Dr. Adam Moser: Research and Teaching

An article by CareerCast posted the 10 most and 10 least stressful jobs and put University Professor at the top of the list, which has started some controversy.  I really don’t have much to add except that I think I’ve seen both sides to this debate.

I know older tenured professors who are doing the same thing they have been doing for 20+ years, have complete job security, get to set most of their working hours, great retirement options (though they aren’t), and have almost no over site.  Tenure taken the wrong way leads to stagnation and complacency.  Worst still I think some number of these professors think they are doing a good job because they are showing up to their classes, thereby feeling fulfilled in their role.  That seems like the least stressful (and rewarding) job.

On the other hand, my life a whirlwind of activity and a to-do list that only gets longer no matter how many things I accomplish.  I don’t have tenure, so that affects my perspective, but I still don’t see my situation changing.  I’ve been told as life progresses you take on less at work to focus more on your family, but even with that I can’t imagine the course development, committee work, performing in front of the students, research, etc to go away.  I really love my job, which makes the stress manageable, but I just don’t see someone who takes this position seriously having the least stressful job in America.

From http://kcd-elements.tumblr.com/ by Kaycie Dunlap

Kaycie Dunlap is making my favorite periodic table ever.  Elements as comic book characters.  You can see her work on her tumbler and was just highlighted on Chemical & Engineering News.  I’ve linked fluorine because I really love the choices she made, but all the elements she has done are amazing.

I really hope she provides a full version periodic table or at least large images that I can print.  Certainly something I would pay for.

Found this in Twitter under #RealTimeChem

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HMSDtQe98as

In a previous post I have covered a grade inflation, but didn’t really respond to what this means.  “Is Grade Integrity a Fairness Issue?” has a good list of reasons why grade inflation has been allowed.  On the surface, giving higher grades feels like upside to everyone (i.e. student, teacher, college, parents, etc).  Worrying about the inherent fairness and integrity of the of grading system is a huge pain.

How does grade integrity/inflation affect the whole system?  Why are we allowing this inflation to occur?  How should this influence how we grade?  What does the grade even mean?  What do we give up every time we give a grade that is undeserved?  Rather than get into the philosophy of fairness, which I could never adequately discuss or defend, instead I want to discuss my beliefs on grading.

As with every problem, you have to identify the goal before you discuss solutions.  In a college classroom there is a diverse set of goals (many fall into Bloom’s Taxonomy).  We want students to understand Concepts, learn certain Information, and gain a set of Skills (CISs).  Once this is achieved we would like to see them apply these to a diverse set of problems within and without the given topic.  We would like these CISs to be retained over time and for students to be able to connect these CISs to others in later situations.  Then there are the goals of appreciation, motivation, and inspiration for the topic.  Also add all the “soft skills” that need to be developed to use the CISs in the real world (i.e. team work, time management, communication, etc).  During this whole process we need students to be thinking meta-cognitively about their learning.  An impossibly long list of goals that range from short-term, tangible to long-term, intangible.

There is no assessment system that can cover everything above.  My feeling is the CISs are the most easy to assess through exams, homework, projects, interviews, etc.  How then do we quantify this assessment?  The system currently requires a simplification/synthesis of all the assessment into a single metric, the letter grade (check out Wikipedia for a long list of possibilities).  A, B, C, D, and F are a pretty simple system and adding “+” and “-” to the list don’t increase its complexity/flexibility much (though it can make you sleep better at night).

So how do we assign the grades?  There are lots of methods of assigning the grades, but here are the factors that must be considered.

1. The grade should reflect performance and ability to meet goals.  Grades should not reflect perceived capacity.
2. The grade scheme should be transparent and “real-time”.  Any usefulness of grades to affect student behavior is based on their ability to understand how it works and their current situation.
3. Student grades should be generally independent.  Every student should be able to get an “A” or an “F”.
4. The grading scheme should be consistent year to year, such that grades given over time have meaning.

I’ll explain my grading system later, but I believe any system that takes into account the above points cannot be inflated and is inherently fair.

UPDATE (8/1/2013) – New study finds that admissions officers due tend to favor applicants with higher GPAs even when they know the school suffers from grade inflation.  This is one of the saddest things I have read in a while.

Grant Wiggin recently wrote a blog post titled “Good vs. great teachers: how do you wish to be remembered?” that was very interesting.  He details the difference in what he thinks a good teacher is (i.e. someone who teaches content well) and a great teacher (i.e. a teacher that develops talent).  He gives a really interesting list of differences:

• Great teachers are in the talent-finding and talent-development business.
• Merely good teachers think they are mostly in the business of teaching stuff and helping students so that it gets learned.

• Great teachers are aiming for the future: are these students better able to succeed on their own after me and without me?
• Merely good teachers look mostly to the past: did they learn what I taught and did they do what I asked of them?

• Great teachers decide what NOT to teach to ensure lasting emphases and memories
• Good teachers cover a lot of ground while making the content as interesting as possible.

• Great teachers delight in smart-alecks and skeptics who clearly have raw but undirected talent.
• Good teachers are often threatened or bothered by smart alecks and skeptics.

• Great teachers know us better than we know ourselves, especially in terms of intellectual character.
• Good teachers merely know us as students of the subject.

• Great teachers get more from us than we thought possible to give
• Good teachers have high expectations and passions, and think that the rest is up to us.

• Great teachers sometimes bend the rules and fudge the grades on behalf of raw student talent.
• Good teachers uphold standards and grade according to the scores students earned.

The article goes on to discuss famous and successful people who were poor students by the standard of a “good” teacher.  He also details how these “great” teachers exist in our current system, and makes a call for more teachers to be “great”.  Very interesting article worth the full read.

This article has me thinking quite a few things.  Imagine a world of only great teachers.  How would this go over?

1. Does a great teacher really inspire an entire class to the wonderful, anecdotal accomplishments Grant refers to?  Great teachers are able to look deep in the soul of the student to see their abilities and potential, which good teachers only see their scores.  How exactly does a lecturer of 300 students look deep into the soul at a large university?
2. What is the loss in content, skills, and information after many years of “great” teaching?  Inspiring motivation and interest in students is a high priority and much of the content is forgotten in time, but learning is developed during the content.  Students become more capable learners as they are forced to worth through content, and the ability to learn independently seems like a high priority skill.
3. Is it acceptable for great teachers to fudge the scores?  What does it teach students?  It is o.k. to play outside the rules as long as you are bright enough to impress your teacher?  We want to inspire and motivate, but at what cost?  Grades have to mean something or why give them at all.  Just look at grade inflation in higher education and see how quickly grades become meaningless.
4. Are students always ready for a great teacher?  It seems like being “great” in this sense also requires the student to be emotionally and mentally ready for a door to be opened. Or maybe the point of great is to inspire them to get to that place.

Great teachers might help students be great, but the path to great goes through good.  Grant specific mentions Einstein, so let me mention Newton.  Despite the story of the apple, Newton came across his discoveries because he knew the background so well he was ready to take the next step forward (“.. standing on the shoulders of giants”).  Motivation is hard to find and harder to instill in students, but without background and skills how are these grand plans accomplished?  How many students have you met with the skills and not motivation?  How many with lots of motivation and no skills?

As with most things, too much of a good thing is probably not the best solution.  I’m right now trying to be a good teacher, but maybe I need to make some more time in my day trying to be a great teacher as well.  Either way talent identification and development has got to make up a bigger portion of my time if I want to put these students in the position of doing great things.

Intelligence Squared is a radio program on NPR that has Oxford style debates on all kinds of great topics.  Recently the proposition was “Too many kids go to college“.  If you are interested in all in higher education, then this ought to get your neurons firing.  There is so many ideas, I can’t summarize them all here at all.  Just listen!

This has also been a topic debated at Chronicles of Higher Education.  In a two part articles (part 1, part 2) titled “Helium” Peter Wood argues that higher education institutes are in a bubble period with too many students and too high costs for too little reward.  While he accepts that college graduates generally will make more money in their lifetime, he believes the burden of college loans, failure to complete a degree, and prolonged unemployment significantly diminish the benefits.  Not to mention how many college graduates take positions that don’t really require a degree because most of what is required is learned on the job.  To summarize he believes too many students are going to college, which isn’t good for the students or the colleges.  This was retorted by Brian Rosenberg, president of Macalester College, who essentially argues that education is always a good thing.

NPR had a very interesting piece on the importance of math in manufacturing (audio and text available).  The summary is that today’s manufacturing in the United States requires a strong background in basic math (i.e. +, -, x, /, fractions, decimals and basic trigonometry).  This is because most manufacturing is so precise and often computerized.  In this case computerized doesn’t mean the computer does all the math for you.  Here is a quotation from the article.

Having basic math knowledge, especially of decimals, is important because of the precise inputs modern machines need. Like most manufacturers, North American Tool uses CNC, or computer numerical control, equipment. CNC machines make everything from the cutting tool parts North American Tool makes to automotive and medical equipment.

But calling these machines computerized is almost a misnomer because there are still plenty of manual calculations. And if you’re off, even by a fraction, the equipment can crash.

Hoyt says a CNC crash usually happens because of a number that’s typed in wrong or calculated incorrectly. “I’ll hear a wreck in my office and pretty much the whole shop will get quiet,” he says. Those crashes can cost tens of thousands of dollars in fixing the expensive CNC machines and lost productivity.

So whether you are headed to college or not, you best have your basic math skills down.

Too much technology?

This post has has been building up in me for a while now.  At Boston University I was involved with a variety of educational technologies and in the course I worked with we used quite a few: Blackboard, ALEKS, Turning Point, WebAssign, OWL Google+, and Sympodium.  I’ve also used or learned about WebCT, Sapling, MasteringChemistry, Learning Catalytics, ECHO, iPad capture apps, Piazza, and more.  This post will be my general thoughts, so future posts about specific technologies will have a context.

Before working about what technology to use or fighting with how to make it work, you better start by deciding what you want from the tech.  Lets me start by providing what I believe the primary goal of educational technology is:

“Education technology’s goal is to make the students’ time with the ‘expert’ as effective and efficient as possible.”

What can technology do?

There is so much to teach and I only get a few hours a week with my students.  I don’t see technology replacing professors, but tech should enhance the time students and professors spend together, and make the times they are apart more useful.  I want technology to make both times as impactful as possible.  Here are some ways when technology is well suited to do this (that I want to use).

1. Move learning outside of class – Many of the skills, information, and concepts (SIC) students need to learn in a course, they are able to get on their own.  Converting kg to grams and defining the oxidizing agent shouldn’t be taking up class time.  This is already what the textbook is trying to do.  Tech can give the students even more support during their pre- and post-class learning, and gives me the flexibility to move beyond the basics in class.
2. Enhance learning during class – Assuming the point above, my time in class can be much more productive already.  Not spending time on very basic SIC and moving to real life examples, motivation, complex problems, etc.  When it comes to delivering information, technology allows just about anything you can imagine (assuming can figure it out).  I don’t think I need to argue that technology can be used to make a better lecture.
3. Assessment during class – Whether you prefer a traditional lecture, flipped classrooms, or any other flavor of class time, it never hurts for the teacher to know what is going on in the students’ heads.  Technology (e.g. clickers)can make it so you can more easily assess students, without the hassle of “get out a piece of paper” every 5 minutes.
4. Communication – Students (particularly the ones that take the class seriously) are suppose to have questions.  I love questions.  It challenges me, it shows they are thinking, it allows me to identify misconceptions.  Not only that, students learn when the teach each other, so optimally I want students trying to answer each others questions, then coming to me when they are really stumped.  The problem is I can’t be with the students every moment they are confused.  Tech can overcome this barrier and make all communication with the students better.

Technology barriers: net benefit, glut, and cost

Every educational technology sales rep will tell you they can meet one or many of the objectives below.  They probably aren’t even lying.  The barrier I’ve seen is that the technology just can’t be good, it has to be a “net” benefit.  That is it must be so good, that it is worth more than the hassle for me and my students.  I don’t think all the technology meets this level.  Sure your homework system might be bundled with the book Mr. Sales Rep, but if it filled with errors, the interface is a pain for the students, and I have to constantly spend my time answering questions about it, then I don’t want it.

Another interesting issue I’ve run into is technology glut.  We were using so many technologies in one classroom that the students were managing 5 different log in portals.  So even though I would argue all 5 of the technologies we implemented actually met the net benefit criteria individually, as we implemented more and more the hassle factor got worse.  So not only must you choose good tech, you must choose the right amount of tech that you and your students can handle.

Finally, the technology can’t be prohibitively expensive.  I don’t want students spending $150 on a textbook, then paying another $50 a semester for tech.  Part of the problem is text books are ludicrously expensive for what they are providing.  Bringing that cost down to make way for learning technology is a good start, but still the course technology has to be priced fairly.

What I want from technology

I think what each person wants exactly is probably different.  Maybe you want to do quizzes online outside of class.  Maybe it is very important to you to be able to be able to upload resources to your students and have them upload their work back to you.  Here is exactly what I want from my technology and which ones I think would/could do the job well.

1. A single portal (Learning Management System, LMS) for students that manages all the technology.  This site has to be fast and integrated into the Registrars office.  It has to be easy for me to make a course calendar that has their assignments and assessments.  Also should integrate the e-version of the textbook.
   • Moodle – Because it is open source, some VERY good tech person could hack it to work.  Anything but Blackboard.
2. A discussion board function where students can post questions and both I and other students can answer them.
   • Piazza – I’ve only begun to play with it, but it is AMAZING.  I’m also not afraid of Facebook, and Piazza can interface with it.
3. A place I can post resources that I make or find.  Maybe allow students to post stuff
   • Dropbox – It is fast and free, but it doesn’t have a great interface for what I want on its own.  Hopefully the LMS can manage it.
4. I really like forward-based homework.  This is where students to work on basic SIC before they come to class.
   • ALEKS – This is by far, hands down the best designed technology I’ve used for tutoring students in chemistry.  Only limitation is that it doesn’t get as hard as my tests.
5. A way to help students manage their time that I can assist them with.  Must integrate with the LMS to be updated with their assignment schedule.
   • Persistence Plus – Never used it, but looks like it would fit the bill.
6. Homework system that takes allows them to move beyond basic SICs and on to test level material.
   • No idea.  I haven’t used one I really like yet.  Unless I take a year off just to write questions into a current homework system, I don’t know if this exists.
7. Video capture of short lessons and homework solutions.  Gives me the ability to provide very specific content for my class.
   • ShowMe – There are so many of these capture apps, but this one seems pretty good.
8. Student response systems are very powerful, but my courses will be small enough I think I’m ok right now without one.  If I were using one, then maybe
   • Turning Point – Cheap, easy to use, and integrated into power point.  A bit buggy with MAC, but I use Windows.
   • Learning Catalyics – Haven’t used it yet (its brand new), but it looks amazing.  Currently it is too expensive and requires 100% of your students to have something internet ready in class.
   • Poll Everywhere – Free version that allows text messages and web responses.  It’s free for <40 students.

That isn’t too much to ask, is it?  Most of the technology is out there, if someone could just license and package them properly.

UPDATE – (6/20/2012) My friend Dr. Nic Hammond, U of Rochester’s Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning, responded to my post and said one role of technology is that we use to help develop the students into active learners.

If students came in as mature learners, we’d not need to use ALEKS or OWL or clickers… they’d read the book (as we call it), work problems, formulate questions, prepare for lecture, attend lecture, etc. But they’re not ready for that immediately. So we prop up their learning style… or perhaps guide it toward what we have found to be effective.

I think this an interesting point that technology can play the larger role of guiding students into good learning habits.  Maybe this is another good goal for technology because it can be with the students all the time.

I think I would say that even if I already had a mature learner, who was motivated and developed enough of a learner to do what Nic mentions above, I would still want a lot of the same tech.  Even mature learners need guidance to learn efficiently.  I want the technology to support the learner (either passive or active) though the material.  I still want the tech to communicate, assess, and provide content to them more easily.

UPDATE (12/16/2012) A great article about the challenge of technology in the classroom.  In the same way Bill Gates described how putting computers in the classroom can be a horrible idea, technology is only as good as the user can leverage it.

UPDATE (5/10/2013) Article on how it must be the appropriate technology to make an impact.  Right at the same time this article described some of the hazards of technology.

UPDATE (7/5/2013) Maybe add this piece of technology to your school,  Student Engauge.  A mobile app that allows students to respond in real time to what is going on in class and on campus.

In “The Unteachables: A Generation that Cannot Learn” Flamengo discusses how grade inflation and a culture of self-esteem have made our students unteachable.  Students are only concerned about a high grade, which we are giving out in ludicrous amounts.  Students have had their self-esteem ballooned by teachers, family, and friends telling them how bright and gifted they are.  This leads to unteachable students because they don’t easily see fault in themselves and can’t take criticism well and leads to reactions of fighting about the grade instead of trying to improve their learning.  They don’t know how to recover from a failure and how to adapt for future challenges.  Not only does it hurt weak students, whose deficiencies are not addressed, but also the bright students who don’t find value in easy “A”s they don’t hard work for or the inequity of working hard for the same grade as a student that works hardly at all.  Here is the author’s conclusion of the current self-esteem education model.

“Rather than forming cheerful, self-directed learners, the pedagogy of self-esteem has often created disaffected, passive pupils, bored precisely because they were never forced to learn.”

In ‘Are Students Really “Unteachable”?‘ the Warner argues that while some of what Flamengo may be true, most of this is just the biproduct of being 18, lack of formative assessment, and generally not understanding who the students are when they walk into class.  Warner goes on to explain how he brings the students into the conversation about why they are in his class (read the Q&A in the article, its good).

I have gotten actions and comments from students that make them seem entitled.  I certainly have seen a lack of motivation and self-discipline, which comes through in how passive they are about their education.  It is frustrating, but I’m never shocked.  Why should students be fully formed, active learners coming to college?  Most haven’t been really pushed, most don’t know how the learning process works (either do most faculty), they have no idea how bright they can be, and no one has likely modeled for them what a good learning process is.  Humans in general react to current events based on what their past experiences have shown them get what they want (or are willing to do), and students experience is what they are doing should work.  I want to note that faculty mostly act exactly the same when they get to their first classroom, they teach the way they were taught instead of actively engaging their activity to see how it can be done more effectively.

I don’t feel like my students are unteachable, but most aren’t 100% ready to be taught.  The problem is teaching them how to learn isn’t my primary (or at least only) task.  I’m already fighting to get through the science concepts, skills, real world examples, etc in the amount of time I have with them.  Additionally, I’m convinced that this growth process probably doesn’t happen in a semester; I’m hoping that maybe by the time they leave college they have progressed to becoming an active learner.  So not only don’t I have much time to address this process, but I’m on average certain I won’t complete the task for my students during the course.  That isn’t a reason to give up, just a reason to temper my expectations.

Now that being said, do I have students that are “unteachable” in the amount I have time I have with them?  Maybe.  I used to think absolutely not.  I don’t think general chemistry is so difficult to wrap your head around it is beyond the I.Q. of my students.  I have always assumed a motivated, hard working student with basic math skills can’t be successful (meaning average “C” or “B”, not excellent “A”).  If a student was not able to reach average success, I chalked it up to a lack of effort rather than lack of intellect.

This last semester I really started to question this.  I had a student who obviously was bright enough and worked ceaselessly, but she was not successful in the course.  What she needed was a new way to learn and study.  She tried a lot of different things I suggested (e.g. private tutoring, office hours, study groups, reading/recall tactics, working more problems, etc), but nothing broke through.  Was she “unteachable”?  Well she was for me in the amount of time I had.  I just couldn’t diagnose and treat her problem fast enough.  I hope that she learns from the experience and keeps trying new tactics, but I really don’t know how to take this except to believe it is possible to get an “unteachable” student.  This isn’t the same broad paint brush of unteachable that Flamengo is trying to define; it is a very specific circumstance that is much more troubling.  When a lazy student fails, I don’t lose much sleep.  When a ill prepared, hard working student doesn’t succeed, I am sad, but I can at least see a reason.  When a bright, hard working student doesn’t succeed, I start losing sleep.  That is the truly disturbing “unteachable” student.

I just ran across the Science Teaching Journal Club.  This is so great I had to blog it so I remember.  They have online discussions of specific journal articles about science education.  They discuss and debate all types of topics including curriculum development, studies of what impacts learning, assessment, etc.

On May 22nd they discussed,

Osborne J, Sci­ence Edu­ca­tion for the Twenty-First Cen­tury Eura­sia Jour­nal of Math­e­mat­ics, Sci­ence & Tech­nol­ogy Edu­ca­tion, 2007, 3(3), 173–184 (pdf link)

Abstract: This paper argues that the dom­i­nant form of sci­ence edu­ca­tion that is com­mon across the world rests on a set of val­ues that have no merit.  More­over, such prac­tice has a neg­a­tive impact on stu­dents’ atti­tudes to sci­ence.  It makes the case that the pri­mary goal of any sci­ence edu­ca­tion should be to develop sci­en­tific lit­er­acy and explores what that might con­sist of and why such an edu­ca­tion is nec­es­sary in con­tem­po­rary soci­ety.  It con­cludes by exam­in­ing some of the chal­lenges that such a change might require.

This is a really amazing group which I need to follow more.