Getting students to ask good questions.

Neil Sinhababu (aka the Ethical Werewolf) lays out one approach to making an impression in a job interview teaching demo:

Before giving my job talk, N[ational] U[niversity of] S[ingapore] had me give an hour-long presentation to the graduate students and advanced undergraduates to prepare them for the talk and also evaluate my teaching abilities. Since my talk was on the Humean theory of motivation, I taught them about the puzzle involving cognitivism, internalism, and the Humean theory — if you accept all three, you end up having to say that humans can’t make moral judgments, so you’d better deny at least one of the three. I’d planned the talk to include about 20 minutes of student questions, but a third of the way through, the students hadn’t asked me anything.
So I looked at them and tried a trick that I had spontaneously come up with in the previous session of the lecture I’ve been teaching at Texas. I said, “If someone asks a question, and it’s a good question, I’m going to dance.” Amid lots of giggling, a brave young man raised his hand and asked a question — I’ve forgotten what it was now, but it was good, and the students laughed again when they saw me dancing. After that, good questions flowed freely. When students see that their teacher is willing to do comical and mildly embarrassing things to reward student participation, they get the idea that class really is a place where they’re suppose to participate.
I wondered at the time what the NUS faculty evaluating me thought of that stunt. They didn’t express emotion in any obvious way, and it seemed kind of high-risk, high-reward — would I look like a dynamic, exciting teacher, or a maniac?

Neil totally got the job — so you might want to congratulate him. Then you can ask for advice on your own dance moves.

Words of advice for new tenure track faculty.

ScienceWoman has a great post on balancing responsibilities in a new tenure track job, with an eye to publishing papers and setting up a robust and productive research program. It’s a must-read, especially for those who are lucky enough to be starting tenure track gigs in the fall. Since I’m getting toward the end of my probationary period before the tenure decision (ask me on May 23, I’ll know by then), I thought I’d offer my words of advice for hitting the ground running in a tenure track job:

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Honesty, diplomacy, independence, and solidarity in public discussions about science.

At DrugMonkey, PhysioProf explores the rules of engagement between grad students in journal club and seminar presentations (building off of interesting explorations of this question from A Lady Scientist, Dr. Jekyll & Mrs. Hyde, and Acmegirl — all of which you should click through to read in their entirety). I’m late to the party, but I wanted to share some thoughts on the balance here between the intellectual aspects and the human aspects of questioning within the tribe of science.

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Should I be ABD before I have a baby? (and other questions about academic motherhood)

I recently received an email, prompted by my series about having a family and an academic career, asking for some input:

I am a mere first year in a Ph.D. program and am a bit older than the other students. I am wholeheartedly committed to the program I am also considering the seemingly traitorous act of having a baby.
Do you think it’s essential to wait until ABD status?

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Book review: Intuition.

Intuition.jpg
Allegra Goodman’s novel Intuition was published in 2006, and although I heard very good things about it, I was busy enough with other stuff that I didn’t chase down a copy to read it. Finally, last November, my department chair lent me her copy, insistent that I had to read it when I got a chance — not for any academic purpose, but to do something nice for myself. Between semesters, I finally got a chance to read it.
I have a really good department chair.

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A tangle of controversy — and a plea to start untangling.

You’ve probably heard that UCLA scientist Edythe London, whose house was earlier vandalized to the tune of tens of thousands of dollars by animal rights activists, has once again been targeted. This time an incendiary device was left on her front door.
Abel and Mark weighed in on this appalling use of tactics to terrorize a scientist doing work on approved protocols — protocols that had to meet the stringent standards imposed by federal regulations. But while the NIH and the odd newspaper columnist stands up to make the case for animal use in medical research and against the violent intimidation of medical researchers, there seems not to be much in the way of public outcry.
Do people really feel like firebombing is a legitimate means of persuasion?
My guess is that they don’t. However, some of the details of the situation as described in a recent article in the Los Angeles Times may explain why the public is conflicted. Beyond animal use, the area of London’s research and the source of her funding seem to be raising discomfort, creating a tangled knot of controversy that’s begging to be untangled.

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Learning student names.

Today was the last day of the semester for students to add courses, and the last day to drop a course without it showing up on one’s transcript was a week ago. (The order of these two dates, it seems to me, should be switched, but I don’t make the rules around here.) In any event, enrollments for classes have more or less stabilized.
Which means that I’m poring over iPhoto trying to learn each of my student’s names.

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