Making the staff teach to save money

12. February 2009 · Write a comment · Categories: Uncategorized · Tags: ,

Heh. This article in the Chronicle (behind the paywall, sorry) explains how one college is getting their staff and administrators to teach classes in order to save money:

Ms. Townsley said officials were selecting teachers from a pool of staff members and administrators “who are professionally qualified and want to teach so that we maintain quality in the classroom.” The goal is to have them teach during the day, in the college’s evening program, or online. They will get time during their regular work day to teach, grade papers, and perform other teaching-related duties, she said. Those who don’t end up teaching will take on the duties of their co-workers who are.

“This just organically grew out of what we’d been doing,” said Alan J. Reinhardt, vice president and dean of academic affairs and one of the people who suggested the cost-cutting move to Ms. Townsley. With a vice president and dean of student services teaching in the psychology department, a director of development who writes for the college magazine and has taught in the English department, and a director of human resources who has taught human-resources courses both online and live, among others, the framework was already in place, Mr. Reinhardt says.

Getting teaching rolled into my job was something I continually argued for. I lost. Funny that for one college, it becomes a cost-saving strategy rather than something that might make staff jobs more interesting and give them important perspective on the teaching side of the college.

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Do what you love, not what makes you look good to others

11. February 2009 · Write a comment · Categories: Uncategorized · Tags: , , ,

I’m thinking about mantras, things that I can live by and that I can remind myself of whenever I find myself in a rut. It’s inspired by The Happiness Project. I’m kind of working on my own project, but I’m not sure how prescriptive I want to be. Gretchen has 12 commandments, and this is along those lines. It’s a phrase that keeps coming into my head lately. And I’ve actually written about this before.

I think I finished the Ph.D. this time and not the last time because I loved my topic. I had always loved it, but I didn’t realize it until I started working on it. I had chosen my former topic because people told me I was good at it and because I thought it would land me “a good job.” Once I realized there were no good jobs really, I just did what I wanted.

I have done many a thing in life because I thought it would make me look cool or look better to a particular group of people I was trying to impress. And most of the time it made me miserable. I’ve learned to recognize when that’s happening, of course, but there are subtle ways it often comes back into play. I feel like I ought to do things a certain way, read certain things, or watch certain shows. And now I’m stopping and asking myself if I’m doing something because I want to or because I think it makes me look “right.”

Now, I’m not eliminating doing things that I ought to, but don’t want to do–like eating well, exercising, or cleaning up–but I focus on what I want to obtain out of those things, not those things themselves or what they say about who I am. For example, long ago, I wanted to be seen as “the kind of person that exercises,” so I started jogging, tried to take up sports, etc. It. did. not. work. I am not the kind of person that exercises, but I can exercise if my goal fits something I really want for myself. Right now, I really do want to look good in a bathing suit, which I know sounds vain and all, but seriously, that’s what I want.

So I’m trying to focus on that as I think about what I’m doing, what I’m going to do, and not be drawn to things that might garner great comments at cocktails parties, but that would make me really unhappy.

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WordPress High

11. February 2009 · Write a comment · Categories: Uncategorized · Tags: , , ,

For the last few days, I’ve been tweaking my class blog site in response to what my co-teacher and I see as the needs for the site, not just in terms of organization (though that’s important), but also to continue to foster a good online community there. I successfully implemented several cool features that left me feeling literally high (I think my endorphins went into overdrive). I even dubbed myself WordPress Goddess, which my co-teacher was quite amused by. So, I thought I’d continue to share my success with all of you.

First, on the organization front. All the students are posting at least once a week and sometimes much more than that, and that’s all going well. But, Anne and I keep notes and other class-keeping stuff on pages and we are also having our students create pages for their papers, so as not to disrupt the regular flow of posts. I had used the parent-child scheme to organize some things and we’d kind of figured out the ordering process that uses a numbering/weighting system, but it was very clunky and we were concerned about that clunkiness from the standpoint of the student. To solve the ordering situation, I used PageMash, a simple plugin that implements a drag-and-drop interface to allow for complete rearranging of your pages. You can drag things from one parent to another, reorder the parents (the children tag along), hide pages from the menu and even edit them from this interface. It’s really quite useful.

The second organizational problem we needed to solve was the paper submission situation. We set up a parent page and asked students to post their papers as pages and then to create a link to their page on the parent page. Well, this seemed like too many steps, so I went looking for a way to automatically generate those links. It took a lot of digging, but I found the perfect thing, List Subpages. You can see this in action on our notes page. It was the successful implementation of this feature that put me over the edge into WordPress High Mode.

On the community front, we wanted to create more intrablog conversation. We have Recent Comments highlighted at the top of the page, but we had noticed that many people seemed to be posting in a vacuum. I implemented Yet Another Related Posts Plugin to generate related posts at the end of each post (you have to be on an individual post page to see them) in the hopes of showing students what other people had written that might be related and that they might then go comment on it.

All of this work highlights a few things.

  • One, the technology needs of any given class are very individual and specific. I’m lucky in that my co-teacher and I are both tech savvy. We’ve both been teaching online for a while, so we know what our goals are. Those goals have shifted a little over the course of the semester, prompting us to make technical changes to the blog. But there are plenty of other teachers who still have those very specific needs, but don’t have the knowledge to know how to meet those needs technologically. A good technologist should be able to help those people find the appropriate tools as well as implement them appropriately.
  • Two, it’s really, really important for technology to not be a barrier to teaching and learning. It can’t be difficult or cumbersome for students to post their work or for teachers to present their material and interact with and evaluate their students. As a technologist, you can’t just shrug and say, well this is the way it is. You need to keep searching for the technology that presents the fewest barriers.
  • Three, doing all this right takes a lot of time. Even though I’m co-teaching the content for this course and not just serving as the technical guru, I think having a technologist deeply involved in a class would be a good idea. Unfortunately, that’s not very cost effective. My idea would be that a technologist would work closely with maybe three faculty, including working with them during initial class prep and attending class. We kind of sort of tried to do this with students, but it wasn’t entirely successful. But I think it would be really valuable not just for the teacher, but for the technologist, who would get to see things “from the other side” in a really concrete and detailed way.

I’m learning some important lessons, ones that I kind of knew before, but that have hit home more forcefully now.

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Cooking is my escape

09. February 2009 · Write a comment · Categories: Uncategorized · Tags: ,

I just had a realization as I’ve spent the last hour or so trying to ignore the demands of my lovely children. In the old days, when we all arrived home around 6, I pretty much bolted into the kitchen, made myself a cocktail and started dinner. No one wanted to help so I was left alone. Mr. Geeky often retreated to his office and the kids plopped in front of the tv or escaped to their rooms for the 1/2 hour or so before dinner. Everyone was pretty worn out and needed down time before engaging with the family.

On Mondays, I teach. I usually go in at 10 to plan out the week with my co-teacher, grab some lunch, finish up some prep things for class and then teach until 4. I am home by 4:30. Mr. Geeky and the kids have been home since 3 or 4 and everybody kind of pounces on me. Since it’s not dinner time yet and there’s nothing really to be done and no one’s as tired as they were in the old days, there’s a lot more demand for interaction and I’m finding I’m just not in the mood. I mean, I’ve put in a full day, most of it interacting with people. I need to be alone!

Yeah, I know I sound like the 1950s dad who came home and put on his slippers and began reading the paper, ignoring the rest of the family. Well, I’m here to say, I get it. And it’s really only one day a week that it’s an issue.

Someone, somewhere will claim I’m terrible mom. Well, I don’t care. I’m human.

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A nearly perfect weekend

08. February 2009 · Write a comment · Categories: Uncategorized · Tags: ,

I haven’t had one of these in a while. I often feel like the weekends are either slug mode after which I feel horribly guilty or filled with so much activity, it may as well be Monday. It started with a night out with Mr. Geeky, a much-needed escape from the kids and the rest of our lives. I spent much of Saturday not doing anything, though I did manage a trip to the grocery store. I tend to do this many weekends–set aside a day where I give myself permission not to do anything. Sometimes this slides into the whole weekend, leading to, as I mentioned, guilt. And sometimes, it’s just not possible because there’s two birthday parties and a soccer game to manage. But this weekend, not so. I played more WoW than I have in a while, with a reasonable number of breaks away from it. And since I squeezed in a trip to the store, I felt completely guilt free.

Sunday, Mr. Geeky and I got up early and then walked over to our local breakfast spot. We’ve only been there a few times, but it’s a place with no menu and a random collection of family and customer photos everywhere. Over the grill is a whiteboard that always has either a Bible verse or a religiously-inspired message. Mr. Geeky and I noticed that behind us hung two photos of Obama’s inauguration. We found this interesting since it contradicted the political vibe we were getting from the decor and from the clientele. The food there is good, though not fabulous, and the business, thankfully, seems to be thriving. We’ve seen one local business close down already.

After breakfast, I threw myself into laundry and other household chores, recruiting Mr. Geeky and the kids as necessary. I had decided that I didn’t want to start Monday surrounded by dirty clothes and clutter. Many loads of laundry and some newly hung shelves later, I felt free. I prepped for class. I even made cookies. It was kind of wacky. Maybe it was all the coffee.

———

On another note, I’ve not been as engrossed in the news lately. I know there’s a stimulus package working it’s way through Congress. I’m actually pretty pissed about the whole thing, but have nothing intelligent to say about it. Mostly I’m tired of hearing a bunch of rich people complain about how the bill costs too much, doesn’t cut taxes enough, or whatever. I see future Tom Daschle’s there, not the working men and women whose lives are truly being affected by the crisis. And bleh to this Kristof column. He’s condescending to both scientists and women. And yet, the column is supposed to be about how banks need more women. It’s weird.

Although I sometimes wish I were keeping up with more, part of me feels like my stress level is better off without reading or watching politicians and pundits yell at each other.

Please consider donating to my efforts in the Susan G. Komen 3-Day Walk for the Cure

Not stimulating for women

06. February 2009 · Write a comment · Categories: Uncategorized · Tags: ,

As I was driving my son to school this morning, I heard that 82% of the people who’ve lost jobs are men. This is because many of the jobs that have been lost are in traditionally male occupations such as construction and manufacturing. I’ve seen around the online magazines and blogs commentary about how the stimulus package is focusing on trying to get those men back to work while ignoring traditionally female occupations such as health care and childcare. Jennifer Barrett at Slate presents the same argument today and wonders if this isn’t a good time to start working on the wage gap. I agree. She argues for having basically a quota on hiring women in male-dominated fields and on men in female-dominated ones. I have a better idea. I’m guessing that many of those women working as nurses, home health-care aids, teachers, and daycare workers have a husband at home who just lost their job and it may be a while before they get another one. Why not raise the wages of the traditionally female jobs? I mean, whether a male or female takes the job, they still don’t pay enough? And that might help cover some of the income loss resulting from a spouse’s job loss. There are probably a million reasons why this won’t work, but you know, if you’re gonna give AIG a few billion to stay solvent, how about a similar about to hospitals and daycare centers so they can raise their wages to something people could actually live off of?

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Project 365: January

04. February 2009 · Write a comment · Categories: Uncategorized · Tags:

So, I’m trying it again this year–taking a photo every day. I missed a day when I was sick, but my Flickr buds have forgiven me. Here’s January’s photos:

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Sharing the load

03. February 2009 · Write a comment · Categories: Uncategorized · Tags: ,
Via Laura at 11D, I found these two articles about managing the household load and how angry many mothers are that men seem to not take on their fair share.  Given that this conversation is quite fresh in our household as my work is morphing–changing daily, we’re both starting to realize–these were timely articles.  And the advice by the commenters pulled out in the second article is spot on.  Women need to ask for help and they need to find a way to do so without sounding bitter or pissed (most of the time).  As Belkin says at the end, a primary reason we don’t ask for help is our sense of responsibility for our choices:

A final reason for our reluctance to ask for help, I think, is the feeling that we made this bed, so it is ours to lie in. We chose to have these children, or marry the less than egalitarian spouse, or be a mother and hold down a full-time job, or leave a the paid workforce to take on more of the load at home.

I was feeling pretty bad this last week when I couldn’t keep up with both the house and the work, especially since most of the work I was doing I wasn’t getting paid for. I was in this bind of, “I’m not bringing in cash so I should contribute more on the household front, but I don’t have the time, but if I do the housework, I can’t get the business going, but . . .” And I *chose* this course of action, of quitting a regular paying job for this crazy life, so I was thinking I couldn’t ask for help. And I know plenty of women, myself included, who just assume that they’ve married these enlightened men and the men will just figure it out. Well, I can tell you, Mr. Geeky is quite enlightened and there’s quite a bit he’s figured out all by himself, but I still have to ask him to do laundry. And I have to let go of being mad that I have to ask. Because no one’s a mind reader. He has no idea that while I’m working on a project, in the back of my mind is the nagging thought that Geeky Boy might not have any more clean underwear.  Now I think men could ask more often if there’s anything they could do to help, but you know, I’m not gonna wait around anymore for that to happen.  And maybe, if I ask for help more often, my husband and kids will start to ask.

Please consider donating to my efforts in the Susan G. Komen 3-Day Walk for the Cure

The Problem with Facebook

03. February 2009 · Write a comment · Categories: Uncategorized · Tags: , , , ,

I agree with Alex Golub’s stance in his IHE piece on Facebook. As he argues, the lack of granularity in friend settings creates a situation where you either cloister yourself or you don’t. It’s a very different world than the one we actually live in, where you have people that you work with and would go out to dinner with and people that you work with but wouldn’t. In other words, Facebook forces you to draw clear lines when there aren’t any. I’ve had a Facebook account since 2004, and I’ve had this blog that long and I twitter and generally put myself out there all the time, so I’m not squeamish about having a public persona. I think most people have gotten past fear of Facebook, and thanks to some highly publicized incidents, most students have figured out that posting risque pictures is a bad for future job prospects. As Facebook goes more and more mainstream, however, things are getting kind of weird.

For example, most of my high school classmates have now found me on Facebook. The first person to find me a couple of years ago was my best friend (we’d already found each other’s blogs), and that was cool. It was a great way to stay in touch and it faciliated the ability for us to visit each other. But then the peripheral friends started friending me and I wasn’t sure what to do about that. So I friended them and that was okay, but now all my current real friends are mixed in with former students, former classmates from high school, college and grad school and it’s getting pretty messy. I unsuccessfully tried to use Facebook to arrange a gathering while I was in my home town over the holidays, and that failed miserably (I totally felt like I was in high school again), not because of Facebook, per se, but now I’m wondering why I have those people in my friend list anyway if I can’t even contact them to have lunch because I’m not entirely sure I want them to know about my day-to-day activities. And likely vice versa.

Over the weekend, I friended the mom of one of my daughter’s friends. This, too, strikes me as odd. I actually wrote her a note when I friended her just to say that I was surprised to find another mom on FB. I did it mainly to keep in touch with the mom circuit. She works full time, but also seems involved in a lot of local mom-related activities.

So, I think Facebook makes me feel like George Costanza–my worlds collide.

Please consider donating to my efforts in the Susan G. Komen 3-Day Walk for the Cure

Resolution check-in

02. February 2009 · Write a comment · Categories: Uncategorized · Tags: ,

I was thinking this morning that I wasn’t doing so well on my resolutions. It’s true I’ve slipped a little here and there, but it’s not as bad as I thought. One thing I didn’t resolve to do was exercise, but now I’m rethinking that. But I really do hate exercise for exercise’s sake. While I want to be in better shape, feel stronger, and perhaps reduce stress, I have a problem plopping myself onto a treadmill to do so. And there’s only so much time in a day and right now, I’d be looking at probably sacrificing something that’s more important to me. But I’m contemplating it. We’ll see.

I’m doing the best in the career/work goals I set for myself, so maybe what I’m really feeling is a lack of balance in not working on the other areas more. I also think I’m still trying to get into some kind of routine now that classes have begun and the family being sick last week did not help that. So, I’m adjusting. And I must admit that winter really gets to me. I’m not as inclined to leave the house and I dislike the cold and the dreariness. Although Punxatawny Phil did see his shadow relegating us to 6 more weeks of winter, spring really isn’t that far away. All that’s to say to myself that it’s not that bad, and things will get better. Once again, I call on my friend Dory, “just keep swimming.”

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