Wednesday, 20 February 2013
Very irritated!
Just a quick entry... I am utterly and totally annoyed that someone on the 6th floor has removed the flyer that I posted about LD Talk for students to see as they stand around and wait at the north door to be let in. Talk about subversive and underhanded tactics. I wish that there was someone that I could complain to.
Sunday, 10 February 2013
Threatened Aquatic Ecosystems
Late Friday afternoon, I had a great chat with Simon about the Threatened Aquatic Ecosystems module and some of my ideas for the module in the 2013-14 academic year. I brought up the idea of considering the entire Plym catchment area as a whole(as the Water Framework Directive does) and build a module like the 'Land Use and Water Quality Issues of Puget Sound' course I took at UW back in 2002. It was a fantastic course and I learned so much by seeing and doing rather than just being trapped in a lecture hall every day. It would be great to start at the top of the catchment and work our way down, similar to the Masters module led by Gillian Glegg that I took back in Autumn 2007. I would really like to visit the waste treatment plant with the students as that left a huge impression on me in Seattle. Simon thought all of this sounded like a great idea! And to me, it makes much more sense to run a module like this... you know, joined up thinking, rather than visiting two sites (upper and lower) on the Plym with the students writing practically identical reports for both assessments.
Simon also said that he has been receiving very positive feedback about Manuela and I from the students. Now that is GREAT NEWS and definitely something to be happy about. :-)
Simon also said that he has been receiving very positive feedback about Manuela and I from the students. Now that is GREAT NEWS and definitely something to be happy about. :-)
More observations in Threatened Aquatic Ecosystems....
So, over the past few weeks I have sat in on the Threatened Aquatic Ecosystems lectures and watched Simon, being aware that I will likely step into taking over his slots. It is sad for me to say that he seems to just be going through the motions whilst lecturing on this subject area (acid rain, eutrophication, impacts to freshwater ecosystems). Students don't seem inspired by what they are hearing either. Hmmm...
We had the Cadover Bridge field day on 31 January and thankfully it wasn't raining or snowing whilst we were up there. The students didn't seem to take the sampling exercise very seriously and there seemed to be a lot more joking around than actual work being done. Perhaps this wasn't helped by the white trays being forgotten at uni so the students were unable to sort their samples in the field.
Last Tuesday, we had the first of the two practical sessions. Students were to sort through their samples and identify all of the organisms to family level, count the number of individuals in each family and maintain quality control by sending a representative from each group to the other groups to make sure everyone was identifying all organisms the same. I don't think the quality control happened and now, with most groups having finished identifying their organisms, will find it difficult to know if their data match the other groups with whom they have been paired. Again, hmmmm...
On Tuesday, 12/2, I have my PGCAP tutor teaching observation from 9-10am. I had to submit my REP form to Jennie Winter, which I did by Thursday last week. Sadly, she sent it back to me and told me that my intended learning outcomes (ILOs) were not SMART (specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, & timely) and that I needed to rewrite them. I worked on them again on Friday and emailed the form again late on Friday afternoon. I am hopeful that they are now in the correct format and meet her criteria and that they are indeed SMART.
I must say, I am fairly nervous about the upcoming teaching observation on Tuesday. I am leading/introducing the session to the students. I must remember to frame everything within the appropriate context. I want to address why identifying organisms is important (uh oh, there's that word!) based on an interview that I had with the Environment Agency last summer. I also want to address the lack of quality control issue as well as briefly talk about sampling protocols and labelling. Then, it will be turned over to the students who will be doing a variety of tasks; finishing identifying organisms, collating data, calculating the Shannon-Weiner index and Pielou's Evenness and starting to think about BMWP scores. I am sure that the hour that Jennie is there observing will just fly by, but still... and then there is the meeting afterwards for her to give me feedback. Stressful, stressful, stressful.
We had the Cadover Bridge field day on 31 January and thankfully it wasn't raining or snowing whilst we were up there. The students didn't seem to take the sampling exercise very seriously and there seemed to be a lot more joking around than actual work being done. Perhaps this wasn't helped by the white trays being forgotten at uni so the students were unable to sort their samples in the field.
Last Tuesday, we had the first of the two practical sessions. Students were to sort through their samples and identify all of the organisms to family level, count the number of individuals in each family and maintain quality control by sending a representative from each group to the other groups to make sure everyone was identifying all organisms the same. I don't think the quality control happened and now, with most groups having finished identifying their organisms, will find it difficult to know if their data match the other groups with whom they have been paired. Again, hmmmm...
On Tuesday, 12/2, I have my PGCAP tutor teaching observation from 9-10am. I had to submit my REP form to Jennie Winter, which I did by Thursday last week. Sadly, she sent it back to me and told me that my intended learning outcomes (ILOs) were not SMART (specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, & timely) and that I needed to rewrite them. I worked on them again on Friday and emailed the form again late on Friday afternoon. I am hopeful that they are now in the correct format and meet her criteria and that they are indeed SMART.
I must say, I am fairly nervous about the upcoming teaching observation on Tuesday. I am leading/introducing the session to the students. I must remember to frame everything within the appropriate context. I want to address why identifying organisms is important (uh oh, there's that word!) based on an interview that I had with the Environment Agency last summer. I also want to address the lack of quality control issue as well as briefly talk about sampling protocols and labelling. Then, it will be turned over to the students who will be doing a variety of tasks; finishing identifying organisms, collating data, calculating the Shannon-Weiner index and Pielou's Evenness and starting to think about BMWP scores. I am sure that the hour that Jennie is there observing will just fly by, but still... and then there is the meeting afterwards for her to give me feedback. Stressful, stressful, stressful.
Tuesday, 5 February 2013
Peer teaching observation
So today I had my peer teaching observation. Manuela came to the last of the marine invertebrate practicals (ploychaetes) in MBIO105, which is also the hardest of the bunch, to give me some feedback about my teaching. As Andy had a student crying in his office, I got the session underway, reiterating to the students the reason why this sort of taxonomic work is important. I talked about my experience during one of the job interviews that I had with the Environment Agency last year. I think that enlightened them a bit more that identifying and drawing organisms is more than just an academic exercise.
I had hoped to move about the room as I always do with the students, but rather unfortunately, one of the students seemed to dominate my time with the identification of a single species. The student sitting next to her also became fairly demanding of my time. I found myself getting frustrated as I couldn't get away. I never want to discourage a student from learning, but these two were doing very little of it on their own. Then Nic started asking questions too and was getting frustrated with the specimens as he wasn't able to manipulate them in the right way to see the features. I was very frustrated by this stage. After about an hour or so, Manuela left and it was only then that I managed to get away from the students that had taken up most of my time during the practical. I was then able to move freely about the rest of room and engage with the rest of the cohort... typical.
One student that had been working on a specimen (Spirobis sp.) knew what the worm was from the outset. I told her that it was important to know what makes up that family and that she could then work backwards in the key to still learn, despite already knowing the genus. After an hour had passed, she was still working on the same specimen. I told her that she should move on to something new, picking a species she didn't know. She seemed slightly offended at this, but come on, how long can one faff over the same specimen and get nothing else done.
One of the demanding students came to me again, regarding the same specimen. Enough was seriously enough.
Looking back, how should I have handled this interaction better? Could I have done something differently that would have not upset the student, but allowed me to move on to the rest of the class?
I had hoped to move about the room as I always do with the students, but rather unfortunately, one of the students seemed to dominate my time with the identification of a single species. The student sitting next to her also became fairly demanding of my time. I found myself getting frustrated as I couldn't get away. I never want to discourage a student from learning, but these two were doing very little of it on their own. Then Nic started asking questions too and was getting frustrated with the specimens as he wasn't able to manipulate them in the right way to see the features. I was very frustrated by this stage. After about an hour or so, Manuela left and it was only then that I managed to get away from the students that had taken up most of my time during the practical. I was then able to move freely about the rest of room and engage with the rest of the cohort... typical.
One student that had been working on a specimen (Spirobis sp.) knew what the worm was from the outset. I told her that it was important to know what makes up that family and that she could then work backwards in the key to still learn, despite already knowing the genus. After an hour had passed, she was still working on the same specimen. I told her that she should move on to something new, picking a species she didn't know. She seemed slightly offended at this, but come on, how long can one faff over the same specimen and get nothing else done.
One of the demanding students came to me again, regarding the same specimen. Enough was seriously enough.
Looking back, how should I have handled this interaction better? Could I have done something differently that would have not upset the student, but allowed me to move on to the rest of the class?
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