{"id":5680,"date":"2011-06-23T09:34:07","date_gmt":"2011-06-23T09:34:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/scienceblogs.com\/principles\/2011\/06\/23\/pnas-carl-knutson-online-educa\/"},"modified":"2011-06-23T09:34:07","modified_gmt":"2011-06-23T09:34:07","slug":"pnas-carl-knutson-online-educa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/2011\/06\/23\/pnas-carl-knutson-online-educa\/","title":{"rendered":"PNAS: Carl Knutson, Online Education Developer"},"content":{"rendered":"

(This post is part of the new round of interviews of non-academic scientists<\/a>, giving the responses of Carl Knutson, who works for a company making online learning systems. The goal is to provide some additional information for science students thinking about their fiuture careers, describing options beyond the assumed default Ph.D.–post-doc–academic-job track.)<\/i><\/p>\n

1) What is your non-academic job?<\/strong><\/p>\n

am the physics content project manager for an online homework and
\nlearning environment provider, Sapling Learning<\/a>, located in Austin,
\nTX. We offer online homework and tutorials for undergraduate science
\ncourses. I am in charge of our physics offering for introductory
\nphysics courses. Right now we are just finishing up the development of
\nthe initial content where I was in charge of a group of PhD physicists
\nwriting the questions, solutions, and feedback. In the future I will
\nbe focused more on working with professors and other instructors who
\nare using us in their classes to make sure that our system and content
\nmeets their teaching needs.<\/p>\n

2) What is your science background?<\/strong><\/p>\n

BS in physics from Haverford College and PhD in physics from the
\nUniversity of Texas at Austin.<\/p>\n

3) What led you to this job?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I really enjoyed teaching as a grad student but didn’t really envision
\nmyself becoming a tenured professor. After graduating, I was doing
\nsome contract work for Sapling Learning while looking for a full time
\nposition in the semiconductor industry. I found that I really enjoyed
\ndoing the educational work at Sapling so when they asked me to head
\ntheir physics product I came on full time.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

4) What’s your work environment like?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I work in an office, but it’s not your usual solitary office or
\ncubicle farm. We’re still a relatively small company so we have all of
\nour desks in a large room and the work environment is very relaxed.<\/p>\n

5) What do you do in a typical day?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Right now we are still developing the content so a lot of what I am
\ndoing is reviewing questions to make sure they are well explained and
\nphysically and mathematically correct. This involves making sure the
\nfeedback is helpful and that the solutions are well organized. I help
\nout our sales team by giving online demonstrations of our system to
\ninstructors to show them how we can be used in their courses. I also
\nwork with instructors who are using us (for a few pilot courses right
\nnow, but there will be more starting in the fall) to make sure that
\nthey have the questions they need for their courses and help them with
\nany technical questions they have on using our site. A typical day can
\nbe a mix of any of these tasks.<\/p>\n

6) How does your science background help you in your job?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I primarily use my science background to ensure that the questions
\nthat are being written by our authors are reasonable, either from a
\nrealistic standpoint or at least a good teaching case. Being able to
\npredict what mistakes a student might make based on misconceptions
\nrequires a thorough understanding of the concepts and how they are
\napplied. It also helps when I am talking to professors who either are
\nusing our system or considering it when they realize that I know what
\nI’m talking about.<\/p>\n

7) If a current college student wanted to get a job like yours, how
\nshould they go about it?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I didn’t really anticipate this being the direction I was headed, but
\nfrom where I am now there are a few different things someone could do.
\nSince my job is still in education even though I’m not teaching
\ndirectly, a lot of these would apply to someone that might have
\nteaching in their future as well. A lot of colleges and universities
\nhave programs that are working to teach science students not only the
\nscientific concepts and how to work problems, but giving them the
\nskills necessary to teach others as well. If a student can teach
\nothers that student often develops a better understanding of the
\nconcepts. If you are a grad student, odds are you will do some
\nteaching during your graduate career. Find out if your school has an
\neducation research group or at least a seminar with education topics.<\/p>\n

8) What’s the most important thing you learned from science?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Being able to take a somewhat scientific approach to a project or a
\nproblem is probably the best overall skill that I learned from
\nscience. After learning about how the physical world functions you can
\nget a better idea of estimating what is reasonable or unreasonable to
\nexpect from a project. Then as you go forward on the project tracking
\nyour progress becomes an important part of achieving or at least
\nrefining your goal. It’s also important to realize that sometimes your
\ninitial goal or endpoint isn’t really and ending but just a stepping
\nstone on to future stepping stones in a continually developing
\nprocess.<\/p>\n

9) What advice would you give to young science students trying to plan
\ntheir careers?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Learn to be flexible with your career. Opportunities come and go and
\nmight not be exactly what you had in mind. If you are an undergrad
\ngoing to grad school, the prof you were hoping to work with might not
\nhave enough room for you. Or you’ll have to work as a TA because
\nfunding for research assistants is tight. Or the economy might tank
\nright as you graduate so the job market will be terrible. However,
\nmost likely you will have skills that are useful for a variety of
\npositions. You just have to keep looking until you find one that you
\nenjoy doing.<\/p>\n

10) (Totally Optional Question) What’s the pay like? <\/strong><\/p>\n

$40k – $55k. Living in Austin, TX, this is still pretty comfortable as
\nthe cost of living is lower than some larger cities.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

(This post is part of the new round of interviews of non-academic scientists, giving the responses of Carl Knutson, who works for a company making online learning systems. The goal is to provide some additional information for science students thinking about their fiuture careers, describing options beyond the assumed default Ph.D.–post-doc–academic-job track.) 1) What is… Continue reading PNAS: Carl Knutson, Online Education Developer<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"1","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13,57,58,7,59,11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5680","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-education","category-jobs","category-non-academic","category-physics","category-pnas","category-science","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5680","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5680"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5680\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5680"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5680"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5680"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}