The Female Science Professor had a nice post about working with someone who was afraid to write a paper: Out of desperation, I told the graphophobe to meet me at a particular cafe at a particular time, with the latest draft of the manuscript and whatever other notes or references he needed. We met, I… Continue reading Starting is the Hardest Part of Writing
Category: Academia
Academic Poll: Breadth or Depth?
I fell behind on course reports from my modern physics class a few weeks back, but I do mean to get back to them, when I have more time. The material remaining is the end-of-term sprint through a bunch of topics in modern physics– three classes on atoms and molecules, three classes on solid state… Continue reading Academic Poll: Breadth or Depth?
Physics Can Fix This
One of the NCAA pools I’m in has a copy of Obama’s bracket entered, and the last I checked, I’m a couple of games up on him. This means I’m as qualified as anyone else to offer a plan to fix the financial crisis, and I have just the plan we need. On the question… Continue reading Physics Can Fix This
Academic Poll: Drop It Like It’s Hot?
I handed in my final grades for the term this morning, and am now on “Spring Break” which is the misleading term for the week of frantic preparation for next term’s classes that our schedule allows. Here’s a poll question for you, though: We operate on ten-week “trimesters.” How late into the ten-week term should… Continue reading Academic Poll: Drop It Like It’s Hot?
Definitions
My computer is starting to run slow in that way that indicates that either Microsoft has released an important update, or it’s just been on too long without a reboot. Either way, I need to clear some browser tabs before restarting, and there are a bunch of articles that I thought were too interesting to… Continue reading Definitions
Academic Poll: Amusing Anti-Cheating Strategies
The final exam for my modern physics class is this morning, which means I’ll have a bunch of time to kill while I proctor the test. This will likely involve a lot of brainless time-wasting, but I need to be on hand both as a formal guard against cheating, but more importantly to answer questions… Continue reading Academic Poll: Amusing Anti-Cheating Strategies
Why Does Excel Suck So Much?
Yesterday’s bad graphic post spurred me to finally get around to doing the “Why Does Excel Suck So Much?” post I’ve been meaning to do for a while. I gripe about Excel a lot, as we’re more or less forced to use it for data analysis in the intro labs (students who have taken the… Continue reading Why Does Excel Suck So Much?
Class and College
Over at Unqualified Offerings, Thoreau offers a provocative comment on class and higher education: Today (OK, yesterday, but I didn’t really sleep on the plane, so it’s still yesterday, or tomorrow is also today, or something) a friend offered (without necessarily endorsing) the theory that one reason why we try to get everyone to go… Continue reading Class and College
The NCAA Physics Tournament
The NCAA men’s basketball tournament bracket was announced yesterday, which has kicked off the usual round of people “predicting” the outcomes based on totally silly criteria like the Academic Progress Rate of the schools in question. This is, of course, completely frivolous. What you really need is solid, relevant information. Like predictions based on the… Continue reading The NCAA Physics Tournament
What’s Your Name Again?
The Dean Dad takes a question from a reader on a topic of perpetual interest: How do other teachers remember their students’ names? I confess, I am AWFUL with names. My wife and I have gone to the same small church for 20 years and I still go blank on names of people we’ve been… Continue reading What’s Your Name Again?