Because of the University’s recent budget woes, the Dean of Arts has “strongly encouraged” instructors to post their syllabi online. This will 1) save money, 2) save trees, and 3) “save face”. (I think that last one means “move into the 21st century, already!”) It’s not like the copying budget has officially been cut; that’s for individual Departments to decide. (I haven’t heard of any policy changes from the Faculty of Science, but Psychology is mostly funded by Arts.)
I’ve been posting my syllabi online for, well, a while--ever since the third course I taught, in 1995. That’s not a big deal. But cutting out a hardcopy syllabus...I don’t know.
This year, I decided to help out my Department--I went to Staples to copy and pay for the syllabi myself. (Meh, it’s no biggie: it took an hour and $140.38 for about 600 syllabus copies across three courses.)
So, I’ve continued to provide a hardcopy of the syllabus on the first class. But is it still necessary? I’d like to get your opinion on this. Is it good enough if I just go over the syllabus in detail in the first class (which I do now anyway)? Or do you think it’s still valuable to have a piece of paper to look at on that first day?
I'd like your opinion (but, please, vote only once):
(Poll is now closed. Thanks for voting. Results are here.)
In January, 2010, I ran an online poll asking my students about their preferences. I don't want to give the results here, because that may bias the voting. I'll post those numbers after I close the current poll.
Why aren't you studying?
The Syllabus Poll
The September 11th
I remember September 11, 2001. My wife was out of town with her sister, and I was alone at home working on (what else?) lecture prep. I don’t turn the TV or radio on when I’m working--don’t want any distractions--but I was working on the computer. I needed to get some information, and went to Google.
I distinctly remember an unusual thing on Google’s home page: a picture of the World Trade Center towers on fire, and a link to more information. I followed the link, thinking it was a promotion for a movie or something, but then I quickly realized what was Really Happening. That’s when I turned on the TV...needless to say, I didn’t get any more work done that day. And I was much relieved when my wife got home that evening.
I recently found a screenshot of Google’s actual home page on 9/11. It did not have a picture of the towers, but it did say, “Breaking news: Attacks hit US” and there were links to several news sites. How could I have misremembered something that seemed so clear to me?
Many people report having very vivid memories of a highly emotional event--not just of the event itself, but also of their personal experience (where they were, what they were doing, who they were with, etc.) when they first heard about the event. (These are called “flashbulb memories”, as if these memories are seared into our minds by the bright flash of emotion.)
But research has shown that these memories are not as veridical as we feel they are. 9/11 provided a unique opportunity for psychological scientists to do a sort of natural experiment on flashbulb memories. For example, Dr Elizabeth Phelps and her colleagues found that people did remember significant things about the 9/11 event quite well (80+%, even though these eroded over time), but only remembered about half of their personal details surrounding the event correctly. This means that you would swear you saw a picture of the burning towers on Google’s home page even though that never happened.
Incidentally, I did have a class to teach in the late afternoon of 9/11. I went and taught the class and didn’t say a word about the attacks. I felt that, as long as students were showing up, I’d teach them; I’d do my job. If they hadn’t heard about what was happening, I didn’t want to be the one to tell them. I imagined that would make it hard to concentrate for the rest of the class.
Now that I have children, though, I think I would handle things differently. I’d probably cancel my classes, take my kids out of school/daycare, and just hug them for the rest of the day. In fact, I think I’ll go hug them right now.
Why aren’t you studying?
What I Did on my Summer Vacation (2011 edition)
In no particular order, here's a random assortment of my summer experiences...
- On a sad note, one of my teaching assistants from last year, Matthew Ian Helgesen, died suddenly over the summer. My condolences to all his friends and family both here and back in Minnesota.
- Took the family to Calaway Park for the first time ever. Was it fun? Well, if you like going on the Egg Ride over and over and over... The weirdest activity is the fishing pond (barely mentioned on their website), where you can catch real trout, have them cleaned, and take them home. Yup, at the end of your day of going on rides, seeing magic shows, and eating cotton candy, you can take a dead fish home. Has Disney heard about this!?
- Calgary Zoo again. You know, I’d really like to see a polar bear one day. Just sayin’.
- Oh, and Sylvan Lake of course. Sadly, there seems to be less and less beach every time we go. (Maybe it was just all the snow melt this year?) At this rate, there won’t be any beach next year and I’ll just have to sit in the Big Moo drinking iced cappuccinos. Which, come to think of it, doesn’t sound too bad.
- Festivals, of course. But it’s tough to plan, say, going to the Heritage Festival when someone (not to name names) has to take a nap in the middle of the afternoon. Sustainival at the Fringe was something new. And I learned two things: 1) my eldest daughter loves the Tilt-A-Whirl, and 2) it makes me nauseous. Really nauseous. Where’s the iced coffee?
- Which reminds me: Had way too many of those $1 iced coffees from McDonald’s. There must be something, like, addictive in those. I mean, apart from the sugar, cream, and caffeine.
- Swatted mosquitos. A lot of mosquitos. Had to mow the lawn wearing heavy jeans, long socks, T-shirt, jacket zipped all the way up, and a hat--then sprayed Deep Woods Off all over. And: not a single bite! But when I went inside to take a shower what happens? A mosquito lands on me. Slap! Grr!
- Got a new custom desktop computer. (Geek alert: ASUS P8Z68-V PRO, Core i7 2600K, 8 GB 2000MHz DDR3 Kingston RAM, EVGA GTX 570, 2TB Seagate Barracuda HDD, 240GB OCZ Vertex 3 SSD. Not cutting edge, but then I’m not Fatal1ty.) On the plus side: SSD (Solid State Drive--kinda like a hard drive made up of flash memory) is wicked fast; on the minus side: SSD drive caused BSODs (*sigh*). Flashing the firmware was a bit hair-raising, but it fixed the problem and I didn’t even lose any data.
- Was so impressed with the SSD, I installed one (OCZ Vertex 2) in the empty drive bay of my laptop (Geek alert: Dell XPS 17 L701x). It didn’t work--the BIOS wouldn’t let me change the boot drive from HDD to SSD (*sigh*). Called tech support (How’s the weather in Chennai?). They didn’t know how to change the boot order either, so I had to tell them: the boot drive has to be the one in drive bay 1. They were very grateful for the info. I didn’t even charge them.
- I’d like to get a new computer for my office now. My current Core 2 Duo E6400 is a bit slow. (I know there’s a budget crunch, but if UAlberta can afford $250,000 for a new website, can’t I get a new computer every 4 or 5 years? Please? I’ll install it myself--no charge.)
- Ate a few of Fat Frank’s cheddar jalapeno dogs, tried Filistix’s pulled pork bun, and had an Eva Sweet waffle--all on campus. Allowing food carts on campus was a great idea. Will they still be around in January?
- Oh, and I made cake pops. And a cherry pie--with cherries from the Evans cherry tree in our backyard. And avocado-lime ice cream. (How was it? Meh. Green. See below.)
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- And of course, did a lot of work, including: went to seminars on Moodle and i>clickers, enhanced the branding of each course website for greater consistency and esthetics, and went through all my lectures to improve the flow and increase understandability.
- The branding I did means that each course will have a consistent visual style, from website to syllabus to exams. Getting everything to look right on my Website was the most difficult. Although I downloaded some cool Javascript to render custom fonts, I couldn’t get the font drop shadow to work inside of a rounded-corner/drop-shadow CSS3 element. I banged my head against the wall for a week or so on that until I gave up. Still, I think it looks OK (example here).
- Got Honour Roll with Distinction (modestly) for teaching the two courses I taught in Spring Term. No separate post for that because I don’t think I did the best possible job with one of the courses. I updated my lecture notes extensively, but my Web notes didn’t match the PowerPoints in class a few times. I’ll do a better job next time.
- Analyzed the research data I collected earlier this year. Hmm, looks like using ebook-textbooks shouldn’t have a negative impact on your grade
Why aren’t you studying?
The Research: The Results
In this series, I've been describing my latest research, looking at how ebook use affects academic outcomes. In my previous post, I described the process of data collection. The next step: analyzing the data and seeing the results for the first time.
As a graduate student, I took a lot of advanced statistics courses (in a couple educational psychology stats courses, I even had to learn APL. Eep!). This fact does not mean that I am in love with the field of statistics, and the mathematical process of analyzing data. It's just a means to an end. Still, it's an important means to an end. Not all science relies on quantitative research, but a lot of it does. If you don't know how to analyze your data, er...then what? All you've got is a big file full of (meaningless) numbers. Bottom line: It's important to know how to adequately analyze your data.
Here's a story. From 2001 to 2003, I was the statistics advisor for students in the Department of Psychology's Internship Program. After working out in the Real World collecting data, students would come to me with a file full of (meaningless) numbers. Many students were up to speed on their stats, had planned their data collection and analysis in advance, and just wanted to run their stats by me to make sure they were on the right track. Some others, however... Others...oh dear.
Others had not planned their data analysis in advance. They just went about their jobs, collecting data here and there--like they were meandering through a field picking daisies whenever and wherever they wanted. They'd come to me, give me their data, and expect me to work a miracle. This, not surprisingly, did not go well. You can't perform any kind of meaningful, valid analysis on 15 data points collected from one participant over various different time periods. With no independent variable (other than time, sort of). Yes, you've got a file with numbers. That's...great. But numbers do not statistics make. The moral of the story is: Take a statistics course. Then, take another one. Then, take one more.
Results
I'm happy to say that a large majority of students in my class opted to allow their data to be included in my analysis--almost 200 people. Unfortunately, I had to exclude data from a small number of students (they were randomly assigned to receive an ebook, but chose not to use it; that kind of self-selection may throw off the results). I collected a lot of different kinds of data, which will require a more sophisticated analysis, so what I'm going to present is a bit of a "cheat", but I couldn't help myself--I really wanted to see the bottom line right away. So here it is: r = -.035. Neat, eh?
Discussion
Er, OK, so here's an interpretation of the results: students who used the ebook got lower grades than students who used the printed textbook (negative correlation). But look at the size of the correlation--it's basically zero. The analysis also shows that there was no statistically significant difference between ebook and printed textbook users (p = .620). This means that, all other things being (hopefully) equal, using an ebook should not cost you any marks; or, reading material on a screen does not impair outcomes, at least in this perception course.
I'll need to sift through the data some more, to see if that's because ebook users spent more time studying than textbook users, or if there are other variables that also account for the results. In the meantime, I won't have any trouble recommending that students use an ebook instead of a textbook--and hey, seeing as ebooks are typically cheaper than paper textbooks, you'll even save some money. You're welcome.
Why aren't you studying?
The Research: The Data Collection
After my project passed ethics, it was time to design the data collection. While waiting (and waiting...and waiting...and waiting...) for ethical approval, I was able to fine tune the survey questionnaire that I would have students fill out. I got some great advice from people who know way more than I do about this kind of research; it helped tremendously. (One of the best things about the UofA is the amount of specialized knowledge that exists on campus. It's truly staggering how many academics there are here with top-notch knowledge. It's easy to take it all for granted.)
You don't always know what to ask on a questionnaire. What factors are relevant? (Did you use the online etextbook or printed textbook?) Which ones might matter? (Have you used etextbooks before?) What kinds of things are probably irrelevant? (Are you male or female? Better ask that one anyway.) There has to be a balance between asking for enough information, and making the survey as short as possible. Ever done an online survey that just seems to go on, page after page? Fill out this big long page, click "next" and the percent completed graph ticks up by only 1%? To get as many participants responding as possible, you've got to keep it as short as possible.
To keep everything in line with ethics guidelines, I didn't work on the online form until everything was okayed. Although I could have coded the forms myself (my websites are all hand-coded, thank you very much), but I didn't have a lot of spare time. Fortunately, the Department of Psychology has a great resource available: the Instructional Technology and Resources Lab. This lab is staffed by an undergraduate student who is enrolled in our internship program. (Plug: If you want to get hands-on experience doing a real psychology job before you graduate, look into it. You actually get paid for it, too.) Lauren McCoy coded the entire questionnaire for me. (Thanks, Lauren!)
Next, via Bear Tracks, I sent out a mass email to all the students in my class asking them to participate. Nothing to do after that but wait. It was hard to be patient, waiting for the data to roll in. And, according to ethics, I couldn't even look at it until the course was over. Argh!
Why aren't you studying?
The Research: The Ethics
In previous posts, I described the beginnings of the current research project. But before any research can be conducted, it has to be vetted through the research ethics approval process.
The major research granting agencies in Canada (CIHR, NSERC, and SSHRC) have come up with a (recently updated) policy document outlining ethical treatment of human research participants, called TCPS 2. If you want to do any research funded by one of the "tri-council" agencies, you must follow this policy. TCPS 2 has also trickled down to the university in general; research on campus is overseen by the Research Ethics Office. The REO has established a number of different Research Ethics Boards or Panels that review all research applications (whether funded by tri-council or not), and give their approval. Different boards oversee different kinds of research, like a typical psychology experiment, versus medical and clinical kinds of research.
It's important to me to make sure the willing participants in my research are (at the very least) not harmed, are treated properly, have their rights and human dignity respected, and (where appropriate) have their individual research results remain private and confidential. The process of obtaining ethical approval, though, is not trivial.
It used to be pretty easy to get ethics approval for research. Five years ago, I'd have to fill out a form indicating what I'd be doing (having students fill out a survey), whether there were any known risks to participants (um, maybe getting a paper cut?), and what I'd do if there were (rush them to the hospital). I'd talk to my colleague down the hall who would look over the application, make suggestions, and give his verbal okay. Now, it's a different story.
My Department requires that any Contract Academic Staff have their research sponsored by a professor (tenured or tenure-track staff). Luckily, a colleague of mine was able and willing to sign off on my project. It's really just a formality, which makes me question why it's necessary. Don't they trust me? And, isn't my research going to be overseen by the University?
This brings me back to the REO, which has switched to an online application process, using a system called HERO (Human Ethics Research Online--cute, eh?). Although it's now online, the process is very involved (sorry, I mean thorough) with many, many pages of questions that I have to fill out. Things like, how am I going to maintain security over the data to ensure privacy and confidentiality? (256-bit triple DES.) Will I be retaining an sensitive information, like student ID numbers? (Temporarily, yes.) Do I expect participants to come to any harm? (Er, no. Unless someone drops their computer on their foot.) The good thing was that all these questions forced me to think about ethical issues that I hadn't considered. Like, what if someone withdraws their consent--even after completing my online form? All of this really helped in designing the study itself.
Unfortunately, my ethics application was...misplaced (lost? forgotten? ignored?) for six weeks. Because this was my first experience with HERO, I didn't know how long the process would take. But after a month and a half of waiting, I asked my colleague who told me that approval should come after six days, not six weeks, and that I should "scream" about it. I didn't scream, but I was firm and persistent until my application was found, reviewed, and approved. Altogether, applying for and getting ethical approval for my project took two months. Piece of cake.
Next time: Data collection!
Why aren't you studying?
The Research: The Opportunity
As I wrote in my last post, I do research. But doing research is not easy if you aren't allowed to apply for major research grants. Sometimes, though, you get lucky.
I've got a good relationship with Nelson Education--the Canadian imprint for Cengage Learning, publisher of a number of textbooks I use in my courses, and also my employer (I do consulting for them on their Canadian psychology websites). So late last year, the local rep asked if I'd be interested in helping them evaluate the CengageNOW platform (which includes online etextbooks and interactive study guides). Oh, and they'd provide free access codes for students in my Perception class--but unfortunately, only for about half the class.
OK, I've just been designing this kind of experiment for a couple of years: Does using an etextbook cause students to do better, worse, or exactly the same in a course? I jumped at the chance. Half the class would get a free access code to the etextbook, the other half would use a regular printed textbook. At the end of the course, I could compare the two groups in terms of the dependent variable of final grade. Perfect! But who would get the free etextbook and who would have to pay for a textbook? How would that be decided? And is it fair that some students get something for free, and others don't?
These are important questions to consider. Obviously, the fair thing to do (and also the most obvious, from a statistical point of view) would be to randomly assign students to the etextbook and printed textbook groups. However, some students may not want to use an etextbook--even if it's free. In that case, I would have to exclude them from the study data, but then I could use their access code to give to students who registered late. The issue of free, though, I couldn't overcome. Nelson was not willing to pay for free printed textbooks for the other half of the class (about 107 students). Rats! This means I've got a confound that I couldn't overcome: students who got the etextbook would also be getting it for free, whereas students who bought and used the printed textbook would be paying for it.
If there are any difference in grades between these two groups, it could be because of the resource used (maybe reading an etextbook is more fatiguing so students spend less time reading, compared to a printed textbook--or maybe it's easier to read). Or it could be because of the "free" aspect (students feel less "invested" in the free etextbook, so don't read it as much as they would a printed textbook that they had to pay money for). Argh! Not so perfect. But it was the best I could do under the circumstances; I'd need almost $20,000 to buy textbooks for half the class!
There still were many more hurdles to overcome. Next: research ethics and the maze that is HERO.
Why aren't you studying?
The Research: Primary vs. Secondary
As a scientist, I do research. The first thing the word “research” brings to mind is probably experimental research. But this is only one method under the broader umbrella term of empirical research, which can include other methods like surveys, for example.
Another way of dividing up research into different kinds is into primary and secondary. In primary research, you collect original data; you’re discovering something no one else has ever known (you hope!). In secondary research, you are going through data that has already been collected. Maybe you are looking for something specific, or maybe you want to do a (formal, statistical) meta-analysis. (This doesn’t mean that every time you do a Google search, you’re doing secondary research--but secondary research might employ an Internet search now and then. More likely, I’ll use PsycINFO or MEDLINE.)
I do a lot of secondary research in prepping my courses. For example, when I created my lecture on synesthesia, I did a lot of secondary research--searching for studies, reading and analyzing them, and synthesizing the information in a systematic, coherent way. (At least, I hope it’s coherent! ;-)
I also do some primary research. It’s not something that I’m required to do in my role as Faculty Lecturer (but it can be a lot of fun to do). In fact, the University makes it hard for contract academic staff to do primary research: we are not allowed to apply for research grants. As you can imagine, having no money makes it kinda hard to do research. Unless: a) you’re rich, b) you have a sugar daddy, or c) a publishing company comes to you with a bunch of free stuff and asks if you’re interested in using it to do a study.
Late last year, I had the opportunity for option c). In the next few posts, I’ll describe the steps in the research process, ending up with a summary of my results.
Why aren’t you studying?
The Awards: 5
I've been named to the Department of Psychology's Honour Roll with Distinction for all three courses I taught last term. Thank-you to everyone, and special thanks to those who went to the trouble of giving written comments. I'm not going to post "best-of" student comments this time because (a) I've done that before, (b) there weren't many comments that, er...cry out for a response (most were constructive and helpful, which is great!), and (c) I don't want to reinforce anyone trolling for their comments to be posted in this blog (getcher own blog, eh?).
This time, I want to congratulate my colleagues who were named to the Honour Roll:
- Brown, N. (PSYCO 405 X5)
- Dixon, P. (PSYCO 258)
- Friedman, A. (PSYCO 212)
- Hurd, P. (PSYCO 400/409)
- Masuda, T. (PSYCO 241 B1, PSYCO 305)
- Passey, J. (PSYCO 105 B1, PSYCO 233)
- Schimel, J. (PSYCO 105 B4)
- Spalding, T. (PSYCO 105 B3, PSYCO 405 B2)
- Snyder, M. (PSYCO 403 B2)
- Westbury, C. (PSYCO 339)
- Wylie, D. (PSYCO 267 B2)
- Busink, R. (PSYCO 436)
- Caplan, J. (PSYCO 403 B4)
- Colbourne, F. (PSYCO 403 B1)
- Gagne, C. (PSYCO 532)
- Hurd, P. (PSYCO 414/505)
- Kuiken, D. (PSYCO 415)
- Lee, P. (PSYCO 105 S1)
- Mou, W. (PSYCO 403 B3)
- Mullins, B. (PSYCO 104 B2)
- Nicoladis, E. (PSYCO 323)
- Noels, K. (PSYCO 300)
- Passey, J. (PSYCO 241 S1, PSYCO 405 B1)
- Singhal, A. (PSYCO 377)
- Spetch, M. (PSYCO 485)
- Todd, K. (PSYCO 475)
- Varnhagen, C. (SCI 100)
- Watchorn, R. (PSYCO 323)
- Wylie, D. (PSYCO 405 B3)
Here are the criteria for the awards:
1. The course section median response was equal to or greater than 4.0; for Honors with Distinction, the course section median response was greater than 4.0 and at least 45% of the students agreed strongly that the instructor was “Excellent;” For classes with fewer than 10 students enrolled, the majority of students responded “Agree” or “Strongly Agree”; for Honors with Distinction, the majority of the majority responded “Strongly Agree”;
2. At least 60% of the class responded to the questionnaire;
3. There were no abnormalities in the grade distributions (e.g., distributions skewed too high or too low);
4. Instruction was conducted in accord with the ethical standards of teaching as outlined by the APA and CPA.
Why aren't you studying?
The Value of Your Degree
I’ve posted about The Best Job in the World, according to a number of metrics. Now, a new study has been released, looking at the earnings of people who hold a bachelor’s degree.
Researchers at Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce analyzed US Census Bureau data on over 3 million bachelor’s degree-holders who graduated over the last 40 years. Specifically, they recorded the median salaries they earned in 2009; this means that they took a cross-section of people currently in the workforce (it didn’t just look at people who graduated in 2009).
I’m sad to report that the field with the lowest median salary is Psychology and Social Work (P&SW) at $42K (range: $29K to $53K). Sob. Below is the breakdown within P&SW (from The Chronicle of Higher Education):
The lowest is counseling psychology, ringing in at a paltry $29,000 per year. At the top of P&SW is I/O psychology (those who work in large companies, measuring and improving performance and/or wellness). I guess those companies pay pretty well; the pay is almost double that of the poor counseling psychology graduates.
But wait--what are those lowly counseling psychology-degree-holders actually doing? They’re not working as counseling psychologists. Why not? Generally, you can’t, not with just a Bachelor’s degree. Maybe they just got their BA and are now working in retail. On the other hand, you can work in I/O psychology with “just” a bachelor’s degree.
Also, the US economy isn’t in great shape. The data came from 2009, when the job situation was pretty grim--not that it’s great today. It’s possible that some people had their salary cut, or at least not increased recently. Still, the numbers above are based on full-time, full-year workers with a Bachelor’s, not part-time workers.
Finally, those who hold higher-level degrees like a Master’s or Ph.D. earn more. According to the report, median earnings of those with a graduate degree in P&SW was $60K, moving P&SW up to the third-lowest field.
So, did you make a bad choice of major? Should you have taken engineering (overall median: $75,000)? Or computing science (overall median: $71,000). Maybe we’re just all in this for the love of it.
Why aren’t you studying?
The Random Facts 2
No, still no Twitter account. Why? I can't come up with a good name. Is “Sh*t my prof says” taken? So, more random facts (and some questions).
- First, the Taco del Mar by my house closed, then the Taco Bell closed. What have I done to offend the taco gods? I am currently leaving offerings of money at the nearby Mucho Burrito...
- never get three dental fillings a couple of hours before teaching a class
- Me: “What are you watching?”
My wife: “Um, Keeping up with the Cardassians.”
I wonder to myself, hmm...Elim Garak, or Gul Dukat?
- Is a public toilet seat still warm from the previous occupant gross, or kinda nice?
- Oh, and don’t hold anything over a toilet that you want to keep.
- Have Cadbury Crème Eggs gotten a lot sweeter since I was a kid, or have I just gotten more sensitive? That’s what I thought.
Why aren't you studying?
The Spring Term, 2011
I've written about Spring Term before, describing my misconceptions about the kind of students who take courses in Intersession (Spring and Summer Terms), and about their reasons for taking them. This time, a little bit about one of the greatest challenges in taking an Intersession course: time.
Courses in Spring (and Summer) Term last for 6 weeks. Unless you've signed up for a 3-week Spring or Summer Term course. That's right: first day of class to final exam in 3 weeks. I've taught 3 weeks courses before, at another institution. It's 3 hours of lecture every day, Monday to Thursday. Then on Friday there's a midterm and another lecture to round out the 3 hours. It's brutal. Don't even think about taking two of these monsters at the same time. Your social life will go out the window and you'll have to catch up on your favourite TV shows later. It's just go to class, read the textbook, go to class, read the textbook. So, in contrast, a 6-week course doesn't sound too bad.
In 6-week courses, there's "only" 70 minutes of class every day, and an exam "only" about every 2 weeks. Let's compare (labs aside, assuming a full course load):
- "regular" Fall/Winter Term: 770 minutes (about 12.8 hours) per week in class (five courses)
- Spring/Summer Term: 700 minutes (about 11.7 hours) a week (two courses)
- Fall/Winter: 7.8 hours/week
- Spring/Summer: 11.7 hours/week
The point of all this silly number crunching? Don't take Intersession courses lightly. Be prepared to devote your time appropriately--these courses still count toward your GPA. It's tough to concentrate on the yada-yada of your instructor when the sun is shining and the birds are chirping. *sigh*
If you've taken Intersession courses before, what are your tips for making it through?
Why aren't you studying?
The Earth Day
Happy Earth Day, Earth! And to everyone on it! (Sorry, astronauts on the ISS, you don’t count. But hey, you’ve got an awesome view out the window. Of the Earth.) It's good to have a reminder about the value of the Earth, our environment, and ways to protect it.
At work, I strive to be environmentally friendly:
- No recyclable paper gets thrown in the garbage. Any paper that goes into the recycling almost always has both sides used. I admit that I do use a lot of paper--exams, mostly. You wanna help me recycle exams? Heh, nice try. They all go to be shredded and then recycled.
- Dead batteries from the wireless mics I use get dropped off in an ECOS
- I turn off the lights in my office when I go to class; I also turn off the lights in the bathrooms in Bio Sci when I leave. (Sorry about leaving you in the dark that one time, guy in the stall. Oops!)
Speaking of family, here are some things we do:
- We don’t buy bottled water; every family member has their own reusable aluminum bottle (so no fighting over the one with zoo animals on it!).
- In my house, I’m famous for eating food that’s past its expiry date. Long past. Hey, I hate to waste food. What's a little borborygmi?
- Every garbage day, I put out more blue bags than garbage bags--in fact, no one else on my block puts out as many blue bags as I do. It takes me over an hour a week to clean, rinse, sort, and otherwise prep all of my family’s recyclables.
Could I do better? Absolutely. I could bring my own rechargeable batteries to use in the wireless mics. I could try to always remember to shut off the computer and turn off the lights in my classrooms, if it’s the last class of the day. I could buy products with less packaging to reduce my recyclables.
What are you doing to help save the Earth?
Why aren’t you studying?
The End of Term
Yeah, yeah--terms papers this, studying that, yada yada. But there's another reason to remember the last day of term. I ask that, if you have any concerns about the marking of any assignment or exams in the course, you bring them to me or the TA before classes end. I'm going to be heads-down marking term papers, and your TAs are students with exams to prepare for, too. Although I've asked them to keep their usual office hours up until the final, they may just have to write an exam during one of their office hours.
Yes, according to Department of Psychology policy, it is your right to wait up until some unspecified time before the day of the final exam to bring your concern forward:
"With the exception of term work for which students did not receive feedback before the posting of final grades, students must initiate a request for reevaluation of term work with the instructor prior to the day of the final exam or in the case of courses without final exams, before the posting of final grades."So on or after the day of the final exam, however, pfft! that's it. Even if we made a marking mistake, we are not allowed to change it after that day. If there is a significant concern, please don't wait until the last minute. Note that this doesn't apply to simply asking questions to clarify something; you can do that at any time--even after the course is over.
Why aren't you studying?
Teh Wrnog Mnoth
Only a week into this month, and already this isn't my month. It must be someone else's month. Let's see what's gone wrong so far...
- Major virus scare: I thought a rootkit had infected all of my computers. This happened to my office computer in 2008, so it's not unprecedented. My email app was very slow, so I got a packet sniffer to check out my IP traffic. What are all these connections to 1e100.net!? (Oh, um, I get it. "1e100" means a 1 with 100 zeros behind it: a googol. Get it?)
- So, no virus, but Gmail is insisting on rebuilding my All Mail folder every time I start Thunderbird, downloading 30,000+ messages. That'll slow things down a bit. Darn you, Gmail!
- Wrote an important email, and misspelled the address. It didn't get bounced back until hours later. Darn you, Gmail!
- Getting my coursepack together for spring term, I photocopied a couple of chapters of a book. Then, instead of emailing me the results as a PDF, the photocopier ate everything. Twice.
- Due to an apparent glitch in HERO (the UofA's online ethics submission/review platform), my ethics application was not reviewed. Instead of taking 5 days, it took 5 weeks. In the meantime, my hands are tied, and I can't get started on my research project.
- Ordered a couple of things online--both companies sent me the wrong item. Grrr!
- My PVR stopped talking nicely to my TV over HDMI. Banged my head against the wall (actually, the floor) for hours on that one. Decided to switch to digital cable and get an HDPVR. It didn't talk nicely to my TV over HDMI. The good-humoured tech who came to take a look at it liked the fact I knew what "HDMI" was. But he still couldn't fix it.
- Tried to get a delicious Nestea from a vending maching right before class and was denied. I got my money back, but it wouldn't give me any delicious Nestea. (And no, I don't want that Brisk crap.)
- Daughter #1 made me spill my coffee this morning. Oh, the humanity!
Why aren't you studying?
The New Logo
You may not have noticed, but the University of Alberta has quietly changed its logo. The changes in the "shield" and "wordmark" are subtle, but they're there: compare the new one (top image) to the old one (bottom 
image). Without any fanfare, the new logo appeared on the UofA home page on March 7, 2011 (heh, they even remembered to change the l'il favicon, too). This change came after a staggering 100,000 people (me included) participated in research to evaluate the new visual identity.
It's odd that there was no big press conference about this. I don't think it's because they're not proud of the new art scheme, but rather because they don't want to draw attention to the old one. I mean, lookit it! It's got Times Roman font--yuk! That's almost as ubiquitous as Helvetica. Times Roman is so, you know, authoritative (maybe even authoritarian). And you don't want a university looking too, like, authoritative or whatever.
So, why the change? Rumour is that some people thought the old logo was too stodgy for university-choosing kids coming to the UofA homepage; it should be updated to be more distinctive on the web. But hold on, who starts by going to homepages anymore? And what about all the existing (old-logo) letterhead? (We're assured that it won't be thrown out, but used up and then replaced with the new design.) OK, but there are also a lot of electronic documents that will have to be updated.
I'm not opposed to change, as long as there's a good reason for it. But I didn't see a pressing need for change here. On the one hand, the logo (which has been around for ages--anyone know how long?) is being changed (sorry, "refreshed"). On the other hand, administration is going back to 1908 and promoting Henry Marshall Tory's assertion that, for the University of Alberta, "The uplifting of the whole people shall be its final goal."
I thought we were in the middle of a budget crisis. Why go to all this trouble and expense? This doesn't look like belt-tightening, it looks like a way to spend a bunch of extra dollars. Will this attract significant numbers of new students, who otherwise would have presumably gone to Waterloo because of its spiffy new logo?
What do you think? Is the new logo sufficiently kewl? Is it not kewl (or different) enough? Did you even notice?
Why aren't you studying?
The Gmail (update)
I’ve been having a problem using the Mozilla Thunderbird (“Tb”) email client to access Gmail via IMAP. I don’t want to delete a message and sent it to [Gmail]\Trash, because any message in there will be deleted after 30 days. Instead, I want to archive deleted messages in another folder, [Imap]\WebTrash but this hasn’t been working. I can set Tb to do this correctly, but after a restart, deleted messages will end up in [Gmail]\Trash. Grr! Turns out this is because Tb has a bug.
Tb bug 533140: “Cannot specify custom trash folder using Gmail IMAP ([Gmail]/Trash is always used regardless of trash folder selection at Server Settings, because Tb currently ignores trash folder selection if Gmail IMAP in order to avoid unwanted problems)” since 2009-12-05.
Here’s a solution from Gmail engineer RyanTaylor:
The first step is to create your own Trash folder:It works for me now, yay! (AICT sent me the fix, but HT to Dr Connie Varnhagen for finding it first and telling me about it!)
1, In your Thunderbird, create a new folder under your GMail account for your own Trash, let's call it "MyTrash" for now.
2, Go to your account settings (Right click on the account / Settings...) and then select Server Settings.
3, Set the "When I delete a message", "Move it to this folder:" and select your MyTrash folder.
4, Click OK.
Then make sure that you unsubscribe the GMail Trash folder:
1, Go to your subscription settings (Right click on the account / Subscribe...)
2, Find the Trash folder under [GMail], select it and click on "unsubscribe".
3, Click OK.
At the last step, you need to restart Thunderbird. When the trash icon is appearing in your newly created label, then it should to be working.
Finally, here’s one more resource from the MozillaZine Knowledge Base on “Using Gmail with Thunderbird and Mozilla Suite (Troubleshooting and Gmail Quirks)”. That's right: "Gmail Quirks"!
Why aren’t you studying?
The Guest Lecture
I gave a guest lecture on Wednesday. This is not something I do very often--because no one asks me, that's why. It's a strange feeling, stepping into "someone else's" class, taking over like you own the joint. There's a whole class of students who are used to a certain way of doing things, then suddenly there's some new person who does things all differently. Like using PowerPoint, or something else very strange. And maybe those students are taking that class because they certainly don't want to take my class. (Potential nightmare: walking into the classroom and everyone groans and says, "not that guy".)
This time, I filled in as a favour to Dr Elena Nicoladis. She had a graduate student's candidacy exam to attend, so she couldn't make it to her PSYCO 323: Perceptual and Cognitive Development class. (That's a pretty good reason for missing a class. Not like my reasons: because I gotta go pick up my laundry, or because my fish has the hiccups.) So she asked me, and I couldn't say no. See, she's currently the Department of Psychology's Associate Chair (Undergraduate Program), which makes her...well, kinda-sorta my boss. What, I'm gonna tell her, "Naw, why should I? Help you? What's in it for me? Forget it."? Because when it comes time to renew my contract, she might tell me, "Naw, why should I? Help you? What's in it for me? Forget it."
There's another reason why she asked me--besides the fact that I'm her minion--and that's because I once taught PSYCO 323. Well, twice, actually, way back in 1996 and 1997. OK, that's not exactly true either. I co-taught it twice, with Dr Katherine Robinson. (Co-teaching, that's another strange experience--sometimes one instructor shows up and teaches, and sometimes the other one shows up. It's like flipping a coin, but you never lose. Sorry, I had to say that. Kathy bought me a coffeemaker as a wedding present, so I wanted to say something nice about her!)
Digging up those old lectures was not easy. They were 14 years and many word processors ago (my dearly beloved Ami Pro 3.0). Turns out, Ami doesn't like current versions of Windows, and Windows doesn't like Ami much either. I spent a lot of hours looking for filters that I could shove down Word's throat so it would be able to read my old files. After spending far too much time, I got it to work. A-ha! Now I didn't have to create any lectures from scratch. Except...those old lectures? Crud. Utter crud. Totally outdated. And boring. Rats!
After way too many hours of updating my knowledge of perceptual development, I finished my new lecture. Now it was slightly less cruddy, and no longer totally outdated. (Of course, this is sort of a violation of my self-imposed moratorium on creating new lecture material this year, but it's technically for someone else's class. I love finding loopholes in my own rules.) I had to fill an 80-minute class, because I was told that my lecture was on the 10th of March. Except...it wasn't. At the last minute, Dr Nicoladis told me that the lecture was actually on Wednesday the 9th, which means a 50-minute class. But--but--but! That means I'd have to cut my lecture down by almost half! It's really hard to cut out material--almost as hard as creating it in the first place. So I took a hard look at my lecture. What to cut? Ironically, I cut out the only remaining bits from my original 14-year-old lectures. *sigh*
Why aren't you studying?
The Gmail
Because of my awesome specialness, I've been chosen to transition to Gmail. OK, maybe I was randomly selected, I dunno. Anyway, I had finished marking my pile of midterms and was waiting to swap with my TA, so I had a bit of time and decided to go ahead and activate my UofA Gmail.
I'm not new to Gmail; I've been using it since the summer of '04. Back then, Gmail was in beta, and you could only get an account with an invitation which was very highly prized by Googlers. (Yup, I'm bragging: "I've been on Gmail since you were in elementary school, la-la-la.")
I got my invitation by promising to send a postcard about Edmonton to whoever sent me an invite. I sent out two postcards; one person stiffed me, but the other sent me an invitation. And...big whoop. It's email. I've been doing email since, well...I sent my first email in 1989 ("since you were in diapers, la-la-la"). I'm not crazy about Gmail's odd way of labeling messages instead of physically putting them in different folders. The concept of archiving everything and actually deleting nothing was novel, and getting a whopping 1GB of storage free at that time put Hotmail and Yahoo! to shame. But then there's the fact that it's web-based, and I'm pretty fond of my desktop email client (I love me my Thunderbird--the software, not the wine) because of its customizability and extensions.
Anyway, here's how my transition went: hair-pullingly bad. You have to change your password, which is a nuisance--now I've got to update account info and passwords in all my password-management software, argh! Next, I (apparently) wasn't able to change or update my existing account in Thunderbird--I had to set up a new one. That's a hassle. What about all of the email messages in my old account? (Turns out, you can request that they transition all of that over to your new Gmail account, but it could take "days or weeks".)
So OK, I set up Thunderbird to use IMAP, tried logging on, and got an error message. WTF? Did I not enter my new password correctly? Did I not enter all the server settings right? Argh! Turns out, I had to go to a Google webpage and enter a CAPTCHA, I guess to prove my human-ness. That would have been good to know in advance, AICT. So it's working, but now I have to sync all of my computers with Gmail's IMAP servers to download and reindex 25,000+ messages. That takes a little while. Like, hours.
If you don't or can't use an standalone email client, you can use the Gmail web interface. It's no different than regular Gmail. It is a bit of a pain if you already have a Gmail account, because now you have to log out of one account if you want to log in to the other account. And don't forget to update the info in your password-management software, which tends not to understand what's going on if you have two logons to the same website, argh!
Finally, after you change over to Gmail, there's no going back. You won't be able to log in to the old UofA webmail--it will fail. Eventually, though, everyone will have to transition; it's just a matter of time.
Is this a fabulous new experience? No. I had my email setup just the way I liked it, and now I've got to chase down bugs and get used to Gmail's weird labeling-instead-of-filing process. But this process was about saving money in the first place. And now we also get cool Google Apps like Calendar, Docs, and more. I've been using all those already ("since before you hit puberty, la-la-la"), but now everyone else gets to as well. Maybe we'll all be more productive. FYI, "Google ate my term paper" is not an acceptable excuse.
Why aren't you studying?
The Awards: 4 (part 2)
So many good comments, I had to split them into two posts. Last time, I covered my perception class. This time, let's hear from students in my 100-level course.
(Warning: As always, remember that snarkiness and sarcasm filters are now OFF.)
Intro psych:
"created a sort of a sexist environment that made a lot of people in class think it was ok to say things that were even more inappropriate. For example, _such_ gendered language e.g., always 'Mom, Dad, husband, wife instead of spouse, parent', encouraging ppl to shout out stereotypes like 'Women are always pmsing, crying, talking, getting what they want.' Saying that the fluffy light Psychology magazine was aimed at Women & that he would never read it."(I'll go one better. How about I just say "persyn"? Sure, it'll lead to confusion, but it's better than me talking about my wife all the time. And I will ensure that everyone in class submits their responses in writing for my approval before they are allowed to speak in class. Oh, and Psychology Today is closer to Modern Bride than Car & Driver. I know, I measured it on the rack. But I still do actually read Psychology Today.)
"...made me not pay attention in class, he is not good with keeping my attention. I resorted to doing crossword puzzles and checking twitter."(I'm so proud! The Behaviourist Approach crossword is a good place to start. Mind Hacks has a great list of psychology and neuroscience on Twitter. Glad I could stimulate your desire to learn more about psychology, using new media!)
"We always had interesting and interactive things to do in the classes. It was really helpful and made the classes enjoyable to attend."(And if you get bored, you could always check Twitter.)
"I feel as though it would be very difficult to pass this course without reading the text"(Your feelings serve you well, Padawan. Plus, I kept saying how the majority of the exam questions come from the textbook. But a Jedi has no use for such things.)
"I refuse, on principle, to read the entire textbook to do well in this class."(What a coincidence: I refuse, on principle, to give a good mark to anyone who doesn't read the entire textbook in this class.)
"I didn't like the fact that every chapter was assigned for reading instead of assigning pages, which would have been more helpful."(That's not helpful. I'm going to assign individual words. Now that's helpful.)
"Only include questions from notes because not everyone can afford to purchase textbook."(Then why assign a textbook? I'm not going to teach a class that doesn't have any form of required reading. Hey, I know! To save you money, I could have put a copy of the textbook on reserve for you.)
"Also, the textbook that was on reserve in Cam library was very useful. I would have failed the course without it. It also helps students who are more 'economically conscious'"(Oh right. I did put the textbook on reserve for you. Too bad I'm not currently allowed to do that. Don't be mad at me--it's not my fault. Direct your concerns to UofA administration. Thanks.)
"Don't make the infolit assignments due on a Friday or Saturday."(You can do the assignments on a Thursday. Or Wednesday. Did you know that? You don't have to do them on the exact day that they are due.)
"The tutorial was out of date for Assign #3 and VERY difficult to follow. The instructor should have notified students that the tutorial did not match teh new library database & given written updated instructions."(Unfortunately, I can't access the infolit assignments. I have nothing to do with them; I am required by the Department of Psychology to have them in my intro psych course. But good thing you waited until the end of term evaluations to bring this up, though. That way, there's absolutely nothing I can do about it.)
"Lecture moves way too fast for those of us who don't want to print off an entire novel of fill-in-the-blanks and are instead taking notes manually."(So for the three of you, I should slow way down so you can copy the notes? OK, but only as long as it doesn't bother the other 261 students in the class. I don't want them tuning out and checking Twitter.)
"I would describe this course as a mile wide and an inch deep."(That's a 100-level course for ya. Well, that's a "survey course" for ya. I have added material that goes into greater depth, but then I can't cover everything in the textbook, too.)
"not a big fan of the textbook/lecture content differences"(Not a big fan of the vague, unhelpful comments. Do you mean the textbook contradicted the lectures? Or the fact that I don't just read out of the textbook to you, and instead include topics that many think are interesting, like the psychology of happiness?)
"Have a clicker for miniature in class assignments, not graded, and inexpensive, used as a learning tool"(... That's actual, serious, pedagogical advice for me. I will strongly consider that. Thank you.)
"Stop with the lame jokes. Not everyone is 4 years old."(OK, I'll try to aim higher: 6-year-olds. I've got one I can practice on. Fart sounds are popular.)
Why aren't you studying?
The Awards: 4
OK, so I got on the Department's Honour Roll with Distinction for all three courses I taught in Fall, 2010. Yada yada. Now--you know 'em, you love 'em--on to student comments. (Warning: As always, remember that snarkiness and sarcasm filters are now OFF.)
Perception:
"I really, really wanted to write something ridiculous just to be featured on WAYS, but I decided that might hurt your chances at getting honor roll again, which you truly deserve...[I] don't give "pity laughs" to profs trying to make jokes...with that in mind I can say I laughed a lot, which kept class interesting and made me want to be here."(Aw, gee, thanks. And here you are on WAYS, even though you didn't write anything ridiculous. Others did, however. BTW, don't worry about your comments hurting my chances at getting on the honour roll--my abysmal teaching will take care of that.)
"Don't mock previous student evaluations at the beginning of the course under the guise of being fair. What are the important concepts? Emphasize these. What is the purpose of this class? I don't feel that I undertand perception any better than when I first began this class. Teach more. I'm not paying for you to distill notes from a textbook, I can do that myself. SPEAK LOUDER!!!"(I will only mock evals here on my blog, 'K? "Teach more", eh? I'll have to look into that. In the meantime, learn more. AND DON'T WAIT UNTIL THE COURSE IS OVER TO TELL ME TO SPEAK LOUDER!!!)
"I found the instructor did not treat students with respect. He was arrogant and mocked students with legitimate comments/questions."(WTF? Here's what treating students without respect would actually be like: "That's a stupid question. You're stupid. Don't waste my time with your stupidity." I don't do that; I've never done that. You must be confusing me with some asshole.)
"Notes are overly wordy."
"Lecture skimmed topics."(I'll reduce the number of words, but at the same time go into more depth. Necessarily, polysyllabic entities will be employed. Antidisestablishmentarianism!)
"Notes were very disorganized & hard to follow. I am still unsure of what the purpose of this course is. Nothing memorable about information provided because it was delivered in a dull way. I strongly dislike perception because of you."(Well, then, mission accomplished. I hope you dislike it even more after you finish taking my Advanced Perception course this term.)
"I am near the end of a 4 yr degree and this has been one of the most enjoyable classes I have taken so far...not so much for the content but for the excellent presentations & entertaining lectures."(Well, then, mission accomplished. I hope you enjoy it even more after you finish taking my Advanced Perception course this term.)
"I really appreciate how Dr. Loepelmann knew beforehand that some topics were harder to grasp than others and took the time to explain it to us in different ways (approaches) so that we understood the material. He is an excellent prof; one of the best one I've ever had in university. I specifically chose this class because he's teaching it."(Thanks--it's all part of my teaching philosophy: Teach more.)
More comments coming soon!
Why aren't you studying?
The Open Comments: 2
I really should do this more often than once every *cough*twoyears*cough*. This is an "open comments" post. I've got midterms on the brain (and I bet you do, too), so I'd like some mid-term evaluation from you.
This is an opportunity for me to ask "How am I doing?" and an opportunity for you to provide some formative evaluation--as opposed to the summative evaluation at the end of term.
Should I speak up? Should I slow down? Let me know.
Why aren't you commenting?
The Random Facts - 1
Why? Because I'm too lazy to set up a Twitter account.
- When you feel how cold your spouse's hands are, it's not a good idea to ask, "What, are you a dead person?" Actually, it's never a good idea to ask that.
- All that snow we got in January? That almost paralyzed the city? Yeah, it wasn't a record amount for January. That record was set in 1971, with 66 cm. Hmm, why don't I remember that? Oh, right--I was in my crib. (No, not my house, yo. Like, an actual crib.)
- A sump pump is an important thing to have in your house. It's even more important if it's actually working. Luckily, I have the ears of a hawk, and heard mine gurgling and buzzing its last. $600 later...
- Norovirus is not my favourite virus. When one person in my family gets it, we all get it, falling like dominoes. (How I managed to not miss teaching a single class, I dunno.) I'm not crazy about Coxsackievirus, either. Or influenza or rhinoviruses.
- There is no such thing as "one cookie left."
Why aren't you studying?
The Letter of Reference
Deadlines are fast approaching! For many graduate programs, the deadline is early February or March. That's why I've been so busy lately. No, I'm not applying to get into grad school. Been there, done that, got the degree(s). I'm busy because I'm writing letters of reference for students who want to further their education--grad school, rehab med, med school, and even law school.
It's a good idea to prepare yourself long before your application deadline--years before. This includes thinking about who you will potentially ask for a reference. Here are some tips:
- First, what kind of class did you take? A small lab class? That instructor would be able to say things about your hands-on research abilities. A class with a lot of written assignments/papers? In that case, your ability to structure your ideas and communicate them effectively could be described. A class with multiple choice exams only? Um, this is what you'll get: "Dear Institution: This person apparently took my class and seems to have gotten a grade of X. Cheers."
- Request a letter of reference from an instructor who knows you well. That is, did you just go to class? OK, that's great, but unless you asked a lot of intelligent, insightful questions in class--and mentioned your name a lot--that's not enough.
- Did you make an effort to go to the instructor's office to ask any questions you had? Your extra effort in traipsing all the way to some office out in the armpit end of campus will be noted, and remembered.
- Oh yeah--one more: Did you get an excellent mark? Like, at least an A? (That goes without saying, I hope.)
The best part for me (and, okay, for students too, I guess) is hearing that they were accepted. That makes me happy--that I've been able to help someone on their way, just like others helped me. Getting presents--like the one in the photo--upon getting accepted is definitely not required. (But thanks anyway, E.H., the cookies are yummy--and congrats again!)
Gotta go finish up one more letter of reference now...
Why aren't you studying?
The Cover Page
In my Perception class, students are allowed (actually, encouraged) to decorate the cover page of their lab assignments. My TA and I pick out the best two or three, and I hand those back personally in class. (Last term, the class even clapped for the chosen ones.) If your cover is chosen, you won't have to rummage through the piles of labs to find yours--it's hand-delivered to you in your seat. Like you're in a luxury box at Rexall Place or something. Hey, you earned it!
For those that aren't chosen, however, there still can be a benefit. If your cover really stands out, that makes it a lot easier to find among the sea of plain white cover pages. And, as an extra side benefit, this is an application of the visual attentional phenomenon of popout. Eh? Eh? Clever, huh?
I promised my class this term that I'd post some photos of the best cover pages from last term. Some recent covers were so memorable that I took pictures of them with my phone. My dumbphone. Because it's not a smartphone, see? Plus: I'm mad at my dumb dumbphone. I don't have any pictures to show because my 0.3 megapixel dumbphone took the world's worst pictures of cover pages. No, really--some of them were so blurry even I didn't know what some of them were. Me, photoshopped to look like Han Solo? Actual Halloween candies taped to the cover? No, maybe it's a LOLcat. So, sorry about that.
Anyway, here are some dos and don'ts for cover pages:
- origami: it's just going to get squashed and ripped--forget it
- macaroni: frowned upon--what, are you still in grade 2?
- fusilli: ah, now you're talking--can you make a fusilli Jerry? (no bonus marks for that)
- glitter: past TAs have nixed glitter and sequins--glitter glue may be okay, but ask first
- $5 bills: no, no, no--the university says that money must not be submitted with assignments (just drop it off at the Provost's office)
- drawings/sketches: if you have the time, patience, and ability to actually draw something, well, I've got a soft spot for that
What I Did on my Christmas holiday
It was, as usual, a busy time these past couple of weeks. At the end of December, I tried to blitz through my marking as quickly as I could, to get final grades submitted before everything shut down for the holidays. Then there was Christmas: made a turkey, the kids went crazy ripping their presents open, and my wife still hasn't opened the iPad I got her (it...scares her).
Then there were a bunch of furlough days, when I was not supposed to be working. So, on my furlough days, I did some work. Waitwaitwait--nothing related to the University (of course), but my contract work for Nelson Education. I'm a consultant for their higher education division, working on the websites for their Canadian (or "Canadianized") psychology textbooks. (Full disclosure: yes, I do get paid for this. And yes, I do use Nelson textbooks in two of my classes But I do not get a single cent in kickbacks for choosing their textbooks. And the textbooks I've chosen are not Canadian ones, so my consulting work has nothing to do with those books.)
In between furlough days, I also started planning out a research study. Because of my good relationship with Nelson, I got a very nice offer from them. Susan, the publisher's local representative (we call 'em "book reps"), and her manager offered to give students in my perception course free access to their integrated online etextbook/study guide/online lab called CengageNOW. It's a bit surprising to hear about publishers giving anything away...it seems to good to be true. There is one catch: they're not doing this to show that they really are a sweet, generous, kitten-loving company; they're doing this to get some direct feedback from students on CengageNOW. And there's another catch: they only had 60 free access codes to give away. We decided that the fairest way to distribute them in my class of 214 students was random selection. Those are pretty good odds: a 28% chance of getting a free textbook. You're welcome! Oh, and my research part? I don't want to say too much, so let me just say that I want to see how well students do. That's all for now.
I also let myself have a little fun. A favourite activity that my girls like to do is bake pretzels from scratch. Because they're only 6 and 2 years old, that means I have to do most of the work, while they just try to roll out a few balls of dough and sprinkle way too much salt on them. But that's OK--I don't mind eating these misshapen, overly salted pretzels because they're made with love (sniff). Um, also, the pretzels taste really good after you've been outside shoveling a mountain of snow for (I kid you not) three hours. Oh, I had help--from a 6-year-old and a 2-year-old armed with a princess snow shovel and a Dora snow shovel, respectively. (As you can see from the picture above, I'm rockin' the snowblower while my crew takes yet another coffee break.)
Please tell me your holiday was more exciting than this. Please!
Why aren't you studying?
Find It
