Ruth and Claire, university professors, meet to reflect on their teaching practices, research, service and staying sane. They are tenure track faculty members in the sciences working at a primarily undergraduate institution in California. The purpose of t
Today Professor Shahir Rizk and Ph.D. Candidate Maggie Fink join us to discuss their thoughts on effectively communicating science. Our conversation is wide-ranging, and goes through fostering fascination, treating people with dignity, listening (instead of trying to change minds), telling stories, and deciding what you want people to leave the room with. Shahir and Maggie developed and host a science communication workshop and they are also hard at work on an upcoming popular science book on proteins that they are signed to publish with Harvard press. Their website is foldingmoonlight.com.
You know that thing you want to do, that doesn't quite seem doable? Maybe it's outside your expertise, or is a departure from what people expect from you. Maybe you're not sure you can even do it. I bet you can.Claire recently was co-chief scientist of a two-week research cruise off the coasts of Oregon and California. In this episode, Ruth asks Claire about her experience. Pre-cruise, Claire was really nervous and had many fears of failure, but once there, she really enjoyed the leadership role and being fully immersed in the collaborative research project. She also found, to her surprise, that being a leader on a ship was very similar to leading a class: lo and behold, teaching and research are intertwined.An empowering lesson from the cruise: with time to focus on them, things that seem impossibly hard are often completely doable. Are you doing a big project? What tips do you have? Share your thoughts with us at contactprofessorpodcast@gmail.com. professorpodcast.simplecast.com
You know what it is - that type of studying that you wish all your students would do more. How can we put that into our assignments?Claire is excited about her homework philosophy that 1) has very clear goals laid out for students, and 2) provides explicit scaffolding for how to get there, with 3) loads of practice problems. However, there are aspects of her assignment that don't encourage the students to make full use of the scaffolding and knowledge of the goal. Here she and Ruth brainstorm solutions to that.It's really important to Ruth for the students to practice laying out the problem and have a system for approaching new problems. So she has a smaller number of problems assigned, she grades for methodology, and she supplements that with suggesting other problems from the book for even more practice. However, this isn't scalable to large classes, so she and Claire brainstorm solutions to that. They refer to Specifications Grading, which they discuss in detail in Episode 124.What do you like in homework assignments? Share your thoughts with us at contactprofessorpodcast@gmail.com. professorpodcast.simplecast.com
Claire is familiar with participating in research cruises, but this time she is co-chief scientist and is working to make the cruise as a whole successful, and not just her own piece. Ruth is familiar with helping to organize events, but now is in charge of organizing a large event and juggling all the pieces. Share your thoughts with us at contactprofessorpodcast@gmail.com. professorpodcast.simplecast.com
“Is this going to be on the test?”Some classes or programs end with a standardized test. Is teaching to the test good or bad? Claire reflects on her high school and college classes and thinks that teaching to the test is okay as long as it's clear upfront. Ruth wonders about designing better assessments so that there's no downside to “teaching to the test.” Share your thoughts with us at contactprofessorpodcast@gmail.com. professorpodcast.simplecast.com
What makes us feel comfortable offering and accepting input in communication? This episode, Ruth and Claire talk about inviting contributions: what helps people contribute to the best of their abilities and feel empowered to contribute?Claire is reflecting on positive interactions with an especially calm and non-judgemental colleague. Ruth finds when questions come from genuine curiosity she feels safer to contribute. Share your thoughts with us at contactprofessorpodcast@gmail.com. professorpodcast.simplecast.com
Adjunct, Assistant, Associate: what's the difference?Today Claire and Ruth revisit the topic of job applications and discuss the different professor roles. They discuss the difference between tenure line professor positions (assistant, associate, full) and non-tenure line positions (adjunct, visiting), focusing on US definitions. They also discuss different types of institutions and how the role of the tenure line professor - and thus what makes a strong tenure line application package - varies between them.Also, a special invitation - if you are in the hunt for a tenure line position and would like another set of eyes on your application materials, we would be glad to give our two cents!We also refer to our previous episode on Getting a Job: Episode 14, available here: https://professorpodcast.simplecast.com/episodes/14-getting-a-job Does your institution have any differences from what we covered? Is there anything we missed?Share your thoughts with us at contactprofessorpodcast@gmail.com. professorpodcast.simplecast.com
“The secret to success by achieving more with less.” The 80/20 principle is that a relatively small amount of your effort (~20% of it) leads to the vast majority of your results (~80% of them). This major imbalance is the case whether we're talking about effort on writing a paper, embracing happiness, doing labwork, teaching a class, or virtually anything else. Given that 20% of effort or time is leading to most of the output, we can multiply our progress with significantly less effort or time by identifying and expanding that highly effective 20% iteratively.A key detail: the 80/20 principle does *not* mean you should stop when you reach 80% of your results. (Unless you want to!) It's not even saying that the first 80% of a task is easy and the last 20% is hard. Rather, it's saying that out of all the things that you do toward a particular goal/project/activity, 20% of them are much more effective. By concentrating on those really effective things, we can unlock huge potential to do more with less.Ruth and Claire discuss their experience with the 80/20 principle. Ruth is getting more comfortable with identifying times when ‘good enough is good enough' but is wondering how to know when the extra push is worth it. Claire identifies a few aspects of her job that she really values and a few that she spends a lot of time on but doesn't value as much. She considers how to shift her effort around accordingly. This episode is based on The 80/20 Principle: The Secret to Success by Achieving More with Less, by Richard Koch.What are your thoughts on effective effort? Share your thoughts with us at contactprofessorpodcast@gmail.com. professorpodcast.simplecast.com
What makes a meeting work? Today Claire and Ruth discuss meeting-craft. Claire likes inviting people who haven't said anything yet to share their ideas, and she appreciates good time keeping. She is wondering about how to best contribute to meetings when she is not the meeting leader. Ruth is currently observing and appreciating the craft of effective meetings and notices that having a clear goal for each meeting helps make it more effective. She wants to do more preparation for meetings.What are your favorite techniques (or pet peeves!) with meetings? Share your thoughts with us at contactprofessorpodcast@gmail.com. professorpodcast.simplecast.com
The muse of inspiration…Claire curates her surroundings to be conducive for a good mindset. She also realizes that when she says, “wow, this person is really inspiring,” it is usually when someone is doing what she wants to do but hasn't quite figured out how to do yet. Ruth is thinking about the difference between inspiring and impressing students. She is feeling inspired by a colleague to push people to help them fulfill their potential. Ruth also finds that authenticity really speaks to her and she hopes to bring more authenticity to her interactions. What do you find inspiring? Share your thoughts with us at contactprofessorpodcast@gmail.com. professorpodcast.simplecast.com
How is Ruth settling into her new job?Ruth tells us about her new role in a programme that supports equity of access to higher education in STEM fields. She is inspired and excited, but a little terrified of the event planning involved. Have you thought about a career move? Share your thoughts with us at contactprofessorpodcast@gmail.com. professorpodcast.simplecast.com
Have you ever had an epiphany… and then promptly forgot it?Sometimes epiphanies - just like academic content! - need to be relearned a few times before they stick. Today Ruth and Claire talk about techniques for keeping their lessons learned. Claire keeps and reviews a list of ideas that are helpful, discarding the ones that no longer resonate. Ruth is journaling every night and as part of her practice is rereading a random page every night.Do you have a topic idea? A thought about relearning things? A question you'd like to hear us discuss? Share your thoughts with us at contactprofessorpodcast@gmail.com. professorpodcast.simplecast.com
Claire and Ruth have written many recommendation letters but feel inexperienced with “being a reference.” Claire finds it helpful to prepare some notes on key points she wants to share before any phone calls with the potential employer, a practice that Ruth would like to adopt. Ruth finds it best to maintain clear boundaries with students about notice required for references. They are reflecting on how best to translate positive attributes in an academic recommendation to be relevant for employers. How do you provide references? Share your thoughts with us at contactprofessorpodcast@gmail.com. professorpodcast.simplecast.com
So much data! How do we keep track of it?Claire's data system is organized at the beginning and end (data collection and publication), but is wild and free in the middle (exploring and interpreting).Ruth would love to implement some of the skills of her research students in recording her system in readme files. She envisions a master filing system with excellent naming that anyone could pick up and follow.How do you organize your data? Share your thoughts with us at contactprofessorpodcast@gmail.com. professorpodcast.simplecast.com
Life lessons from an MRI tube: Ruth's recent success combating her overwhelm. She also talks about overwhelm at her new job - thankfully it won't be new forever!To avoid overwhelm, Claire likes having a list of helpful phrases to help remind her of her preferred mindset. When she does get overwhelmed, she thinks it might be helpful to step back in order to gain more context about her problems.How do you tackle overwhelm? Share your thoughts with us at contactprofessorpodcast@gmail.com. professorpodcast.simplecast.com
Memorization - Is it outdated? Or, did we throw the baby out with the bathwater?In this episode we talk about whether we want to encourage memorization for exams or whether we want to avoid testing for it. Ruth just gave her first exam with a provided equation sheet, and she's not sure that she liked it. During exams, Claire usually has her students use notecards on which they have written anything they like including relevant equations. Ruth is coming around to thinking memorization is useful, and Claire is coming around to the concept of providing an equation sheet on exams. Ultimately Ruth and Claire both teach some information that they want the students to have memorized and some information that they think it's perfectly fine for the students to look up so long as they can find it and know how to use it. How does memorization apply in your field? Share your thoughts with us at contactprofessorpodcast@gmail.com. professorpodcast.simplecast.com
Claire is at the halfway point of her sabbatical! She takes us through what she has learned from the experience so far. She completely blows Ruth's mind with her thoughts about overwhelm: despite how it seems, feelings of overwhelm are actually *not dependent* on the things on the calendar and the to-do list. She's learning to be more flexible about what she spends her time on: to follow what is exciting and promising (rather than stay chained to something that seemed like a good idea at one point).Sabbatical has also reminded Claire that she loves teaching and working with undergraduates. What did you learn on a sabbatical? What do you think of overwhelm? What do you think about following what is exciting and promising? Share your thoughts with us at contactprofessorpodcast@gmail.com. professorpodcast.simplecast.com
Ralph picks an old episode to revisit for our holiday review: ‘Environmental Justice in Science Courses: Interview with Professor Joel Destino'. Ralph was excited to hear about connecting environmental justice to the chemistry curriculum. Here we revisit the first half of the interview. To hear the rest, go to episode 123: https://professorpodcast.simplecast.com/episodes/joel?t=22m20sShare your thoughts with us at contactprofessorpodcast@gmail.com. professorpodcast.simplecast.com
Ruth and Claire also mention Episode 32: Life Outside Being a Professor, where Ruth almost steals a chicken, and Episode 69: Class Projects, where in addition to discussing class projects, they discuss whether otters do or do not indeed have whiskers. Is that urgent?Do you have something to say about otters? Share your experiences with us at contactprofessorpodcast@gmail.com. professorpodcast.simplecast.com
Claire picks an old episode to revisit for our holiday review: ‘the urge to appear busy'. Potential new year's resolution: put down the clipboard!Ruth and Claire mention “essentialism” aka, radically saying “no” to most things in order to dedicate your time and energy to the most important things. This concept is from Greg McKeown's excellent book Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less, which Ruth and Claire discussed on Episode 7: Essentialism. Do you feel pressured to appear busy? Share your experience with us at contactprofessorpodcast@gmail.com. professorpodcast.simplecast.com
Up to now, the largest class Ruth ever taught was seventy students, and this semester she taught a class of three hundred and fifty! Ruth shares the ups and downs of her first experience teaching a large class.Do you have any large lecture stories? Share them with us at contactprofessorpodcast@gmail.com. professorpodcast.simplecast.com
Who knew professors organize so many events? Claire finds that spreading out event planning tasks based on strengths and interests is more effective than making people take turns. Ruth is reminding herself that events are fun and energizing even though she always resists them at first. She wonders how to juggle departmental preconceptions about how an event should be and how she wants to organize it. Do you have any fun/educational/relatable department event stories? Share them with us at contactprofessorpodcast@gmail.com. professorpodcast.simplecast.com
Our new Associate Dean - and former guest co-host of several episodes of the podcast - Bori Mazzag talks with us about her new position. She describes the role, what she likes about it, challenges, and what advice she has for faculty interested in pursuing similar administrative roles. We mention the transition that our university is going through: earlier this year, Humboldt State University became Cal Poly Humboldt, the third polytechnic university in the California State University system, along with Cal Poly San Luis Obispo and Cal Poly Pomona. This transition brings new opportunities for growth and changes to our university, and Bori has been involved with many aspects of this work.Have you recently started an administrative role? Do you have aspirations to go in that direction? Share your thoughts and experience with us at contactprofessorpodcast@gmail.com. professorpodcast.simplecast.com
Claire recently gave her first seminar at another university. She learned to think more broadly about who her audience is, and also realized that the main purpose of seminars might actually be the budding collaborations that form from interactions throughout the day, rather than the seminar itself. Ruth finds that presenting to an audience that she doesn't know can be liberating. Ruth is working on being less stressed about giving seminars to the public - she fears that questions from a general audience are more likely to be outside her expertise. Claire's “folkestral rock” band, The Oyster Baes, released their debut album, Pearls. Listen anywhere, including on bandcamp.Do you have any fun/educational/relatable seminar stories? Share them with us at contactprofessorpodcast@gmail.com. professorpodcast.simplecast.com
In this episode we chat to David Zeitz, a past student of both Claire and Ruth at Cal Poly Humboldt. David shares his experience of applying for graduate school and how he is settling into his new campus. Do you have any advice for professors supporting graduate school applications? Share them with us at contactprofessorpodcast@gmail.com. professorpodcast.simplecast.com
Creating a classroom environment that fosters collaboration.Claire celebrates the collaborative spirit in her laboratory classes and would like to infuse her lectures with that same energy. Ruth finds setting the tone early for interactions is helpful, and she wonders if she should prescribe more structure in groupwork.Do you have any tips for fostering collaboration? Share them with us at contactprofessorpodcast@gmail.com. professorpodcast.simplecast.com
Empowering students to go from reluctant passengers to active participants in their education.Claire helps students identify the real issue behind their excuses and remember why they are taking the class to begin with. Ruth finds that when students actually engage with the work they end up feeling accomplished, which enables future confidence. Do you have any tips for empowering students? Share them with us at contactprofessorpodcast@gmail.com. professorpodcast.simplecast.com
You have thoughtfully and intentionally crafted your to do list - but which task to do first? And why is it such a tough decision?Ruth points out that it's easy to choose what to do when there's an impending deadline like a lecture you're giving tomorrow but, without such obvious prioritization, how do we pick the most important thing to do? Do we impose deadlines? Pick a task and stick to it? Claire has an epiphany: when she's struggling to choose between tasks it's because she knows which one is most important, but also finds herself resisting doing it. Thus, addressing that resistance becomes the first priority.Do you have any tips for choosing what to do? Share them with us at contactprofessorpodcast@gmail.com. professorpodcast.simplecast.com
Join us as we share embarrassing stories of student Ruth and student Claire! Some are surprising (Claire's) and some are less so (Ruth's).Claire and Ruth share some of the struggles they faced as students and the steps they now take to support students facing similar challenges. Do you have any funny stories from when you were a student? Share them with us at contactprofessorpodcast@gmail.com. professorpodcast.simplecast.com
You know those extra annoying emails? Why did they send the email? What do they want us to do? You know the ones. How can we be sure our emails aren't perceived that way? Claire really appreciates when an email contains a clear request, so she pauses before writing emails to decide what she actually wants from the recipient. Ruth finds it helpful to include all of the relevant information in an email (links, times, dates, locations, etc), even if it is repetition. She is working on making sure her emails are actionable. What are your email pet peeves? Let us know at contactprofessorpodcast@gmail.com. professorpodcast.simplecast.com
Does scaffolding help students master material by adding structure? Or is it too much hand holding and too little inquiry based learning? Claire constructs assignments with scaffolding built in: lots of questions that slowly build in difficulty to help students develop their skills linearly. This works well for quantitative content, but she wonders about how to do this with conceptual material. Ruth starts a semester by demonstrating exact steps for problem solving, which helps the students master problem solving, but she wonders if this approach stifles student creativity. What do you think about instructional scaffolding? Or about what Claire should call her “activities-formerly-known-as-worksheets”? Let us know at contactprofessorpodcast@gmail.com. professorpodcast.simplecast.com
Specifications Based Grading redefines the relationship between grades and learning outcomes. Claire was inspired by Linda Nilson, who has written the seminal book on the topic with the subtitle, “Restoring Rigor, Motivating Students and Saving Faculty Time.” With Specifications Based Grading, students are given clearly defined learning outcomes and transparency about how to earn each letter grade. There are three parts to specs grading that can be used together or separately: 1) a pass/fail scale for each assignment, 2) virtual ‘tokens' that students can use for redoing assignments or submitting late work, 3) assignments are organized in bundles and completion of bundles determines final letter grades. Your students won't freak out. Remember, this is about “Restoring Rigor, Motivating Students and Saving Faculty Time”!Ruth's mind was blown and Claire is going to report back in the future about how it goes for her in practice. Claire mentions: Specifications Grading: Linda B. Nilsonprofessorpodcast.simplecast.comcontactprofessorpodcast@gmail.com
“So much of polarization is oversimplification of complex information” – Joel Destino Joel, an Assistant Professor of Analytical Chemistry at Creighton University, tells us how he incorporates environmental and social justice topics into his core science classes. Rather than avoiding such potentially touchy topics, he utilizes his passion and students' interests in them to more deeply connect students with the subject matter. ACS Symposium Book Chapter with examples of the modules Joel tells us about. professorpodcast.simplecast.comcontactprofessorpodcast@gmail.com
It can be tempting to walk around busily, casually telling anyone who will listen how much is on our plate, perhaps while scribbling things down on official looking clipboards. Claire knows that the urge to appear busy is detrimental to her well being, and resists it. She was worried that enjoying validation for her hard work might lead her to try and appear busy. Ruth is sure that she wants to be calm and present with students and colleagues but feels anxious that she is not going to appear to be working hard enough. Both want to resist the temptation to pick up a clipboard!https://rctaudio.com/profpodcast
Ruth and Claire review some of the administrative tasks that are part of their job. Ruth shares her ongoing struggles with photocopying. Claire, in particular, notes the time taken filling out forms. Both Claire and Ruth feel that setting aside sufficient time for administrative tasks is crucial for stress management and effectiveness! https://rctaudio.com/profpodcast
Claire's students were excited to have a bonding adventure with their classmates before graduation. Ruth believes in the power of shared enterprise in building community, and so likes to have activities such as knitting for people to do together. Claire is wondering about creating a communal bonding experience, especially for graduating seniors. Ruth is working on building community for her online students. https://rctaudio.com/profpodcast
Claire is happy to employ fads that support her fundamental teaching values. For example, active learning supports her belief that engagement with the material is crucial. However, flipping a classroom does not work with her teaching goals. Ruth has identified what feels fundamental to her teaching: organization and emotional safety. She loves fads but feels strongly that any new approach should not cause student anxiety. https://rctaudio.com/profpodcast
Claire has found it very helpful to have another faculty member's assignments and course materials to start with and then make her own, even if she ends up overhauling the course entirely. Similarly, Ruth finds having a template for a class is helpful whether you adopt it or not. Claire reminds us (and herself!) that it is normal to find using new materials difficult, whether you've designed them or not. Ruth struggles when she doesn't commit to one approach. https://rctaudio.com/profpodcast
Claire makes it clear where each topic in class and homework can be found in the textbook. She finds it really helps students when they read the book and wonders about assignments to encourage that. Ruth has developed reading assignments to encourage students to engage with the book. She wonders how effective her reading assignments really are.Ruth mentioned Just in Time Teachinghttps://rctaudio.com/profpodcast
Claire draws on her experience with fiction writing feedback to share with students that step one of feedback processing is to say thank you. Ruth is a fan of the compliment sandwich when giving feedback. Claire is working on providing students with the tools to use constructive criticism. Ruth wants to work on normalizing the feedback process.https://rctaudio.com/profpodcast
Ruth shares her experience of giving group exams. She uses them as an opportunity for students to slightly improve their grade while working together with their group to revise the mistakes on their tests. It works wonders! Students really engage with the material and much improve their understanding of the material. https://rctaudio.com/profpodcast.
Ruth and Claire discuss helping students get the most out of internships. Ruth and Claire both want to remind students that they aren't expected to know much about the research or the company before they start. Ruth suggests saying “yes” to all opportunities in order to maximize learning. Claire suggests asking questions. Ruth wonders about when to switch to another research group and when to stick it out. Claire wonders about the best way to help students prepare for internships - would an end-of-semester workshop be helpful?https://rctaudio.com/profpodcast
Claire just tried out self-grading, and it was phenomenal! Students interacted more with the material, had lively discussions about the content, and appeared more engaged. Several students spontaneously told Claire they liked the format. All that AND the grading only took a fraction of the time?! Claire is sold. https://rctaudio.com/profpodcast
Ruth and Claire discuss academic resource accommodations. Ruth has learned to go through official resource center channels. Claire finds it helpful to ask resource center staff for clarifications. Ruth is working on saying ‘no' to unreasonable accommodations. Claire is working on making images of handwritten notes accessible.Claire mentioned Life on the Tenure Track, by James M. Lang
Ruth and Claire discuss opportunities for students to share their research. Claire finds that the on-campus research poster session is an excellent opportunity for students at all levels of experience. Ruth found it helpful to assign managerial jobs to a student in the preparation of a poster or paper. Claire is working on balancing the benefits of dissemination with the time away from research needed for preparation. Ruth is working on setting expectations early in the process. Ruth and Claire mentioned NCUR and AJUR
Ruth and Claire discuss talking about grades with students. Ruth has found it helpful to discuss grade changes once students have written a description of the review request. Claire has found redirecting conversations from grades to the content shifts the focus back to the purpose of the exam. Ruth is working on setting expectations about partial credit. Claire is thinking about setting students on a good trajectory when they are in danger of failing. https://rctaudio.com/profpodcast
Ruth and Claire discuss the return to being physically present in the classroom. Claire and Ruth are delighted to be teaching face to face, the immediate feedback of facial expressions, the informal connection opportunities and, of course, the eavesdropping! Claire is working on reestablishing norms of physically attending labs. Ruth is working on reversing the expectation of total flexibility. https://rctaudio.com/profpodcast
Claire likes to be physically present when onboarding new students to her research group. She wonders how to make individual projects meaningful. Ruth gives a research talk for students interested in joining the group. She also wants to hold students accountable for reading papers. Claire mentioned: The Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz.https://rctaudio.com/profpodcast
Is traditional lecturing really so bad? Ruth and Claire discuss a 2019 article that argues it's not. They both choose to do a combination of more traditional lecturing (“sage on the stage”) and student-led active learning in their classes. Claire is reassured that there are demonstrated benefits to sage on the stage. Ruth feels that building trust is crucial for any active learning exercises. Ruth is working on finding the balance between lecture styles. Claire has been inspired by Professor Gilbert Strang's advice about how to work through content at a speed understandable to a new student.Article discussed: Back from “guide on the side” to “sage on the stage”? Effects of teacher-guided and student-activating teaching methods on student learning in higher education.Claire mentioned this interview with math Professor Gilbert Strang at MIT on his lecturing style.https://rctaudio.com/profpodcast
Claire and Ruth discuss supporting students doing oral presentations. Acknowledging the difficulty of presenting, Claire is generous with her grading and uses a rubric for feedback. She wonders how to share her presentation tips without being overwhelming. Ruth finds having frequent low stakes assignments helps students overcome anxiety. She also wants to convince students to practice their presentations. Ruth mentioned: You are Good podcasthttps://rctaudio.com/profpodcast
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