Let's begin with the title, which comes from a book edited by Peter J. Frost and M. Susan Taylor. The full title of the book is Rhythms of Academic Life: Personal Accounts of Careers in Academia. In this book, over sixty scholars at various stages of their careers reflect on the joys, frustrations, and pressures of academic life. Collectively, the sometimes humorous personal accounts offer a wonderful glimpse into this strange world of tenure and sabbaticals where status is reflected in three metrics: research, teaching, and service.
Similar to the book that is its namesake, the purpose of this blog as I originally conceived it was to give my friends and family a glimpse into my life as a scholar so that they could better understand what it is that I do. In addition to satisfying my desire to write, I figured it would also help clear up some of the confusion expressed by some of my non-academic friends. For example, there was the time I had to explain that though my official title is Assistant Professor, I do not merely make copies for and carry the bags of the real professor. I also hoped to shed some light on the mysterious things that I do on campus during the summer months when I am quite busy even though there are very few students on campus and I am not teaching any classes. (Some people call it research.) And while I do hope to get to some of these things, the first few posts have perhaps veered from this ideal. But it's still early. The blog will surely evolve. I don't see any reason to feel constrained by a title that is merely a reflection of a single previous thought. A title can evolve, just as a thought can evolve. I am free to go in any direction I'd like. This is reflective of the same freedom I experience everyday as a scholar—the freedom to create my own work and pursue my own intellectual curiosity. It's a wonderful life.
Monday, October 26, 2009
Friday, September 25, 2009
A Lack of Respect for Intelligence
My kids take pleasure in quizzing my wife—their mom—on math problems and watching her squirm under the pressure of having to come up with the correct answer. It's the real-life version of "Are You Smarter than a 5th Grader?" Let's just say that math is not my wife's strength. In contrast, our children come to me with their math problems only when they don't know the answer and desperately need one. This makes sense given that I have a Ph.D. in engineering. What doesn't make sense, however, is that our children interpret our contrasting math abilities to mean that Daddy is smarter than Mommy. Unfortunately, our children's education has already taught them that intelligence is measured by one's mathematical and language arts aptitude, the type of intelligence measured by the SAT, ACT, and many IQ tests. But this is such a limited view of intelligence.
In reading books like "The Element: How Finding Your Passion Changes Everything" by Ken Robinson and Lou Aronica, I have come to agree with Howard Gardner's theory of multiple intelligences. Garder posits that there are eight types of intelligence that everyone possesses in varying degrees. The eight identified intelligences are: logical-mathematical, musical, interpersonal, intrapersonal, naturalistic, bodily-kinesthetic, visual-spatial, and verbal-linguistic. I have also come to realize that while my wife may not be gifted at math, she is undoubtedly an interpersonal genius.
Individuals with great interpersonal intelligence are naturally empathetic, are energized by social interaction, and enjoy meeting and talking to others. That describes my wife. Unlike me, my wife has numerous close friends; not in the Facebook sense of the word friend, but in the "who do I call when I really need to talk to someone" sense of the word. And there is something unique about her that attracts people regardless of race, ethnicity, or age.
I recall an Asian woman at our children's Montessori school who had a limited knowledge of English. She seemed almost shy and never spoke to any of the other parents, but would always engage in animated conversations with my wife. Then there is my sibling who is almost twelve years my junior. While she seldom calls me to speak on the phone, she talks to my wife very often. And I think my wife must speak to my mother at least once a week; I'm trying to improve to one phone call per month. Moreover, my wife is a natural counselor (and admittedly I don't take personal advantage of this trait as much as I should). Recently, one of her newer friends called her to talk about something that was going on in her life. This friend summed up the conversation with the words, "talking to you just makes me feel better."
So I repeat: My wife is an interpersonal genius. Her brilliance causes my relative social ineptitude to cast a long shadow. Now, if only we can get our children to see this truth and to respect intelligence in all of its forms we will have taught them an important lesson that they will probably never receive in their formal education. And speaking of formal education, there's a funny thing about those math questions that my wife fields from our children with obvious trepidation: nine times out of ten, she actually gets them right.
In reading books like "The Element: How Finding Your Passion Changes Everything" by Ken Robinson and Lou Aronica, I have come to agree with Howard Gardner's theory of multiple intelligences. Garder posits that there are eight types of intelligence that everyone possesses in varying degrees. The eight identified intelligences are: logical-mathematical, musical, interpersonal, intrapersonal, naturalistic, bodily-kinesthetic, visual-spatial, and verbal-linguistic. I have also come to realize that while my wife may not be gifted at math, she is undoubtedly an interpersonal genius.
Individuals with great interpersonal intelligence are naturally empathetic, are energized by social interaction, and enjoy meeting and talking to others. That describes my wife. Unlike me, my wife has numerous close friends; not in the Facebook sense of the word friend, but in the "who do I call when I really need to talk to someone" sense of the word. And there is something unique about her that attracts people regardless of race, ethnicity, or age.
I recall an Asian woman at our children's Montessori school who had a limited knowledge of English. She seemed almost shy and never spoke to any of the other parents, but would always engage in animated conversations with my wife. Then there is my sibling who is almost twelve years my junior. While she seldom calls me to speak on the phone, she talks to my wife very often. And I think my wife must speak to my mother at least once a week; I'm trying to improve to one phone call per month. Moreover, my wife is a natural counselor (and admittedly I don't take personal advantage of this trait as much as I should). Recently, one of her newer friends called her to talk about something that was going on in her life. This friend summed up the conversation with the words, "talking to you just makes me feel better."
So I repeat: My wife is an interpersonal genius. Her brilliance causes my relative social ineptitude to cast a long shadow. Now, if only we can get our children to see this truth and to respect intelligence in all of its forms we will have taught them an important lesson that they will probably never receive in their formal education. And speaking of formal education, there's a funny thing about those math questions that my wife fields from our children with obvious trepidation: nine times out of ten, she actually gets them right.
Wednesday, September 2, 2009
On the Value of Books
Oftentimes there is a positive relationship between the rarity of an object and its perceived value. Postage stamps are an example. The one-cent Tiffany Lamp stamp can be purchased at face value at any United States Postal Service office. In contrast, the one-cent Benjamin Franklin Z Grill stamp is valued at $2.97 million. The difference is that while the Tiffany Lamp can be purchased in coils of 3,000 stamps all across the United States, there are only two remaining Z Grill stamps known to exist. Perhaps it is a similar calculus that explains why in an age of amazon.com and large public libraries that many are so unimpressed with books.
In describing Abraham Lincoln, author Doris Kearns Goodwin writes: "Books became his academy, his college. The printed word united his mind with the great minds of generations past. Relatives and neighbors recalled that he scoured the countryside for books and read every volume "he could get his hands on." At a time when ownership of books remained "a luxury for those Americans living outside the purview of the middle class," gaining access to reading material proved difficult. When Lincoln obtained copies of the King James Bible, John Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress, Aesop's Fables, and William Scott's Lessons in Elocution, he could not contain his excitement. Holding Pilgrim's Progress in his hands, "his eyes sparkled, and that day he could not eat, and that night he could not sleep."" This is the picture of a man who valued the printed word.
John C. Maxwell has said that "highly successful people have a continual thirst for knowledge and are always asking questions." Reading good books is one way that highly successful people gain access to knowledge and find answers to those questions. I have also heard it said that the best way to hide something from a Black man is to put it in a book. I am determined that this will never be said of me. It is my hope that it will never be said of you either. Recent books I've read have helped me become a better leader, build a stronger marriage, improve my parenting skills, and teach more effectively. And I have a list of books in queue waiting to be read. What have you read lately?
In describing Abraham Lincoln, author Doris Kearns Goodwin writes: "Books became his academy, his college. The printed word united his mind with the great minds of generations past. Relatives and neighbors recalled that he scoured the countryside for books and read every volume "he could get his hands on." At a time when ownership of books remained "a luxury for those Americans living outside the purview of the middle class," gaining access to reading material proved difficult. When Lincoln obtained copies of the King James Bible, John Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress, Aesop's Fables, and William Scott's Lessons in Elocution, he could not contain his excitement. Holding Pilgrim's Progress in his hands, "his eyes sparkled, and that day he could not eat, and that night he could not sleep."" This is the picture of a man who valued the printed word.
John C. Maxwell has said that "highly successful people have a continual thirst for knowledge and are always asking questions." Reading good books is one way that highly successful people gain access to knowledge and find answers to those questions. I have also heard it said that the best way to hide something from a Black man is to put it in a book. I am determined that this will never be said of me. It is my hope that it will never be said of you either. Recent books I've read have helped me become a better leader, build a stronger marriage, improve my parenting skills, and teach more effectively. And I have a list of books in queue waiting to be read. What have you read lately?
Friday, August 21, 2009
Access to Congressional Bills as Social Capital
In my last blog post I talked about the historical tradition of political discourse among Americans and the current debate on health care reform. Today, I want to talk about this same topic in the context of an article written by Wise and Schauer entitled "Legal Information as Social Capital."
Social capital theory posits that the network of relationships formed in organizations has inherit value much like human capital or physical capital. For example, the relationships formed in a local neighborhood watch group can be leveraged to organize an efficient response to a local natural disaster. Similarly, a dense network of intertwined social relationships can promote the development of social norms and self-policing that facilitate the formation of trust and knowledge-sharing necessary for collaboration. Interestingly, Wise and Schauer suggest that social capital can be developed as a result of access to legal information.
Wise and Schauer argue that "[o]ne of the various mechanisms that can be used to produce social capital is shared knowledge, especially shared knowledge about government and its operations. Legal information, the written record of society’s shared official efforts, can, if widely known, serve as the knowledge base for collective effort and thus as a causal agent for the development of social capital."
Which brings me back to the current debate regarding the proposed health care reform bill. Wouldn't it be nice if we all could actually read the proposed bill for ourselves instead of relying on information (and in some cases misinformation) from the media as our primary source and, after reading the bill, have an intelligent civil discourse regarding the bill with our fellow Americans? Well, that's the intent behind OpenCongress.
OpenCongress is "a free, open-source, not-for-profit, and non-partisan web resource with a mission to make Congress more transparent and to encourage civic engagement." With OpenCongress you can track bills through the U.S. Congress and discuss them online, line-by-line, with others. I encourage everyone to sign up and read the actual text of H.R.3200 - America's Affordable Health Choices Act 2009. Then, armed with knowledge, share in that great American tradition of discourse and tell your senators, representatives and other fellow citizens what you think about it. Our nation will be better as a result of the social capital you help create.
Reference: Wise, V. J. and F. Schauer, "Legal Information as Social Capital," Law Library Journal, 99(2), 2007.
Social capital theory posits that the network of relationships formed in organizations has inherit value much like human capital or physical capital. For example, the relationships formed in a local neighborhood watch group can be leveraged to organize an efficient response to a local natural disaster. Similarly, a dense network of intertwined social relationships can promote the development of social norms and self-policing that facilitate the formation of trust and knowledge-sharing necessary for collaboration. Interestingly, Wise and Schauer suggest that social capital can be developed as a result of access to legal information.
Wise and Schauer argue that "[o]ne of the various mechanisms that can be used to produce social capital is shared knowledge, especially shared knowledge about government and its operations. Legal information, the written record of society’s shared official efforts, can, if widely known, serve as the knowledge base for collective effort and thus as a causal agent for the development of social capital."
Which brings me back to the current debate regarding the proposed health care reform bill. Wouldn't it be nice if we all could actually read the proposed bill for ourselves instead of relying on information (and in some cases misinformation) from the media as our primary source and, after reading the bill, have an intelligent civil discourse regarding the bill with our fellow Americans? Well, that's the intent behind OpenCongress.
OpenCongress is "a free, open-source, not-for-profit, and non-partisan web resource with a mission to make Congress more transparent and to encourage civic engagement." With OpenCongress you can track bills through the U.S. Congress and discuss them online, line-by-line, with others. I encourage everyone to sign up and read the actual text of H.R.3200 - America's Affordable Health Choices Act 2009. Then, armed with knowledge, share in that great American tradition of discourse and tell your senators, representatives and other fellow citizens what you think about it. Our nation will be better as a result of the social capital you help create.
Reference: Wise, V. J. and F. Schauer, "Legal Information as Social Capital," Law Library Journal, 99(2), 2007.
Friday, August 14, 2009
The American Tradition of Discourse
Though written by Alexis de Tocqueville in 1834, it just as easily could have been written in 2009:
"Scarcely have you descended on the soil of America when you find yourself in the midst of a sort of tumult; a confused clamor is raised on all sides; a thousand voices come to your ear at the same time, each of them expressing some social needs. Around you everything moves: here, the people of one neighborhood have gathered to learn if a church ought to be built; there, they are working on the choice of a representative; farther on, the deputies of a district are going to town in all haste in order to decide about some local improvements; in another place, the farmers of a village abandon their furrows to go discuss the plan of a road or a school."
"Citizens assemble with the sole goal of declaring that they disapprove of the course of government. To meddle in the government of society and to speak about it is the greatest business..."
And so it is today in town hall meetings all across the nation: the prospect of health care reform in the United States has engendered much discussion; some of it fruitful and some simply mean-spirited, some of it motivated by conviction and some motivated by political maneuverings. Yet despite all of its shortcomings, it is the very fact that we can have such open discourse that makes our nation great. So what one man saw and perceived as "meddling" is, in fact, a bedrock of American greatness—the opportunity to participate in self-governance; it is the opportunity to let one's voice shape one's destiny.
I'll try to bring some research relevance to this topic in the next installment.
"Scarcely have you descended on the soil of America when you find yourself in the midst of a sort of tumult; a confused clamor is raised on all sides; a thousand voices come to your ear at the same time, each of them expressing some social needs. Around you everything moves: here, the people of one neighborhood have gathered to learn if a church ought to be built; there, they are working on the choice of a representative; farther on, the deputies of a district are going to town in all haste in order to decide about some local improvements; in another place, the farmers of a village abandon their furrows to go discuss the plan of a road or a school."
"Citizens assemble with the sole goal of declaring that they disapprove of the course of government. To meddle in the government of society and to speak about it is the greatest business..."
And so it is today in town hall meetings all across the nation: the prospect of health care reform in the United States has engendered much discussion; some of it fruitful and some simply mean-spirited, some of it motivated by conviction and some motivated by political maneuverings. Yet despite all of its shortcomings, it is the very fact that we can have such open discourse that makes our nation great. So what one man saw and perceived as "meddling" is, in fact, a bedrock of American greatness—the opportunity to participate in self-governance; it is the opportunity to let one's voice shape one's destiny.
I'll try to bring some research relevance to this topic in the next installment.
Friday, August 7, 2009
Three Paths to Better Teaching
I read a recent article in The Chronicle of Higher Education entitled 3 Paths to Better Teaching, and When to Stray From Them by David Glenn. The three approaches really resonated with me and I am trying to incorporate them into my undergraduate Probability and Statistics course. Perhaps you will enjoy learning about them too. After all, we are all teachers in some context.
The first approach is to introduce course material in a manner that requires students to think critically and integrate course concepts. I would add to this that the material should be presented in a manner that allows students to build upon what they already know, in a constructivist manner. Good teaching always connects what is unknown with what is already known. The article goes on to say that while this approach results in students’ deeper understanding of the material in the long-term, the approach may also reduce students’ short-term performance. I find this fact particularly interesting. I actually have an NSF Grant focused on this very topic and will be analyzing the data this fall. I can't wait to see the results!
The second approach is to organize learning experiences in a recursive manner such that concepts are repeatedly encountered and re-encountered throughout the semester. Such purposeful redundancy helps students synthesize and master the material. Such redundancy also requires a lot of upfront planning. The goal of this approach is to increase students' long-term retention of facts. In an era where we try to cover so much material in each semester, effectively implementing this strategy can be a challenge. But which is more productive: 1) to cover 80% of the course material and have students retain 75% of it, or 2) cover 100% of the material and have students retain only 25% of it?
The third approach is to help students take ownership of their personal learning experience by becoming more self-aware of their learning styles and study habits. The Learning Connections Inventory that I intend to use next year is designed to accomplish this very objective. The results obtained by other organizations that have used it have been very encouraging.
So the new semester is only two weeks away and I am armed with new approaches. But as in war where "no detailed plan survives engagement with the enemy", none of my best laid pedagogical plans seem to survive engagement with 90-plus USF undergraduates. Thus, as the article suggests, in addition to my role as facilitator and mentor, I must add the role of “pedagogical ecologist” and remain observant and flexible. Sounds exciting. We'll see how it goes. I love my job!
The first approach is to introduce course material in a manner that requires students to think critically and integrate course concepts. I would add to this that the material should be presented in a manner that allows students to build upon what they already know, in a constructivist manner. Good teaching always connects what is unknown with what is already known. The article goes on to say that while this approach results in students’ deeper understanding of the material in the long-term, the approach may also reduce students’ short-term performance. I find this fact particularly interesting. I actually have an NSF Grant focused on this very topic and will be analyzing the data this fall. I can't wait to see the results!
The second approach is to organize learning experiences in a recursive manner such that concepts are repeatedly encountered and re-encountered throughout the semester. Such purposeful redundancy helps students synthesize and master the material. Such redundancy also requires a lot of upfront planning. The goal of this approach is to increase students' long-term retention of facts. In an era where we try to cover so much material in each semester, effectively implementing this strategy can be a challenge. But which is more productive: 1) to cover 80% of the course material and have students retain 75% of it, or 2) cover 100% of the material and have students retain only 25% of it?
The third approach is to help students take ownership of their personal learning experience by becoming more self-aware of their learning styles and study habits. The Learning Connections Inventory that I intend to use next year is designed to accomplish this very objective. The results obtained by other organizations that have used it have been very encouraging.
So the new semester is only two weeks away and I am armed with new approaches. But as in war where "no detailed plan survives engagement with the enemy", none of my best laid pedagogical plans seem to survive engagement with 90-plus USF undergraduates. Thus, as the article suggests, in addition to my role as facilitator and mentor, I must add the role of “pedagogical ecologist” and remain observant and flexible. Sounds exciting. We'll see how it goes. I love my job!
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