Supporting future faculty - Mizzou postdoctoral program

A few weeks ago I wrote about the disparity between graduate trainees' job expectations and the realities of a shrinking academic job market. Drawing from a Chronicle of Higher Ed essay , I made some suggestions that could help reconcile that gap. The University of Missouri has recently launched a postdoctoral program that I think provides a useful template for the student-->professional transition. The university is funding postdoctoral positions for five of its own recent PhDs to develop courses in five areas identified by the Mizzou Advantage as core strengths of the university:
•Food for the Future
•Media of the Future
•One Health, One Medicine: The Convergence of Human and Animal Health
•Sustainable Energy
•Understanding and Managing Disruptive and Transformational Technologies
•Educational Programs

The university benefits from having non-faculty in teaching positions, but the postdocs also benefit from participating directly in innovative course development (not just teaching established courses) at a higher wage and greater stability than would be likely as an adjunct. The hope is that opportunities like this might help get grad students to finish their degrees rather than languish in the hopes the job market will improve. Obviously, 5 postdoc slots are inadequate to the size of that task, but if the program is a success (i.e. the chancellor keeps funding it and the postdocs themselves are able to land decent jobs afterwards) then maybe postdoctoral career support will catch on.

Dr. Alison Doubleday is awesome!

Nice profile of my friend and UIC colleague Dr. Alison Doubleday.

Separating the wheat from the chaff

A question from a BANDIT member: "I am holding my first seminar for undergrads and one of the things I want to teach them is how to read a scientific paper and also how to detect BS. I found too many resources on the web...going through them to assess their quality will take a very long while...Would you be so kind as to ask your blog followers to recommend good guides?"

What say you, fellow BANDITS? What resources can you recommend? I think this is an excellent idea for an undergraduate seminar topic so I'm also curious to see your suggestions.

The Teaching Philosophy

Job searchers, you have one of these, right? While all of your job letters should outline your basic thoughts on teaching and your interest in specific courses, inevitably at least one of the schools you apply to will require a separate statement of teaching philosophy. Since most of us have not been educated as educators, formalizing a philosophy is a real challenge, and it is tempting to ignore this aspect of your application until the last minute. Don't! Particularly because the schools that want a statement are most likely schools that value teaching. A lackluster teaching statement could quash your application.

What to do? In 4 Steps to a Memorable Teaching Philosophy, James Lang attempts to inject the sad teaching statement with a little zing and personality. The problem with these documents is that they are usually so generic:
"The same basic ideas and buzzwords appear in just about every teaching statement I have ever read. Everybody cares about the students, wants to challenge them, runs a student-centered classroom, relies on a mixture of lecture and discussion or other techniques, puts students first, is available to students outside the classroom, loves teaching, has learned a lot from students, integrates research and teaching, and so on and so on."

In my own statement, I share personal stories: my mother was my English teacher in a rural town outside Cleveland, and she was masterful at injecting the study of Shakespeare with enough soap opera drama to keep small-town kids engrossed; my 6th grade biology teacher Mr. Thompson was a genius who acted like a clown in class, and he kept sneaking me worms during dissection because he saw how interested I was in the inner workings. Teachers who inspired me to inspire my own students by paying attention. Get personal about your classroom experiences, as a student and a teacher.

In the Classroom

I love the CHE Forum - so many helpful threads, so much drama. LOVE! Considering school starts for many of us next week (people on a quarter system often have my sympathy but not at this particular moment), wander into the threads over In the Classroom, where you can seek useful advice on whether/how to use multiple choice tests, commiserate about student evaluations, or just complain about the randomly annoying things your students do. (Students who might be reading this post: Don't take this personally. Generally, we really like you. It's just that our jobs are tough, and sometimes we need to blow off some steam, especially when you send us poorly-written or staggeringly self-entitled emails.)

Thoughts on the syllabus

A discussion over at the CHE on syllabus prep and content. I teach a basic medical science course that is part of a fixed curriculum in a professional school so our syllabus is little more than a schedule. All the info on issues of conduct and academic dishonesty is handled at the college level. When I was teaching anthropology courses the syllabus was far more complex because of the readings, lab activities, writing exercises, etc. in addition to outlining course, departmental, college, and university policies. So, there's a lot of variation out there in the anatomy of the syllabus, and I hope some of the comments in the CHE piece might be of use to you.

Goodbye to Those Overpaid Professors in Their Cushy Jobs

Look, I don't post these kinds of articles to depress you. I think the issue of tensions among members of the academy regarding teaching loads and the public perception of the tenured life is fascinating, and will only grow more fraught as the economic downturn continues and as the business model of higher education becomes more focused on the bottom line. The article reports that some academics are growing more vocal in their disdain for colleagues who eschew taking on additional courses or administrative duties when the overall economic picture on most campuses is bleaker by the semester:

"Last September some professors at the University of California decided that not working on days they were supposed to teach might actually help the university win more support from the Legislature. The professors called for a walkout of classes—to demonstrate how budget decisions were affecting students—even though the president's office had prohibited them from taking furloughs on teaching days.
James Hamilton, a tenured professor of economics on the San Diego campus, called out his fellow professors on his blog. "If some of my colleagues perceive that they now have better opportunities than teaching at the University of California, I'd encourage them to resign so that they can take advantage of those opportunities," he wrote. "If not, they need to stop whining and do their jobs. And perhaps even be thankful that, unlike many other Americans, they still have one.""


Public perception is the another target of the article:
"The professoriate may be policing its own perceived slackers, and there may not be as much grumbling from legislators as there once was about professors out mowing their lawns on Friday mornings. But what about professors' pay—does it qualify as cushy?
For those people lucky enough to land full-time jobs at universities, the pay can be good, although, of course, it's all relative. For example, a mathematician at a college or university makes an average salary of $72,320 per year, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. (An annual survey by the College and University Professional Association for Human Resources provides a more detailed breakdown: A full professor in mathematics and statistics at a four-year institution makes $84,32; an associate professor, $66,012; an assistant professor, $55,765; a new assistant professor, $55,186; and an instructor, $42,782.) That compares with an average salary of $67,430 for an accountant or auditor, according to BLS figures, and $75,22 for a statistician.
The average annual salary for English instructors at a college or university, meanwhile, is $65,570, according to the bureau. That's about $10,000 per year more than high-school teachers make ($55,150), but high-school teachers probably started earning real wages at least six years earlier, and have a better shot at tenure."


I think the article obscures some issues, particularly those regarding faculty unionization and work-life balance, but I find this to be a really compelling piece. What's your take?

Emerging Technologies for Online Learning

A recent conference on Emerging Technologies for Online Learning brought hundreds of professors together to learn how to incorporate social media into their curricula. The Chronicle of Higher Education summarized some of the main takeaways, including concern about privacy and novel ideas for using new media as pedagogical tools:

"Among the more unusual suggestions during presentations:

Ask students to do role-playing exercises on Facebook or Twitter. For instance, students in an American-history course could each be required to set up a Facebook page for a historical figure and periodically post "status updates" of things the famous people did. Similarly, Utah State University organized a Civil War re-enactment on Twitter.

Learn how to use the tracking feature of YouTube to see how many students tune in to videos of lectures that professors post. Sam McGuire, an assistant professor of music at the University of Colorado at Denver, said by doing so, he learned that some students came back months later to watch his videos.

Send students one-minute video reminders about class assignments using a free service called Eyejot. Traci LaBarbera Stromie, an instructional designer at Kennesaw State University near Atlanta, said video messages, rather than e-mail reminders, could "keep students more engaged" in the class."

Here's how I've used YouTube in my class on embryology.

New media in the classroom

Believe it or not, summer will come to a close soon and school will be in session, but there is still time to incorporate some of these fabulous and user-friendly tips to using new media in the classroom. Although this site seems to be geared toward K-12 educators, the information is perfectly applicable to postsecondary and professional school curricula. You will find great information on using YouTube, Facebook, wikis, Twitter, GPS, and more in your course presentations. Props to Cory Ross for bringing this site to my attention!

Alison Doubleday is awesome!

Dr. Alison Doubleday, brand new assistant professor of anatomy at the University of Illinois at Chicago (and my neighbor!) was recently awarded a Curriculum & Instructional Grant through the UIC Council for Excellence in Teaching and Learning. The program provides seed money for faculty initiatives designed to enhance the quality of teaching and learning at UIC. Alison's project is titled Improving Learning in the Human Gross Anatomy Lab; she has enlisted the assistance of several dentistry students to produce prosected cadaver specimens, plastinated organ specimens, and videos documenting the process. These videos will be used to build a series of online learning modules which will incorporate video, animations and static images as well as self-test features to help students learn anatomy. Alison's success is a good reminder to become familiar with similar curriculum initiatives at your own institutions. These institutional grants can be valuable for tenure by demonstrating your commitment to the teaching mission of your school. Way to go, Alison! (Meet you for drinks on the deck later?)

Inspiration

In response to my Facebook post about my recent teaching evaluations, my dear friend James McKenna shared these thoughts:

"After many years of teaching, however frustrating, for some odd reason (maybe for our own good) it's not the students who love you that seem to matter, but rather its the one that doesn't, that seems to matter most. And while over time you gain some pitiful abstract, intellectual understanding ... suggesting that it may well be their, and not your problem..somehow, it STILL really hurts. But you know, it's just a wonderful reflection of how seriously we all take our privileged positions..to try however unlikely to be perfectly and equally relevant and 'on point' to meet the intellectual and psychological needs of every, single student we teach. A true sign of eventual maturity for which I continue to aspire in this domain comes when you can still feel very proud, indeed, more than satisfied if not joyous for the overwhelming number of your students you have touched and who have touched you, and when you realize just how much you actually did for them which, as it turns out, is what all of your most treasured and wonderful professors did for you. It proves to be a kind of realization that is life sustaining, and life fulfilling."

Jim McKenna: anthropologist, teacher, role model

Dear Professor, you suck.

I received my first student evaluations at my new job. Overall I'm pleased and relieved and will be completely comfortable having my department chair see them, but there was that ONE evaluation that really sticks in my craw. I'm sure you are familiar with the phenomenon: the outliers that can drown out all the rest. What is it about that ONE apple that spoils the batch of what are generally some pretty nice apples?

Again, I turn to a Chronicle of Higher Education forum to lighten the mood: Let's play "What's the Nastiest Evaluation Comment this Semester?" Will you be a contender?