This is to announce the birth of our family's second child, our second daughter, Madison. She was 7 lbs, 12 oz (if baby stats are your thing). She and her mom are tired but healthy. Big sister thought that the baby looked funny (ha-ha funny, not weird funny) and liked her hair best of all. Dad is slowly floating back to Earth, pondering things like more My Little Pony toys, weddings, and the cost of tuition in the year 2026.
How is this a behind-the-scenes kinda post? Here's how: I don't get paternity leave. Sure, I could go to my Department and tell them I won't be teaching come January--but that would violate the terms of my contract. And even if they did let me go, they probably would have found a replacement for me, so it'd be unlikely that I'd be rehired. And even if I got rehired, I'd lose all of my seniority (meaning my salary would drop down to lowest rung of the pay scale).
That means I'm stuck between the demands of work and home, struggling to juggle both so that no disaster happens. Like running out of diapers, or forgetting about an exam. So if I seem tired, cranky, and always in a hurry, you know why.
Why aren't I sleeping?
The Baby
The Begging
Usually, I like to get email from students. It's great to have the chance to help explain a concept or idea that someone's having trouble with (or to correct an error I might have made--oops!). Sometimes, I get links to interesting websites that relate to a course. I even get some from students after they've finished I course I taught. So they're still thinking of me. >snff<
Hi,
I really loved your course, u r a great instructor. I just wanted to wish you a nice holiday.
BTW, I was just wondering about how you round up the marks. I have a total of 54.2%. Would it be possible to get that rounded up to an A+? I really want to get into medical school--it's been my dream since I was a fetus, and the only thing standing in my way is my mark in your course, which is an F- right now.
Thanks!!!
Now, it seems like the person just wants to know about how marks get rounded up. (I apply standard rounding, also known as the common method.) But, er, it's not just asking about that, is it? It's begging.
There are two main problems I have with this. First, no. No, nyet, nein. I'm not going to change your mark because you asked. That's not how it works. It's embarassing for you to ask. So I'm not going to respond. If you've got a legitimate concern about the calculation of your grade, that's one thing.
Second, by the time the final is over, it's too late. There are so many things I could do to help you during the term. Did you come to my office hour to get help with things you didn't understand? Did you look over your midterms? Did you spend time checking out my study resources? Did you at least send me questions by email? No? Why not? It sure looks to me like you're either doing so well that you don't need any help, or you're not particularly engaged in the course.
After the final is over, there's nothing more I can do. If you fail the course, you can apply to rewrite the final, which you know if you've read the Calendar. But no, I can't simply bump you up a grade.
OK, so I don't want to be mean. I realize that in this age of instant gratification, after seeing your final exam mark, many students just want to know their grade in the course. It does take quite a while to get from me, through all the bureaucracy, and into your transcripts online. But you should be able to calculate your grade yourself: Just get your overall weighted total, and look up in the syllabus what grade that corresponds to. No curve--what grade you get simply depends on your overall percentage. Unfortunately, I'm not allowed to send marks/grade information over email. So you're going to have to be patient.
Why aren't you studying?
The Term Papers
I'm up to my eyeballs in term papers. Marking them is an intensive process, and takes a surprisingly lot of time. I try to spend no more than 2 hours with each paper, otherwise things spiral out of control, and I won't have all my marking done by the final exam. (That's my deadline; I must have term papers marked by the time the class has their final exam. It's been close a few times--I've still been marking while they've been writing their exams.)
Let's do the math: if I have 27 term papers to mark and spend 2 hours on each one, that's...um, carry the one...that's 54 hours of marking. And that's crammed into 10 days. I don't have a lot of free time during those 10 days. That's why I'm not in my office, unless I have to be--no sense spending an hour commuting back and forth when I could be (have to be?) marking.
The papers so far this year have been pretty good, so I've been able to keep up a pretty good pace. Awful papers take a lot of time to mark, because I feel compelled to correct Every. Single. Error. This includes spelling, grammar, style, logic, and breadth/depth of coverage of the topic.
Now don't feel too sorry for me. Or, you know, at all. Term papers are great because I usually learn something new. I get to (have to?) read a few dozen papers on topics I might not ordinarily read about. The hardest part is keeping up my motivation do get through just one more paper. It's easy to procrastinate, and feel the sudden compelling urge to alphabetize my DVD collection by the director's middle initial, or finally get around to cleaning the shower, or...um, post a message to my blog.
I know, I know: Why aren't you marking?
Why aren't you studying?
The Memory: 1
I've been lecturing on memory recently. It's a great topic because you can apply the results of research to your own memory and studying.
First, if there's anything the research tells us, it's that memory isn't one thing. As I've talked about before, we can remember specific memories (called verbatim traces), but we can also store more general information related to the memory (called gist).
This gives us an important clue about memory: it's not just about the memory--it's also about things related to the memory. It suggests that memories in our heads are very different from those in a computer. In a computer, each memory occupies a lonely little memory location on a chip--whichever one is available. In our heads, in contrast, incoming memories look for a good place to land. They want to stick to things that they are similar to. This is why it's hard to remember things if they don't make sense to you: the memories have nowhere to land.
Second, there's a neat effect known as context-dependent memory. It's the fact that where you are will influence your ability to remember things you learned in that location. If you come to class, you'll learn all kinds of neat psychology-flavoured bits (at least, if you're in my class you will). The words I say and the words that appear on the big screen do no exist apart from their context; rather, they are a part of the context (clever, innit? ;-) This is good reason to come to class--especially if the exam is held in the classroom. If you're just mooching the lecture notes off someone else, you're missing that experience. (Real keeners are known to study the textbook in the classroom as well.)
Again, this tells us that memories are more than just random bits that get stuffed into your brain. Yes, they do get stored, but the situation matters. Why? Recent research has used brain scans to analyze the brain while it's learning (or encoding memories) and again when it's remembering (or retrieving memories). The patterns in both cases are remarkably similar. If you learn something in one environment and then try to remember it in another environment, it will be more difficult because the patterns of brain activity (partially produced by your environment) will be a bit different.
So, here are the upshots. First, if you're trying to commit a definition to memory, try to remember an example of that as well. If you want to remember that episodic memories are about your personal life events, think of some significant event from your own life--like the last party you went to (if you can remember it).
Second, go to class. Maybe your final exam isn't in the classroom (although mine are--that's my choice), your midterms are. Wouldn't it be nice to have a bit of a free memory boost when you're writing an exam?
Why aren't you studying?
The Student/Faculty Ratio
There's a pretty clear trend in the student/faculty ratio that's been happening since the 1980s: it's increasing. In other words, there are fewer instructors to deal with more students. That means class sizes are increasing, right? Possibly yes, but not necessarily.
Huh? How can that be? The key word above is "faculty." This term is defined as (technically): "Full Time Equivalent continuing faculty." Don't worry about the Full Time Equivalent business--the "continuing faculty" part is the most important. This term means tenured or tenure-track faculty (in other words, Professors). This term does not include contract academic staff (in other words, me).
Although I don't have specific data, I know that the number of contract academic staff (CAS) has increased substantially over the past decade or two. Here's the situation, using last year's data. There are about 2,200 continuing faculty at the UofA. There are over 800 CAS--who are not counted in the student/faculty ratio.
I've read that the student/faculty ratio this year is around 22.2:1. So, for every professor, there are over 22 students. But if you factor in CAS, that number goes to 16.3 or so. The University, however, does not count me or my CAS colleagues--we don't exist. Literally, I don't count. (To be fair to the UofA, no institution counts their contract/sessional staff in the s/f ratio. Why not? I dunno.)
Despite the fact that I'm a nobody, I'm not too depressed. Students talk to me as if I actually existed. Plus, I get paid actual money. But I wish I were more valued. I've got a solution to this, by the way: get rid of CAS. No, don't fire us--give us continuing positions (called "conversion"). Until then, I will continue to haunt the hallways and classrooms as a ghost...
Why aren't you studying?
The Office Hour
I had my office hour yesterday, and I got a lot of work done. Oh yeah, I also had a student stop by to ask questions.
I used to have a lot of office hours, but then I also used to have a lot of students coming to ask questions. Gradually, however, the flow of students became a trickle, and I started to cut back on my office hours. So why the change?
The answer is probably the Internet. Email is one factor. I've put my email address on the syllabus for every course I've ever taught, going back to 1994. Every year since then I've gotten more and more emails (I got a grand total of 1 in '94--now it's more like 1 an hour). It's easier to fire off a message whenever you want, than to arrange to meet with an instructor at a mutually convenient time. I teach a lot of classes, and it can be tough to find time to meet with a student outside of my regular office hours. Sometimes I do, and then the student doesn't show up. Hey, at least call and leave a message so I can do something more productive with my time than catching up on I Can Has Cheezburger?.
Another factor is the web. Used to be, if you wanted to know how you did on a midterm (or even to get your final grade), you had to actually go to the department and look up your mark on a sheet of paper posted to a bulletin board. Since you had to walk all the way there in the first place, maybe you'd also stop by your instructor's office and talk to them. But if you can look up everything online, why bother traipsing all the way to the Biological Sciences Building? Some people don't even know where the Department of Psychology is!
Anyway, if you actually make the extra effort to come and see an instructor in person, that's probably going to stand out in their memory. And that, usually, is a good thing.
Why aren't you studying?
The Review Class
I don't do review classes.
Why not? Because reviewing is an individualized process. It's not really something that can be done in a classroom for a hundred or more students simultaneously.
Think of it this way. You might have trouble understanding a certain concept. Does everyone in the class have similar difficulty? If so, then a review might be warranted. But how do I know what students don't understand? I don't.
OK, I actually do--but to a very limited extent. If I get email from someone asking me to explain a concept again, I'll know that that person didn't get it the first time. But I almost never get questions on the exact same concepts from different students. If I did, I'd realize there were problems connecting the teaching to the learning. (That's probably my fault, in that case.)
Still, if I try to review a concept that, say, 50% of the class doesn't get, it might be beneficial. But the rest of the class--who got it already--are sitting there, yawning, chatting, texting, sleeping, kissing, etc., because they're bored out their minds. This isn't a great use of class time.
From my point of view, I've taught the material already. I've tried to do my best job to make it understandable--despite the complexity of some of the things I cover. If I just go over everything again...well, if no one understood it the first time, how are they going to understand it if I go over the exact same things again? Again, it's not worth the time.
Now, I'm not pessimistic about things. I have some hope that classroom response systems ("clickers") can help. Students bring these gadgets to class, and answer questions that the instructor puts into his or her PowerPoints. This is a great way of assessing learning because it's so immediate. I can present a concept, and right after, test to see if anyone is getting it. There are downsides, too: the clickers are an extra cost for students, and it's a real pain to come up with great testing questions.
I've done a research study on clickers, which found that students like them (when they're free). So there's still some work to be done. Maybe if more classes used clickers, I'd be more willing to use them in my classes. Answer in the comments: How many of your courses currently use clickers?
But back to the topic of reviews. If I as an instructor don't do review classes, what are students to do? Easy answer: do your own review. You should know the concepts you're having trouble understanding. Then what? Ask me for help, or ask the teaching assistant. That's what we're here for. This actually takes more of my time, because I'll be meeting students outside of class time, or answering email. But you'll end up with a greater understanding and probably a better grade.
Why aren't you studying?
Find It
