Fall 2012: my second semester of teaching

As I said in the intro to my first semester summary, I want to keep some notes here on the successes and failures from my teaching exploits.  Here's a wrap-up of...

Semester #2 - Fall 2012 - 3 classes

* Lower division, 125 students

* Lower division, 10 students

* Upper division + graduates, 12 students

- I switched to Ahrens and Samson for the severe weather course, and that went much better.  The reason?  Our course has no science prerequisites, so a book like RWC that is skimpy on sound introductory material just didn't work for us (even with a ton of great chapters later on).

- Dedicated lab time for that course would've been nice, but save that I incorporated some lab exercises during our class time and they were absolutely a huge hit.  Tornado damage (using photos and the indicators to estimate the EF rating of the damage), hurricane intensity via Dvorak satellite methods, and more.  Must use these again.

- For weather analysis & forecasting, I created a list of course goals and wrote out detailed learning objectives for each unit.  Not a day went by that I didn't check that list to make sure we were on it somewhere--even for the days where we focused on current events instead of canned coursework.  I hardly spent any time on "lecture notes" since they just fell right out once I knew the objectives.

- My large intro course was my first foray into both warmup questions and supervising teaching assistants.  Some small bumps in the road there, but generally successful.

- Some introductory topics are just painful to get through.  The global circulation unit was not well-received.  I'm probably to blame for much of that.

- Google Forms/Docs/whatever it's called now has no easy way to see if any entries match one another (read: cheating).  That's tough to manage without a lot of manual labor.

- Some students frequently mistyped their ID numbers, which meant every class period I had to look them up manually.  (I could've been more dictatorial about it, but that's not my style.)

- Warmup questions must be written so that students have to assimilate the entire reading assignment--not just ask them to repeat a definition or ferret out one fact.  Most of the time, they just read the questions first and then try to find the answers.  Have to make sure the questions don't let that happen.

- The intro course labs (which were written and used for several years before I arrived) were not a good match with my course content.  Students didn't particularly like either.  I'd need to rework them some if I teach the course here more than 1 or 2 times.

- I need make sure my GTAs are to be involved in lecture discussions if they're going to attend class.  Circulating the room, talking to the students, keeping everyone on task, etc.  Didn't do that.

- Just like in a course, it would help if myself and the assistants have some team goals for the semester.

- I frequently walked through the building on lab days, and struck up conversations with students in the hallway while they were waiting.  I hope the GTAs didn't find this intrusive, or think that I was spying on them (I certainly wasn't); I actually don't think I ever asked.  Need to do that next time--and let them know it's just my style.

- Attendance in lower-division, survey courses is quite volatile:  is there a way to ameliorate that?  (Without daily quizzes that require too much grading and too much burden on the students.)

For the most part, it was a great semester with only some minor glitches here and there.  The day I had to teach barefoot, thanks to the rain (that destroyed a pair of shoes and soaked my socks) comes to mind.  Teaching two classes back-to-back on T/R was hectic but I made it work.  Nobody liked the Friday night final exam, but, well, it happens.

Spring 2012: my first semester of teaching

As I finish up preparations for my fourth semester of teaching, I realized I need to journal some of my thoughts about the first three semesters before they're permanently erased from my mental hard drive.  There may be a more organized way, but a post for each semester seems to make sense, so I'm going to run with that.

For the more distant memories of the first couple semesters, I'll probably just leave them as bullet points (but I may come back and flesh these out later if/when other details come back to me.)

My apologies that this is not some well-crafted narrative about my experience.  I'm not a great story teller, and there isn't any big story to be told about the semester.  There are things that worked, and things that didn't, and no need to wax poetically about any of them.  Keep it simple.

Semester #1 - Spring 2012 - 2 classes (enrolled 25 and 12)

- My textbooks didn't work well.  Mainly because I used "the books everyone else has been using."  They didn't fit my teaching style, what I was interested in sharing, or my students.  Lesson learned.

- I was too focused on coverage and content (me), instead of learning (them).  There were several days that were just complete flops because I raced through a topic without really being interested in my audience.

- The upper-division weather analysis course struggled some, because I hadn't structured the course enough to give us much direction on the boring weather days.  The exciting days were easy--but not all of them are always going to be exciting!

- Exams were too long.  (Heck, after three semesters, they still are.)

- "Homework" assignments need to be shorter and more numerous.

- Students really like doing projects, presentations, and event case studies -- even when they know they will be challenged with difficult questions in class.

- Every exam in both classes, except one, was only worth 20%.  This worked really well and students liked it.  Mental note to keep that as the upper limit, even for final exams.  In this way, more emphasis is put on other aspects of the course, and on progressive, gradual learning, rather than a last effort to cram and dump for a huge percentage of points at the final.

two views of collegiality

Two drastically different lines of thought offered here.  View B reminds me of the first dinner scene from American Beauty where Lester, speaking about his teenage daughter, says to his wife: "Oh what, you're mother of the year?  You treat her like an employee."  It is as if, in that view, the mark of collegiality is earned by being subservient to others.  Personally, I don't believe that's the right message to be sending new faculty members--and I believe it runs counter to the very definition of the word collegial.

View A:

1. Whiners are boring.
2. Pay attention to the image you want to project.
3. Get to know your colleagues by asking for advice.
4. Get to know your colleagues by getting to know their work.
5. Spend time with your colleagues at lunch.
6. Don't make enemies with important people.

And 10 more classic suggestions.

View B:

"Remember that many departments and universities are big into this thing called 'being collegial.' It means that you do not ruffle feathers, and you willingly (!) do the assigned jobs."

A: slightly restated from the post on the Tomorrow's Professor mailing list.  Originally by Mary McKinney.

B: from the book Navigating Graduate School and Beyond.