The Homework

Not a lot of posts lately, because I've had to do a lot of homework. (What, you think you're the only one?)

Part of my homework is normal course prep: creating, adding to, or modifying my lectures. But this term, I've also had to do a lot of other homework. Students this term have been really grilling me about the things I've been talking about in class. These questions have led me to stand and go, "Umm...hmm. I...er, don't know" a lot.

This kind of response is unsatisfying, both to students and to the little voice in my head which then tells me to go and find out the answer to the question. At this point, I wisely ignore the little voice and try to finish the lecture, gamely continuing on as if I really know something about psychology. Oh, but first, I mumble something about trying to find the answer for next class.

Promising to find the answer for next class is troublesome. Walking back to my office after class, I've found myself listening to the chirping birds, watching the mighty machines at the construction site surrounding Bio Sci, and otherwise forgetting anything and everything I promised to anyone over the past 70 minutes (give or take 10 minutes).

The other problem is that, even if I do remember, I've got to actually try and find the answer. For next class. Which is the next day. Because this is Spring term, when everything comes at you at 100 km/h and you don't have time to take a breath or listen to chirping birds and such.

So I spend an hour or so a day looking for answers to the (really good, intelligent, and insightful) question(s) I've been asked. I often have to go back and re-read research papers, which takes a while. Not that I mind, really. All of this work helps me to explain things better to students this term, and ultimately improves the course as a whole for future students. How? Homework.

If there's something that doesn't make sense in my lecture, or that doesn't mesh with what's in the textbook, I make a note of it, and try to fix the problem. That's part of my normal-course-prep homework. And there's an annoying little voice in my head that won't shut up about whether children or adults have better verbatim trace recall, so I better go look that up.

Why aren't you studying?

The Spring Term

OK, so it's not exactly palm tree weather in spring. But it's sure nicer than fall or winter term.

Spring term and Summer term together make up "intersession." If you've never taken an intersession course, this is what it's like: take a course that normally runs 14 weeks and concentrate it down by having class every weekday so it fits into 6 weeks. Add a bit of sunshine, and you've got intersession.

When I first taught an intersession course, my opinion was informed by 80s movies like, well, Summer School. That is, "summer" courses are filled with losers, failures, and screwups. Er, no. Like so many things taught to me by 80s movies, this was wrong. Students in intersession actually tended to be the better students--the ones who were deadly serious about learning (deadly serious, but wearing shorts and flip-flops). I started handing out little cards, asking students to tell me why they chose to take an intersession course. The reasons included:

• I want to finish my degree early (!)
• I want to take this specific course but it won't fit into my timetable in fall/winter.
• I'm just interested in this material.

So, wow.

I'd like the experience students have in intersession courses to be as similar to that of fall/winter term as possible. But that's just not possible. I often assign CogLabs in the "regular" term. Unfortunately, there just isn't time enough in intersession to get 10 of these labs done in 6 weeks. Beyond that, I don't really do much else different: same lecture notes, similar structure of exams, same old jokes.

You've got to be highly motivated if you want to succeed in an intersession course. You've got temptations like sunny warm weather, jobs that pay money which is good for things like paying bills, and cool movies opening every weekend. But you've got to focus, because exams come every couple of weeks. Skip class one day, ignore the textbook for a couple more days, and suddenly you're way behind. It's time to put down the sunblock, finish the last of your margarita, and, well...

Why aren't you studying?

The First Day of Class

The first day of class is one of the most stressful days of the year--for students, and for instructors, too.

Students find out how impossibly much the instructor wants them to read and know by the bitter end of the term.

As an instructor, I have to be completely organized and ready. Got enough copies of the syllabus? (I hope so.) Remembered to get the secret codes that let me log on to the classroom computers? (Check.) Have the keys to unlock the drawer to get the keyboard and mouse out. (Yup.) Updated everything in the course for a new term? (Er, well, I'm working on it...)

Just the syllabus alone represents hours of work. It's the blueprint for the whole term, dictating deadlines for things like papers and exams. That means I have deadlines, too: I've got to get the exams to printing well before the exam date (weeks ahead during busy times of year, in fact). I've got to make updates to my lecture notes in time to put the notes online. (Yeah, I could just leave the lectures as they are, but then they'd get stale, like a day-old donut.)

Because of the stress on all sides, I don't start lecturing on The First Day of Class. I like students to have the lecture notes printed out first, for one. And even the textbook, if possible (even though you don't have to bring it to class). And then there's all the rampant course-shopping that often occurs. (I hate having to repeat my whole First Day of Class schpiel on the second day of class to people who won't be back for the third day of class anyways.)

After the exhausting First Day of Class, all that's left is...the rest of term.

Why aren't you studying?

The Marking

Just a short post to interrupt my marking. (Hmm, procrastination--another good topic a future blog post...)

Marking is not the most enjoyable thing. This fact has nothing to do with the quality of the answers. It's just awfully repetitive. I get to read answers to the same essay question over and over and over... This is by choice, mind you. When it comes to written/short-answer/long-answer I try to mark as many of the same question as I can, so that I can be as consistent in marking as possible.

So I get a fresh cup of coffee (hmm, coffee--another good topic for a future blog post...), put on some quiet music and concentrate on marking. This is difficult, as interruptions and distractions are many. Luckily, it's just me and the baby this afternoon. Awesomely, I've discovered the perfect music solution for both of us: Rockabye Baby!

These are baby lullabies of rawk songs, and improbably include songs from:

• The Beatles
• U2
• Bob Marley
• Coldplay
• No Doubt
• Metallica
  
• Led Zeppelin
• Radiohead
• Green Day
• Nine Inch Nails
• AC/DC
• and more.

You've never lived (as a parent) until you've heard American Idiot, Enter Sandman, or Highway to Hell played as a gentle, soothing lullaby. Insidious, bizarre, and just about the only way to simultaneously satisfy both a cranky 3-month-old and a cranky psychology instructor. (Country music fans, don't feel left out: check out Hushabye Baby.)

Why aren't you studying?

The Links

Now that lectures are over, it's time for learning to: continue. By now, being a student of psychology, you've seen just how broad this field is. Well, I'm a student of psychology, too. (OK, so I'm not officially a "student," but I love continuing to learn about psychology--which, really, is learning about ourselves.) I try to stay up-to-date on interesting and important research. A good way to get a general view of things is to follow a number of blogs.

Here are some of the blogs I read for education, for interest, and for entertainment. You might even see some of the things that are written about in these blogs appear in lectures.

• Mind Hacks. Although this Mind Hacks is a really good book on psychology, the blog goes way beyond that. It covers topics from art and aesthetics to hard-core neuroscience and bogus science. Vaughn is the main poster; I don't know how he keeps up the pace. Consistently excellent.

• Scientific American Mind Matters. Postings often include full-text articles from Scientific American Mind magazine. Eclectic and interesting, but a bit too much brain-focused. Still, there are many high-quality postings.

• Discover Mind & Brain. A companion to the print magazine Discover. Not quite as good overall as the preceding two blogs. Postings do not occur as frequency either. Also very brain-centric, which probably helps to attract readers.
  

• jnd.org. Usability "guru" Don Norman writes articles about design, science, and human factors/ergonomics. You can read his monthly column for Interactions magazine here, but there are lots of other neat things. One post made me run out and get a new stapler. Woot!

You can subscribe to all of the above blogs via RSS.

Why aren't you studying?

The Professor of the Month

The Undergraduate Psychology Association has very kindly featured me on their website as "Professor of the Month" for March. (Yeah, so there's only one more day of March. That's OK; the UPA is a volunteer organization--what have you volunteered for lately?) It's not an award or anything; it's an in-depth all-you-ever-wanted-to-know interview. Or at least as much as I could spew out in 18 minutes. (Thanks to Dan L. for interviewing me--and sorry I was in such a rush!)

I'm honoured that they'd want to interview me, even though I'm not technically a professor. Plus, I'm sharing billing this month with Dr. Peter Lee, whose answers to the interview questions are way better than mine. (Wow, one of his hobbies is brewing his own beer! Well, I make jam from the cherries that grow on the tree in my backyard...and I bake pretzels from scratch. Still not as cool as brewing beer, I know.)

This post is not about me promoting myself. Really, I'd like to plug the UPA. If you are serious about a future in psychology--which usually means getting an honours degree and/or graduate school--you should look into becoming a UPA member. Every year, they put on some really good forums on things like graduate studies, careers and volunteering, individual studies, and more.

Their website is full of great information, with a page of really useful info on graduate studies, plus professor and course of the month. The latter is great way to learn more about courses you might be interested in, and about some of your instructors. (And I can learn some secrets about my colleagues. Brewing beer? Hmph. I get my beer the same way my granddad did: I, er, buy it.)

Coming back to me, since this blog is all about me (what, isn't it?), I have to point out that a few years ago, my PSYCO 403 (now PSYCO 494) Human Factors & Ergonomics course was a Course of the Month. (Want to enrol? Sorry, for this fall, Bear Tracks says it's full. Already.)

Why aren't you studying?

The Textbook Change

I don't like changing textbooks. It's a huge hassle for a number of reasons. I like my lecture notes to be organized around the textbook I'm using. (Not to say that I repeat what's in the textbook, but minimally, I try to lecture on things in the same order as they are presented in the book.) So changing books means rearranging all my lectures. Plus, I'll have to rewrite the exams to reflect the material presented in the new text and take out questions based on the old one.

I'm also sensitive to students' concerns. If I change to a new book, students taking the class will not be able to find used textbooks to buy. Likewise, students who have taken the class will not find a market for their unwanted books. And, serving on the AASUA Teaching and Learning Committee, I've talked to Students' Union VPs about the issue of expensive textbooks--so I am trying to Be Booksmart!

But here's the problem: I want to use the best possible textbooks in my courses. Part of the usefulness of a book is its recency. But even a brand-new textbook is: obsolete. Why? After a research study has been completed, it takes up to a year for it to see print in a scientific journal. Next, it takes a few months--or even a year--for an author to write a textbook. By the time the book gets published, a few more months have passed. This means that research being done and theories being developed today are years ahead of the information contained on dead trees. And if I choose to keep using an old textbook, students can be 5 years behind the curve.

Publishing companies have caught on to students' tricks--they know about the used textbook market. So they regularly update their textbooks, ceasing publication of old editions. This means that I'm forced to switch to the new editions, and the process starts all over again. Which brings me to the decisions I'm going to have to make soon. I'm not going to switch to a different textbook, but I'm going to have to make a decision about adopting updated editions of a couple of textbooks I use in my courses.

The textbook I use in my PSYCO 104 course has been updated. It was a good book in the first place, and new edition improves upon it. Even better, it's cheaper than the competing textbook many of my colleagues have chosen--more than $20 cheaper. And there's more good news: I'm working with the company to have a custom-published version of the textbook. This will consist only of the chapters I use in my course (instead of all 18 chapters), which will save students even more money.

The notoriously expensive textbook in my PSYCO 267 course has also been updated. In working with the publisher, we've been able to get the price of the new edition to be $35 less than the old edition. I should switch as soon as possible, right? Choose the new textbook for my Spring course, right? Wait a second. What about all those students this term who want to unload their textbooks? If I switch right away, they won't be able to sell their books. And there won't be any used books available to students in spring term, so they'll have to shell out full price for the new edition.

I have a tricky balancing act to manage. If I stick with the old edition, some students--the ones who want to buy a brand new, unused textbook--will have to pay more. But, on the other hand, the students who buy (and sell) used textbooks will be able to save (and recoup) some money. Obviously, I can't please everyone. So I'll have to do the next best thing, and try to do what's best for the majority. But how many students buy new, and how many buy used? I don't know. So help me out--post a message in the comments telling me what you do.

Why aren't you studying?