Category Archives: Teaching and learning

A few questions about final exams.

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Someone forgot to tell our department photocopier that finals started today; rather than being a vengeful photocopier toying with the pitiful mortals in its thrall, it was a happy photocopier that photocopied my final exams beautifully. And since I wasn’t clearing any cryptic paper jams, my mind wandered into the question of how others approach final exams:

  1. Multiple choice, essay, something in between, or a combination of question formats?
  2. Scantron forms? Blue books? (If so, do the students have to buy them or does the prof provide them?)
  3. In-class or take-home?
  4. Open book or closed book?
  5. Clever cheating-deterent procedures?
  6. Plenty of time to finish or barely enough time to finish?
  7. Pedagogically useful or a necessary evil?

My answers below the fold.

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An odd (but pleasant) milestone.

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Today is our last day of classes before final exams, and it’s looking like this semester is notably different from the nine semesters that came before it:
As well as I can ascertain, none of my students have committed plagiarism in any of their assignments for me!
Yes, that should be the normal state of affairs, but we are painfully aware of the gap between “is” and “ought”, are we not? Some semesters, I’ve had to deal with multiple plagiarists. This term, no cheating-related paperwork for me.
Thank you, students, for restoring some of my faith in humanity. Be sure to eat healthy food, get adequate sleep, and kick ass on your finals.

Mother’s Day appreciation (part I): Why Mom went back to school.

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In honor of Mother’s Day, I want to celebrate the ways that mothers have blazed trails, knocked down barriers, and challenged expectations of what their daughters’ lives can be.
When we’re young, we don’t always appreciate how important our parents (or other adults in our circle) can be as role models. Part of this, I think, is that a kid’s world is smaller in some important ways. What you know of the world you know through school, through friends, through cartoons, and through your family. Lots of aspects of the wider world don’t really pop up in your consciousness until you have to confront them as an adult yourself.

I would not be who I am or where I am today without my mom, Sally Stemwedel. Although I probably couldn’t (or wouldn’t) fully grasp it when I was a kid, when she went back to school in her mid-30s my mother opened up my understanding of the world of higher education and of science, and offered me a vision of a woman’s work that the society at large did not. Given all the ways that her journey helped me to navigate – and even to imagine – my own educational and career path, I asked her if I could interview her for a set of posts here. I’m very grateful that she agreed.

Part I: What drives a suburban mother of four back to school?

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What would it be like to be an engineer?

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It has recently transpired that I will be teaching (and before that, designing and constructing) a brand new ethics module in the large introduction to engineering class at my university that all the freshman who are majoring in any of the multitude of engineering disciplines must take. I’m jazzed, of course, that the College of Engineering thinks that it’s worth cultivating in their students the idea that ethics is an integral part of being a good engineer (and a good engineering student), so much so that they are devoting two weeks in the fifteen week term to this. And, I want to do a good job pitching the material to the audience.
I have some experience teaching to frosh. But it occurs to me that I’m a little fuzzy in understanding just what makes an engineer an engineer.

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What they said at the panel on the future of higher education.

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Since many of you were kind enough to suggest questions to ask of Margaret Spellings at SJSU’s Founders Day “The Future of Higher Education” panel last Friday, I thought I should report back on that session.
First, the bad (but utterly predictable) news: while Margaret Spellings gave the keynote address, she didn’t stick around for the panel discussion afterwards — so she wasn’t there for the question and answer period. However, the panel of experts certainly had something to say about the Spellings Commission report on higher education.

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How easy would it be to dig yourself out of this hole?

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We just hit the point in the semester where my “Ethics in Science” class discusses the novel Cantor’s Dilemma by Carl Djerassi. For those who inhabit the world of scientific research — and for those who don’t but are hungry for an insight to how human relationships and scientific activities are entwined — it’s a nice little novel. (Indeed, I’ve discussed it already in a couple other posts.)

What I’m going to discuss in this post is a situation that’s pretty much at the end of Cantor’s Dilemma, a situation where my view of what was most likely to happen after the last page (in Novel-land, where the fictional characters go on with their lives after we close the book and put it back on the shelf) turns out to be very, very different from my students’ views of how things would probably go for those characters. I’m curious to know whose reading of the likely outcomes seems most reasonable.

But, to lay that out, I need to give you details about where things are at the end of Cantor’s Dilemma.
If you have not yet read Cantor’s Dilemma, and if there is even a remote possibility that you might read Cantor’s Dilemma at some point in the future, and if knowing how the novel ends has any non-zero probability of taking the fun out of your future reading of this novel (as I imagine it would for me), then for goodness sake do not read any further in this post! This post will be loaded with spoilers. Not just minor spoilers, either. To really explain the situation at the end of the novel about which my students and I disagree, I need to spoil most of what there is to spoil.

I’ve warned you. Choose carefully.

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Some quick thoughts on undergraduate research.

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Jake, Chad, and Rob have posted about a newly published study about the benefits of research experiences for undergraduates. The quick version is that involvement in research (at least in science/technology/engineering/mathematics disciplines) seems to boost the student’s enthusiasm for the subject and confidence, not to mention nearly doubling the chances that the student will pursue a Ph.D.
I’m going to chime in with some observations of my own:

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Any questions for Secretary of the U.S. Department of Education Margaret Spellings?

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This Friday, as part of my university’s sesquicentennial celebration, there’s going to be a two hour session on “The Future of Higher Education”. The keynote speaker will be Margaret Spellings, the U.S. Secrtetary of Education. There will also be a “panel discussion with national experts”, after which they will entertain questions from the audience.
So, what questions about the future of higher education would you like me to ask?
In case you’re stuck for ideas, here’s a potential prompt: Spellings’ Commission on the Future of Higher Education has been hailed as a way to bring No Child Left Behind-like reforms to colleges and universities. How does that idea sit with you?
Thanks in advance!
UPDATE: SInce the link to information on the Spellings commission is apparently a little pokey today, here’s a viewpoint piece about the commision. It’s a critical view, but may be useful in illuminating some of what the commission is asking for. Also, here’s a page with links to the extensive coverage of the commission at Inside Higher Ed.

Homeschooling and chemistry.

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The April 16 issue of Chemical & Engineering News has an interesting article about homeschooling families looking for chemistry curricula. (You need an individual or institutional subscription to view the article; it might be worth checking with your local library.)
I’m far from an expert on homeschooling (as we’re availing ourselves of the public schools), but I’m fascinated by the ways some of the families featured in the article are piecing together what they need for their kids.

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