Happy 31st monthiversary (This is still 3/16 for me)! Today Emily and I have been together (and by that I mean mostly not in the same state, but in a relationship with each other) for 31 months.
What better way could we celebrate than for me to send her an email you might be wondering? How about if she sends me a FORT in the mail?!
And as if that wasn’t enough, there was a really sweet note and some almost-as-sweet almost-vegan cookies and some brownies in there too! What else could I need to brighten up my cell?
While I am becoming a student with a concentration in Human-Computer Interaction (HCI), I have been for at least 4 (non-contiguous) years a student of Professor-Graduate Student Interaction. I think trying to decide how to interact with your professor is an interesting problem. Coming from industry, I know more than I ever thought I would about image management. Do I want my professor to know my like my framily know me? Like my coworkers know me? Like my bosses have known me? Of course this is also dependent on to what kind of relationship the professor is open (grammar?).
As I move toward becoming a professor, I will also have to think about the kind of relationship I want with my students, and other colleagues.
Having come from families (divorced parents) with low SES, I have known and seen others who believed the myth that if we just work toward a higher education, we will be more marketable in the job market. This article that Nathan sent my way is quite cynical, but probably an important discussion starter especially for those pursuing higher education, more especially if it’s in liberal arts.
Quick notes on manipulatives to help teach data structures and algorithms:
- tinker toys for trees
- fish bowl for set
- baby beads for linked list
- stacking cup for sorting
In case you don’t stalk me all over the web… I have updated my VT page.
How can any particular grade-giver give out actual, uninflated grades, if this is not the status quo? For example, if a particular professor resists grade inflation, will they just wind up with very few unfortunate students in their class (especially with the rise in popularity of sites that report a professors typical spread of grades such as koofers.com, pickaprof.com [apparently now myedu.com?], and ratemyprofessors.com)? While it seems unfair to inflate grades, it also seems unfair not to inflate grades if the students will have to compete with other students who may not have received uninflated grades. Many students would want higher grades, many institutions would want their student bodies to have higher grades, many companies hire based partially on higher grades, many grad schools admit based partially on higher grades…
So being new to the whole publishing thing, but hopefully entering into it for the long term (as I intend to be a Computer Science professor), I have never thought about authorship. I have two main questions:
- What should an individual be expected to do to be included as an authro of some intellectual property?
- What actually determines who is listed (and in what order, since this seems to communicate information)?
When I googled (yes I actually use it as a verb because it’s the only search i seem to use, not sure how I feel about that…) authorship, to make sure I was using it correctly in describing this issue that I am contemplating, the first result was to the Harvard Med School’s Authorship Guidelines. I plan to read a bunch of such guidelines to think about what people generally expect and what is actually practiced. It seems like it’d be a form of plagiarism to approach authorship in some ways.
This feels very similar to grade inflation. I will probably be writing a paper on grade inflation for my Preparing the Future Professoriate class.
So Since GMail started allowing me to manage me from address (even before their recent SMTP options), I started using it and have been unable to use a thick email client since then. “Good for you,” yeah sure, but there can be some nice integration between thick apps, rather than depending on the browser. Also, right now I open a thick client (OSX Mail.app) every so often so that it will download my mail (so that i’m not screwed if Google blows up, or is temporarily unavailable [like it was for the better part of a day last semester, which is a huge problem for nerdly cloud-inhabiting TGM]).
So, seeing as how like 7 years have passed, I think it’s time I reevaluate thick mail clients. I’ll post my little gripes here as I notice them (if i post each little issue, i’ll have more blog posts and so my blog will look more active (-: i typed this so that the closing/”rparen” would not confuse my smiley, really).
This video is from a Rice University survey that floated around last semester. It’s making me watch my professors closely for how they interact with their respective families. How many hours will I be able to work each week after I have taken the time necessary to be the kind of parent and partner I want to be?