Non-majors course

I'm really vacillating about how I feel about this non-majors' course I'm teaching. My colleague from another institution loves hers (she is extremely energetic). But my departmental colleagues keep cautioning me, don't expect too much. I know that its not just about jumping around and making things affective (telling gross stories, stories about people), that I must engage them in process. But honestly, I'm a little afraid of really pouring myself into it and having my heart broken by a bunch of hostile and disengaged students. I get the impression that this is where my colleagues are.

I know that some teachers specialize in teaching science to proclaimed science-haters, such as my friend from another institution. I want to do a really good job, but probably won't end up specializing in it. I wonder just how much I can give this course with my current lifestyle. I wonder if I can forgive myself if it doesn't go as well as it could. I wonder if it will reflect badly for my long-term contract review. Fill-in-the next segment of this blog with nervous angst.

Does anybody reading teach (successfully) a non-majors course? Is keeping their interest as delicate as I imagine? What do you do? What is your attitude going in? That you are going to help that "one" starfish? Or that you are going to be able to engage everyone with your time-proven techniques?

starfish story

Donors to tour my lab

AUUUGH!

Like many schools, our facilities are outdated. Wayyy outdated. We are in a campaign to raise money for a new science center. It will be so expensive, that our fundraising department is not even bothering us peons yet, they are spending all their effort on people who can make a substantial contribution. A goodly portion of these people will be touring the facility in a few weeks. I've been asked to give a demonstration of my research- complete with student doing experiment and all. There are a few concerns about this. 1. The student hasn't been in the lab for weeks and has yet to get a successful experiment. I'm very nervous about the success of this "demo" experiment. 2. The list of donors, once I looked over them, were not wealthy alum business owners as I expected, but heads of research corporations and science bigwigs including a name you know. Yes, I know you know this name. That big.

*#^*#@*$^!*@!!!!! What have I gotten myself into?!?!?

I wish I could put aside all my teaching responsibilities and just perfect the lab for the next few weeks, but I can't. Moreover, I wish the student was available for that full time, too, so I could assure myself that he really knows what he was talking about. He likes to speak with confidence about everything, no matter whether he knows his stuff or not. Wealthy businessperson alumni could be fooled. These people absolutely cannot.

The talk at MRU part 2

I forgot to mention last post that in the conversion between my prepping the talk on my PC and showing it on the hubby's Mac, that a few symbols got messed up, and they were discovered too late to fix. I made a joke about us being a "house divided" which garnered some chuckles.

After the talk, the students were left to have pizza, and I went to lunch with the Big Boss and Questioner #1. On the way there, I ran into Questioner #2 (the one I had been warned about) and this person said, "So what this really means is (bigger implication that I hadn't said). Very interesting." And then they said "Oh, and another thing you said that made me happy was about (specific way to look at second half of the talk). I just taught that concept in my graduate school blahdy-blahdy-science course. I hope my students were all there."

Now this person used a phrase I had never really heard in all of my talk giving, and not from a super-serious scientist: "That made me happy". Well, that felt great and and made ME happy for a nice long time. Moreover, they said "You've done a LOT with undergrads". That was the clincher.

At lunch I asked Questioner #1 directly "Did I answer all of your questions to your satisfaction?" "Oh, yes" they said, and explained their last question, saying that they were really concerned in general about people who don't present controls. I explained that his question wasn't really a control question in my case, but an avenue for further study. If it could happen in my data, it could very well happen to other situations (that they thought were controls for my stuff).

I felt like I had done a good job of communicating scientifically, and received validation that the volume and quality of my current undergrad-driven work is good. Moreover, I didn't embarrass my husband in front of his colleagues (not a driving fear, but nonetheless present). Before you give me a feminist-ic rough time, I would feel that way if I was in the same situation with ANYONE I cared about.

The students, however, were relatively quiet and didn't interact too much with their hosts, even though they reported that they loved it. I asked the students what they had thought of my talk. One student said that I had done it all wrong, that I read too much from my slides. Granted I did read from my slides a bit, but I was really asking about the science in the talk. I think that student had really missed the point. Oh, well...

The talk at MRU part 1

I haven't worked in such a focused manner in a long time. There was a month of dissertation writing where I was like a laser, and this was the same but only for 2 1/2 days. As I was prepping for the talk, I always felt like I was in triage mode. As a matter of fact there were a few stray lines on my PowerPoints, but I made sure not to point them out to anyone. No one mentioned it either.

The evening before the talk I e-mailed my presentation to myself and the Hub. Then I put it on a thumb drive. I called it finished and hit a "peace" because I knew that even though it wasn't 100% perfect (what I expect of myself in a job talk), it was 92%. The remaining 8% I let go of emotionally because 1. the effort to complete the rest was not worth the rewards 2. I just didn't have the time, anyway.

I did spend my last evening working on a convincing slide for the question I KNEW was coming: But is it relevant???? That was time well spent.

The trip worked perfectly (thanks Lord, for answered prayers). Students were on time, car was easily obtained from the pool, no traffic. Arrived early enough for a doughnut stop (student's ideas).

As the talk time approached, I grew a bit nervous, but put on my game face. Then the room filled and the intro began. The talk consisted of half of what I did in my post-doc (complex, innovative), and half of what I'm doing with my undergrads (thorough, but not innovative).

As I started my first paragraphs, I could hear my voice quaver from nervousness, and it took less than 2 minutes before a hand shot up from the back of the room. The question was in a curious tone, but worded as a challenge: "Wait that shows the OPPOSITE of what you are claiming" I panicked, took a sip of my water, and realized what he was saying. "No, no, look at it this way...." He: "Oh, ok, I see". About 1 minute later another hand, from the woman I had been warned about, was also challenging me. My chest tightened. She asked her question, and I couldn't understand it. It was posed clearly, and voiced loudly, but it was the temporary oatmeal between my ears and understanding that forced me to ask her to repeat the question. I sipped again, until the oatmeal cleared. This answer was more pragmatic... "This component of the system we assume to be functioning normally. We aren't tracking it, but we do see activation of the other component, its partner, the one we are interested in. Let me show you my data... " And then I did.

On thing I really appreciate about being a teaching scientist is that it is very important to me that all understand. I was sensitive to furrowed brows and lost looks. The data and systems were rather complex, but I was pleased with my ability to explain them thoroughly. I started to relax as I got non-verbal feedback such as nods. Then I started to sound more like myself.

When I reached the end of the complex stuff, I feel like I had the audience with me. Even the challengers. I even asked at the end of the first part: OK?

Then I began on my current stuff. I had pictures of all the students and in a brief sentence explained where they are now (med school, finishing up, etc). I did this due to PLS's suggestion to emphasize that it was undergrad research, and the pictures were funny. I could see that I was losing their interest. It dawned on me that they were really interested in the first half because at least for one group it was directly applicable to their less-reductionistic system. But as I moved down on the reductionism scale I lost their interest. I realized this as I was talking and ended up presenting 2 slides with a sentence or two fewer than I had rehearsed.

The questions were peppered throughout, and all good ones. There was one question where I could not come up with a very common word, and talked around it. That was a bit embarrassing, but I think it didn't detract too much. The one I was expecting came in the middle of this second section in two forms: One guy asked "is this relevant in people?" And I was ready with that 16-hour-old slide, which was quite convincing. Then the question "how well does your reductionistic system apply in animals?" By now I had my full teacher confidence and answered, "Good question HerName, because there are several instances when that is a particular concern (and named one that tied in). But my work, especially the first part was intended to be reductionistic to confirm what had been found in a less-reductionistic manner (something I had pointed out in a intro slide). Ah, yes, she nods. Every one seemed satisfied.

Be vulnerable? Guard my Image?

Two things have made me really try to think about whether I should vulnerably open myself up for correction, or if I should guard my image and project confidence.

The first is, I have a de facto mentor whom I really appreciate. De Facto because I sought out this person and luckily they went along with it, there was no formal mentoring program. Mentor is in my field and tenured at Really Big Teaching U across town. And pretty cool, too. I have a feeling that Mentor thinks that Small Religious U is a lower quality institution than Really Big Teaching U. In fact the words "Have you seen your scores?" (meaning standardized test score averages) ring in my head. When I finally did look at them, ours were higher than theirs. I still have a bit of an inferiority complex. Occasionally when Mentor discusses what mentor is teaching to an equivalent course, I think really? That much info? I don't teach that now, I wait.

Another thing is that I am going to give a research talk at suburban MRU where hubby works. I know what they think about institutions like mine: a recent hire to their program said to me at a party, "Why don't you move here? We have plenty of community colleges around here." I'm not dissing CCs, but I am saying that faculty at suburban MRU have the idea that there's their job and then there's teaching... all lumped into one category. Reminds me of that map for New Yorkers where there's New York and New Jersey and the rest of the country is labeled "Deep South". I'm intimidated to speak there because the way Hub describes their seminars is that the PIs are like sharks and can really attack a speaker (their unbridled curiosity, no doubt), and that the culture is to pepper the speaker about all details of their talk.

Now I feel like I have the reputation of PUIs (SLACs) to defend in both of these cases. In the case of my mentor, at least, I would love to learn from Mentor about teaching style and time management, etc. But I have to be able to ask. And sometimes I'm scared to ask.

As far as that talk goes, geez, I am truly intimidated. My post-doc work (which I will present a bit of) is interesting and solid, relatively innovative. The stuff from Small Religious U is solid, but relatively expectable. I have simply not been able to keep up with all the new literature since the post-doc, and when we published, I really knew my scthuff. I have forgotten some details now. What if they find the chink in my armor and attack? I could bleed, bleed, bleed, and cement their stereotypes. And embarrass my husband. Of course their suggestions for the unpublished stuff could be helpful. I certainly don't want to throw myself out to the sharks, but I wouldn't mind some powerful minds giving suggestions / finding flaws!

Gawd.