYCO 494

What can I say? I am obsessed with human factors and ergonomics, now! I think about it every day and in almost every situation. I may actually devote my life to this topic. Aside from the captivating lectures, however, I wasn't terribly drawn to the textbook or the required readings. They seemed to be more "supplemental learning" and I honestly found myself forgetting to read the course pack. Thank you, Dr. Loepelmann, for the wonderful term! I am excited to take more classes with you in the future!

(I'm constantly looking for better readings; thanks for your feedback.)

This is my second course I have taken with this instructor. I thought he did a great job of making the course engaging and explaining concepts clearly and with humour. There was a lot of lists of things to understand within each topic, but I thought the exam format did a good job of examining these. I studied really hard for the first midterm and didn't do as well as I had hoped, but the instructor was great about being willing to discuss how to improve for the final. I am actually enjoying writing my term paper as the instructor gave us the freedom to choose a topic we are interested in. Overall, I enjoyed this class and would recommend this instructor.

(Thanks. I recommend me, too.)

The timing of the Macewan exercise around thanksgiving weekend was tricky. Procrastination=closed buildings. Excellent use of recent research. Like the independent topics for paper, would love a formal draft date to encourage getting it done early.

(Sorry about encountering closed buildings. I'll mention that to future classes. I don't want to have a formal topic-selection deadline, because to enforce it, it would have to be for marks--and I don't want anyone losing marks for something like this.)

A bit more guidance/discussion on the term paper would have been appreciated Overall a very interesting course with a lot of parallels to real life. More class interaction maybe would be something to consider to improve the class

(I am willing to work with you one-on-one if you need help with your term paper, but you've got to reach out to me via email or during office hours--otherwise I don't know what you need.)

Dr. Loepelmann did an amazing job with this course. I wasn't 100% what to expect with this topic but he was able to spark my interest by always coming to class well prepared and delivering lectures with enthusiasm. The two written assignments in this course were well though out and were effective ways of making sure we actually understood concepts and were able to apply them. I really enjoyed how the Loepelmann was able to link course concepts to real-life situations with videos and case studies that helped break up the lecture time. I would encourage you to continue using these and perhaps adding more, if possible. I also appreciated that you were able to offer us feedback on the Term Papers before final submission; that was super helpful!

(Yup, I am working to include more active learning content.)

Why aren't you studying?

The Awards: 18

I am honoured to have achieved the Department of Psychology’s Honour Roll with Distinction for my Spring, 2017 PSYCO 367: Perception class. Wait, what? Spring? That course ended 8 months ago! Did I just forget to post this? Am I too humble to post about winning an award? Nope and nope. The admin person who crunches the numbers for these department awards left and didn’t get around to this. And the new person had no idea there were awards or anything. It almost makes it seem like these awards are not that important. Well, it’s not like there’s a cash prize or anything. (But after I win one, I do take my family out to dinner.)

Warning! I may be a sarcastic jerk in making my snide little remarks. Comedy! If you are easily offended by overeducated, middle-aged white male privilege, turn back now. But if that’s your thing, read on!

The instructor made the information easy to learn and if students had any questions he was very good at explaining concepts in a different way. In a spring course, where some students are taking another course and/or working at the same time, it is difficult to keep up with the textbook readings and the lecture. It might be better to have lecture material cover 75% of exams and the textbook cover 25% rather than the 50/50 split. I'm not sure why so many students say this course is so hard, maybe it was the instructor that made this course better! I found the material to be fairly consistent with any other 300 level psych course. I really liked how the instructor had examples of illusions and concepts covered in class, and that he posted those and extra helpful material on his website. He was very organized!

(Thank you for the kind words and taking the time to write so much. There’s a lot of important information in the textbook, and you’re paying a lot for it. That’s why I make it worth a substantial amount on the exams.)

The final is too close to the last date of lecture. Not enough time to be fully 100% confident going into the final.

(I know--it really sucks to have the final the day after the last day of classes. Unfortunately, there’s nothing I can do about that. You should give your feedback to the Office of the Registrar - Exams and Timetabling.)

Course was very fast-paced. Maybe less topics would be better

(It’s because Spring courses are packed into 6 weeks. I do not want to compromise the nature of content of the course, because it’s supposed to be the same as Fall/Winter courses. At least it wasn’t a 3-week course.)

Good course with a very interesting topic. It would however be nice if there were some assignments associated with the course. I do not tend to perform well on exams in general, and prefer classes where assignments are a part of the final grade

(Here’s where I have compromised the course. When I taught it in Fall/Winter, I had 10 “lab” assignments that students did. They were done on computer outside of class time. They were pretty highly regarded, fun, and helped students to understand concepts. But running these in a 6-week course is a nightmare, so I’ve had to cut them out.)

I really appreciate that the instructor presented some different material in the lecture than was in the text. Too many professors simply teach from the textbook, but the additional material in lecture helped to clarify concepts and made it more interesting. I also appreciated how animated the instructor was. This makes it so much more fun to be in class.

Dr. Loepelmann is a fantastic professor. I love his enthusiasm and humor, and I hope he continues to teach for many years

(Thanks!)

The iClicker questions were very useful in knowing what was to be expected on exams.

(Thank you for noticing that. I get a lot of complaints about there not being “sample exams,” but the clicker questions are basically that.)

Course was great. University making students pay for textbook they can't afford to pass the course is "a dick move." Still really good instructor

(It’s not the University, it’s me. I’m the one who makes the decision to have a textbook in a course. I’m sorry if you think I’m being a dick about that. I believe that the textbook covers a lot of important material that is essential to an understanding of perception. There’s no way I could cover that much material in lectures. I choose the same textbook being used in Fall/Winter terms, so there should be lots of used copies available. And I do make sure that there are copies of the textbook on reserve in the library--you can check those out for 2 hours at a time if you are unable to afford the (admittedly expensive) textbook.)

Hmm, all done and barely any sarcasm. Maybe next time!

Why aren’t you studying?

The Lecture Notes & Copyright

If you look at the bottom of each page of my lecture notes, you'll see a copyright notice, and a link to a more elaborate copyright agreement. Essentially, if you use my lecture notes, you are agreeing to certain conditions. One of those conditions is that you do not post my lecture notes online anywhere. The notes are not your property to do with whatever you wish. You are definitely not permitted to post them to an online notes-sharing website in order to earn credits or money. If you do so, you are in violation not only of copyright law, but also the Code of Student Behaviour. Whoa, that's pretty harsh, right?


Why am I being so sticky about this? Here's what happened a couple of weeks ago. I got an email from a student who had a question about something in the lectures they didn't understand. But the question they were asking was weird. They were asking about lecture material that was not in my lectures. At least, not any more. I thought for sure I had taken this particularly confusing section out, years ago. I double-checked, and confirmed that it was indeed gone. So I asked the student where they got my lecture notes from. Oh, an online lecture note sharing site, they said.

Argh.

This unfortunate student had stumbled upon long-outdated notes posted without permission by a student in my class a few years ago. The student had missed a few days of class and instead of asking another student in that class (or me) for notes on what they had missed, they just Googled it instead.

This is why I copyright my lecture notes.

I don't want anyone coming across old, outdated notes posted on some random website. Yes, they may be filled in with all the blanks you missed when you were unable to come to class. But you could potentially be doing yourself a disservice--learning material that you don't have to, or even misunderstanding something important.

Yes, I do want students to take responsibility for themselves. If you miss a class, my policy is to get you to ask another student in the class for the notes. Why? Lots of reasons. You will get to know someone else. Many students complain that even though the university is filled with people, they feel alone--because they are not forming new relationships. There are loads of smart, like-minded people all around you. It wouldn't hurt to get to know someone new. You could, say, share lecture notes if one of you is sick. Smart students will make additional annotations to my lecture notes--not just filling in the words. These students tend to do better on exams. Although I can give you the blanks if you miss a class, that's all I can give you. It would be better to get annotated notes from a fellow student.

Even worse than posting lecture notes, I have found students posting their old assignments and papers online. This is a dumb thing to do. Not only can I download these papers too, I have electronic records of all assignments, going back more than 10 years. If a current student is dumb enough to submit your old assignment, it's a trivial matter to bust both of you for plagiarism. Yes, both of you. See, it's against the Code of Student Behaviour to provide material to another student. How would you like the University contacting you after you've graduated, telling you that your degree is being revoked? Yes, it's that serious.

So I've had to spend hours over the past couple of weeks writing takedown letters to multiple online note-sharing websites, which is a major drag. I'd rather be doing almost anything else.

If you feel my policies are too restrictive (and your social anxiety prevents you from talking to strangers), I've come up with a compromise. I am willing to set up a note-sharing forum on eClass. You can ask for notes or share your notes. I don't have a problem with this because it's under my control. If there are errors in the notes people post, I can fix that. I don't have control over websites that profit from my hard work--and, yes, it's hard work. I spend hundreds of hours developing my lecture notes. In many ways, my notes are the sum total of my work as an instructor.

Please don't give them away.

Why aren't you studying?

The Red Pens

Happy marking season! It’s so festive these days, what with all the red ink splashed everywhere. No? Well, it is for me: term papers and exams mean red ink. But is there a problem with using the colour red for marking? Let’s go to the evidence (what there is, anyway).

Using a red pen seems to make people pick out more writing errors, and cause them to grade more harshly resulting in lower scores, compared with using a blue pen (Rutchick, Slepian, & Ferris, 2008).

Another study found that corrections in red ink are interpreted by students as being harsher than those made in “aqua” (what, water?), because red is an emotive (“arousing or able to arouse intense feeling”) colour (Dukes & Albenesi, 2013). The corrections are also more likely to be interpreted by students as “shouting,” which leads to emotional loading and anxiety, and a potential rejection of the feedback on the paper.

Even before this evidence appeared, there have been suggestions that teaching mark using purple or pink pens. (That’s the ink colour, not the colour of the barrel. No research on that yet.)

I remember getting term papers back, and seeing the red ink. It didn’t make me feel good. If I had known that there was a typo or a lapse in logic, I would have corrected it before handing it in. See the red made me want to be a better writer. I was getting valuable feedback from professors, and I would be dumb not to learn from it. I can still remember some of the corrections, advice, and feedback I received decades later. Did it hurt my feelings? Sure. Did I let it stop me from improving? No way.

So I use red ink. Yes, it can trigger emotions. But maybe it’s supposed to. In (literal and figurative) contrast with blue (or even black) marks on the paper, red draws your attention. It says, “Hey, this is important.” Maybe it elicits an emotional reaction; maybe it acts as punishment (in the operant conditioning sense of the word). If I have emptied a red pen marking your term paper, it clearly needs improvement. Learn from all the scribbles I make on your paper. I’ve spent time reading, thinking about, and analyzing your writing. It’s customized, one-to-one communication, and it’s what you’re paying for when you take a course. I wouldn’t spend all the time I do if I didn’t think it would help.

I’ve used a lot of red pens over the years. Here are some I’ve tried recently.

Staples 1.0
It’s a pen. A red pen. Nothing special. But they’re cheap: You can get 864 of them for $252.69 at Staples.

Zebra Sarasa 0.7
This used to be my go-to pen, but even with gel ink the 0.7 mm tip is a bit too sharp. Often dies with ink left in it. (And what’s with the name? Is it made from zebra blood?)

BIC Velocity Gel 0.7
The name grabbed me right away: I need a fast pen. But it has a too-sharp tip, and also dies with ink left. Grr!

PaperMate Profile 1.4B
Now we’re talking. A nice big fat 1.4 mm ballpoint gel ink pen. It’s smooth and doesn’t require a lot of pressure to write with, which helps prevent tendonitis. Makes an inconsistent line though, so I only use it to mark exams.

PaperMate InkJoy 300RT 1.0M
My former favourite pen, the InkJoy series features amazingly quick-drying ink. Super smooth and fast, it’s what I (used to) use to mark term papers.

It looks like I'm not the only one who thinks a bit too much about pens. The Wirecutter is even more keen than I am. Their "best pen" is now my new favourite! The new winner:

Uni-ball Jetstream RT
This pen has all of the upsides of my former favourite--but also does away with the main downside. The ink doesn't constantly clump up, requiring me to wipe off the tip every couple of minutes. Yay! It's hard to find this in stores (especially red ink) but it's available online. There are two tip sizes. I went with the 0.7 mm which is a bit fine for marking papers, so I'll get the 1.0 mm when my current supply runs out.

So, how do you feel about pens?

Why aren’t you studying?

References
Rutchick, A. M., Slepian, M. L., & Ferris, B. D. (2008). The pen is mightier than the word: Object priming of evaluative standards. European Journal of Social Psychology, 40, 704-708. doi: 10.1002/ejsp.753

Dukes, R., & Albanesi, H. (2012). Seeing red: Quality of an essay, color of the grading pen and student reactions to the grading process. Social Science Journal, 50, 96-100. doi:10.1016/j.soscij.2012.07.005

Edit: Updated 2/3/2023--I have a new favourite!