Getting Things Done

I find that I'm really great at small- to medium-sized tasks. Conference proceedings, preparing talks, prepping a class, reviewing a paper, writing a grant -- all of these take a few weeks (months at most) from inception to done.  And I'm never late and usually quite happy with my effort.

I'm not good at longer-term tasks: writing a book, writing a journal-quality paper, maintaining a garden from seed to food. With two new grants starting up that will run for 3 years, I want to focus on turning one grant into a high quality JLS-style paper (TE) and another into a book (writing in the inquiry classroom). Plus I want to get the 5-Laws paper done and turn my Inhaling Calories paper into a stronger data-driven paper (right now it's primarily theory and analysis of Standards).  And we're planning the PERC which also feels like the kind of time scale that can be problematic.

So I looked into some time-management books.  I worry that this could be, as one time-management-guru put it, time-management porn (that is, you love reading about how productive you'll be, but you don't actually then go out and be productive). But I've been really happy with how productive I am when using Pomodoro and Freedom and figure more like that can't hurt.  I've been reading Getting Things Done (GTD - all the rage in the blogosphere). So far it seems great. So I'm trying it out - for at least a semester - and see if it keeps long-term projects moving along quickly.

One thing I like about GTD is that everything - every little thing - you need to do you jot down and keep track of. Then projects themselves are not actions - what you need to ACTUALLY DO is an action item. ("5 Laws Paper" is not an action. "Determine what kind of data the 5 laws paper needs" is.)  And- here's the kicker - a big project is nothing more than a short term project, but with more action items. ! I've been busy turning projects into actions and already find myself less anxious and less frenetic.

Paper submitted.

With my colleagues at WWU I submitted a paper to CBE-LSE yesterday on biology and physics ed. (Hooray! a real paper finally out the door!) The premise for my section is this idea I've been playing with that physics (particularly intro physics, but maybe more/all?) is a science of additive pairwise interactions and biology (particularly intro bio) is a science of linked processes.

I like these ideas and see them play out over and over in our courses and in the challenges of adapting physics curriculum/pedagogy to address intro biology topics.  But I'm kind of bummed that I didn't have time, resources, etc. to do this idea justice. Anyway, I'll flag it as something to consider more when I have more time (ha).

A quick comment about two of my co-authors: one is an astronaut and one was my student at UW 10 years ago. !

What kind of thing has a half-life?

My sister, a middle school math teacher, teaches an online course (including videos), for students who for various (and usually tragic) reasons cannot go to school. She emailed today with a question about half-lives (half-lifes?):

"I'm making a video for the new Algebra I course on exponential functions and want to include a half-life problem. I understand the math of course, but I do not understand the context.  What kind of thing has a half-life?  I've looked it up and still don't get it."

Well that question is right up my alley. "What kind of thing has this weird property" is a great scientific question, and might be fun to pose to students. I came up with what I think is a decent answer - "anything that can be said with 50% probability to be dead or changed in a set amount of time. That time = half-life."  But it's not a great answer - what *kinds* of things have such a property? Someone who loses a game based on the roll of a dice perhaps. Quantum mechanical things. Anything else? DNA mutations

Of course, then the exponential function only really works with large numbers or you have to treat that function as telling you about a probability rather than a real quantity.

Teaching Algebra I might be a real kick.

Quality of Failure

Posting this so I won't forget. Want to think about how to implement..

http://www.insidehighered.com/views/2012/08/21/essay-importance-teaching-failure

In the case of assessing "quality of failure," at the end of the semester I ask my students to write a one-page reflective essay describing their productive failure in the course and how they have grown from those episodes (which might have occurred outside of class — including false starts and fruitful iterations). They conclude their essay by providing their own grade on how they have evolved through failure and mistakes (from 0 – meaning "I never failed" or "I learned nothing from failing" to 10 – meaning "I created and understood in profound, new ways from my failed attempts"). I read their narratives, reflect on their class participation and willingness to take risks, and then usually award them the surprisingly honest and restrained grades they gave themselves. To date, I’ve never had a student complain about their "quality of failure" grade.

To my skeptical colleagues who wonder if this grading scheme can be exploited as a loophole to reward unprepared students, I remind them that we should not create policies in the academy that police students, instead we should create policies that add pedagogical value and create educational opportunity.

I do this somewhat with the notebooks - "ideas that are ultimately incorrect are encouraged and expected"

Class starts Monday... I was going to print the syllabus today... better think about this quickly!

Revisiting the summer To Do list

Back from AAPT, PERC, NC, and the Energy Project.
Starting classes and two new grants in 4 days--

Looking at what's left on the summer to-do list:

By Monday, July 30 Monday, August 27:
☐  CBE-LSE paper: Advantages and challenges of using physics curricula as a model for reforming an undergraduate biology course (due Sept. 1 - we have a complete paper now and need to do some serious editing; I'll take a swing at it on Saturday.) 
☐  CBE-LSE paper Dissolving disciplinary boundaries: Perception as a cross-disciplinary topic (due Sept. 1) we just can't do it in time :(

By Sept. 7:
✓  Finish revise of the PERC paper on notebooks (submitted!)
✓  Finish revise of the PERC paper on NOS (Irene's the lead on that)
☐  Finish revisions to the NOS paper... send to writing group? (will work on this weekend)
  
By end of September:
☐  Inquiry: finalize project and submit report (due September 29 - work on after Energy Project school starts)  

During the semester:
☐  Chapter 3 of LSET - add instructor's guide/tips (this is perfect for long plane rides)
☐  turn my REJECT perc paper into a short PRST-PER paper?
☐  strengthen my Energy/Inhaling Calories paper with data

lots of other to-dos with getting the new grants up and running, too! - Summer was a success. And I'm happy to be back home.

RECOMMENDED!

The two TUES proposals that I have waited on for 15+ months are in the funding pipeline! One was funded, and today the second became "recommended."

Yippee!!

Fungible and distinguishable!

Flagging today's morning conversations about energy as hinging on the question of fungible and distinguishable. - I don't know if the groups on tape had this talk, but we did.

I brought up an analogy of the height of water in two columns connected by a pipe -- if the height doesn't change, should I say there is no NET change in height, to acknowledge that water is flowing back and forth, that the little molecules are gaining and losing height? or should I say that there is just no change in height -height as a statement about how much the object has, not the other picture.

Is this a question of our model? or our micro/macro? etc.

Gooooood morning today! even Sam got into for a bit!

Energy Two planning/thoughts.

Last year we really productively reasoned toward the work-energy theorem in the Energy Project. Having done that last year, I'd like to set that as a goal this year.  But I have some concerns, which Brian accurately summarized:

So I hear you saying, "Last year we took our family and friends on this wonderful vacation, where we were free to explore and learn about different places and culture. Along the way, we ended up on this wonderful Island, called the work/energy theorem," And I hear you worrying that this year the tour guides might be trying to get to that island, rather than attending to vacationers explorations and learnings about those places, helping them get to a wonderful place of their own.

But that's not entirely true - we did stumble across the work-energy theorem in unanticipated ways, but we did hope to reach that wonderful island. We weren't sure what it would look like when we got there. The journey there was not problem-free, though that's okay, too. But there are lessons learned about how to get there sooner and with less anxiety - so I think it's okay to capitalize on those.

So one thing I wish we'd thought and planned earlier (it's really - really - embarrassing how little we plan) is a set of scenarios that we thought could raise interesting issues related to the relationship between force & energy, or temperature and energy, or whatever. It's not overly prescriptive, I don't think.  I'd also like to have selected a set of readings (on conceptual metaphor, say), organized those, and used discussions of readings to break up our days. In another PD I did, every day began with coffee and "bookclub" discussions out in the courtyard. A lot nicer than a full day in one room doing one thing.  And as much as I pushed for the "u-shaped" desks last year, I'm not as smitten with them this year; the class feels big enough that whole-group discussions aren't working as well and emphasizing small group work may be better.

So where we are now (er, yesterday... I started this post Tuesday) is pushing a block across a floor at constant speed. It's a scenario that doesn't include simple changes in PE (the way that lifting a block does); there are questions about how friction transfers & transforms energy into TE; the forces are relatively straightforward. It's worked well. (The mousetrap car didn't.)  B/c of teacher interest in biology adn muscles, we think that the gaussian gun is a good place to go -- but Stamatis is concerned that we need to think about a simpler PE scenario first - so we'll begin with GPE.

Our plans for what's next:

1. Talk through end-of-day questions that arose while trying to rewrite a claim. ("Talk through" without a goal of some sort feels dangerous... maybe note that this is in service to step 2.)
2. As a small group - what claim did you come up with that we can come back to after looking at a new scenario? - write that down and set aside to revisit.
3. Atwood’s machine: frictionless surface and frictionless rope/table.
     -- Small group, then larger - energy theater & transcribe it.
     -- Small groups, make force diagrams - then compare and reach consensus. (worried about this - need more support for teachers without force backgrounds. also worried about describing forces on the rope by the corner of the table. Maybe we should be precise: draw a force diagram for the block... then for the other block...)
4. Create a personal but public set of claims about energy that we can test and revise with different scenarios.  A google doc.  
5. Discuss reading on motivation. (how? and is it a reading I even like?)  - do this when exhausted by the physics.

I wonder if it would be good to have this outline up on the board?

And BOY am I exhausted!