Thursday, April 29, 2010

Journal Reviews

I have been reading some organocatalysis papers lately to try to get a better sense of the field.  The chemistry appeals to my generally poor background in organometallic chemistry and my interest in understanding how enzyme catalysis works.

Publications in the field of organocatalysis range over a wide range from the very concept-to-application publications of some of the founders of the field, (MacMillan, List, Jorgenson, etc.) to me-too chemistry where a known catalysts is applied to previously un-organocatalyzed systems or a small change is made to a know catalyst without any hypothesis development that moves the field forward.  It's a newer hot field so this range of application will work it self out.

Unfortunately, as in the case of other "buzzword" fields a lot of shaky stuff appears to be slipping through the cracks.  In the last couple of days I have seen two papers, one in Org. Lett. and one in Syn. Lett., that have such problems that I can't see how the reviewers did not send them back to the authors for at least a rewrite.  An example problem from one the papers is:



Sure organocatalysis has yet not matured enough to work out a consistent terminology (ie. what does "bifunctional catalysis" mean) but the basics of the science of organic chemistry must still apply.

T.S. Hall

Monday, April 26, 2010

Career Ready Course Work

I had an interesting conversation today with a student about the coverage in my major's organic lecture.  Specifically, we were discussing the relative coverage of synthesis verses mechanism in the course.  My friends at the local RO1 institution offer a very synthesis focused course, which is reflected in their exams which generally offer less opportunity for partial credit than my more mechanism focused exams.  Since graduate students grade the exams there is some value in being able to present reaction and synthesis questions which will have single correct answers rather than sorting through the mechanism arrows and rationalizations about relative reactivity.

Since I have been reading a lot of articles about demands for a more career-ready graduate from community colleges and four-year schools I have been thinking this afternoon about my course and the career readiness and biochemistry course readiness of my students.  The biochem issue comes up since this is the next course on the sequence to the degree.

An understanding of mechanism serves the student in moving on to graduate school, but does it have value in the career world?  Synthesis has value if you are working in organic synthesis and helps in the biochem cycles, but does it have value beyond that?  Lets face it, many of the reactions we cover in the one-year Organic are not used in the real world of chemistry.

Since the semester will be ending soon and I have the summer to reorganize for the Fall, and I am using a new text I will be reorganizing my course anyway.  So, I pose the question for the audience.  What should we cover in the majors one-year organic course lecture and lab?  Or, what knowledge should we impart on our students in such a course.

I am interested to know your thoughts.

T.S. Hall

Sunday, April 25, 2010

Last-in-first-out

There have been a number of articles lately about the movement to eliminate seniority in education layoff policies.  This idea has been primarily focused on K-12 for now, but with higher education funding equally at risk it may not be long before it comes to higher ed.  For those out of the loop in this, traditionally, the most recent faculty hires are the first to get pink slips when funding gets tight.  When hiring back, those with seniority are the first brought back in.  Education administrators and politicians see the weaknesses of this system and some want to eliminate seniority rules.

Those in favor of eliminating seniority have argued that seniority rules ignore efforts to make teachers accountable for their student's grades.  Some have gone so far as to point out that newer teachers cost less, so getting rid of senior teachers would save money.

My concern with regard to the "accountability" issue continues to be that the easiest way for a faculty member to give the perception of performance is to inflate grades and teach the test, and only the test.  Unfortunately, in my opinion, the tests we currently give don't measure the ability to think or come up with new ideas.  They are not about long term education.  If the point of education is to build for the future our current testing regime fails miserably.  Having little or no job security will mean less innovation and less education that last a lifetime, since faculty can't afford to have poor evaluations.  It's like those banks who were only looking at this quarter's results and not thinking about the long term consequences of their actions.  How did that work out for us?

For those looking only at the bottom line, I would point out that this can be seen as age discrimination under a euphemism.  The court cost could wipe out much of the savings.

Another "bottom line" issue is that tenure and seniority have a monetary value.  Eliminating these will require that you move that monetary value into the paycheck, again wiping out the savings.  Not being a stable career, will people really be interested in going into teaching?  If not, we will have to entice them with something, like perhaps money.

Opposing elimination of seniority are those who believe that just because someone has grey hair does not mean that they are not effective teachers.  They also worry that personal grudges will influence who gets the axe.

Having a few grey hairs myself, I am sympathetic to those fearing that they will be let go in those years when they are "too old" for professional positions outside teaching.  Having spent 20 years as a teacher will have some arguing that their background and skills in teaching "Watership Down" to 13 year olds don't really translate into anything but Walmart greeter positions.  This will be all the more reason to teach the test and give high grades.

Certainly there is deadwood in education.  We should have better means to remove the accumulating deadwood before the wildfire of poor performance burns down the entire school.  But, again, we need a better means of measuring performance than those we have now.  The deadwood is teaching the test and giving good grades.  They know how to game the system.

On the personal grudge issue, many times I have seen this payout, where sexual orientation, differing ideas about pedagogy, or a perception of an incorrect balance between teaching and scholarly activity were the underlying issues behind evaluations of poor faculty performance.  Yes, I know this happens in the non-academic world, but in our public entities our society has held itself to a higher standard.  As a community we tend to believe that if our public sector does not act fairly in its employment practice, how can we be assured that it will safeguard activities in the private sector.

In conclusion, there are pros and cons to seniority.  Just because we are in hard economic times today we should not rush into actions that will be counter productive to our longterm best interest.  There is a middle ground here and we must strive for that.

T.S. Hall

Wednesday, April 21, 2010

General Education Rigor

Last week, Inside Higher Education published an article on the case of a biology faculty member who was removed from teaching a non-majors class mid-semester for being too rigorous.  There is much to the story that did not make it into the article and it generated a tremendous amount of feedback.  I won't get into the case specifically, rather I will comment on some of the responses it engendered.

One of the issues raised was if the standards of a non-majors or general education course should be on par with those of a majors course.  An example of a comment is:
"In this case, however, the professor was teaching an introductory course for NON-MAJORS. Students take this type of course either because its required or because they want to sample an academic field for its own sake. Mastery of the body of knowledge is not--and shouldn't--be a goal. The point of such a course is to "taste" the material. And, yes, it should probably be possible to slide by with a "C" in such a course pretty easily." 
It does not matter if a course is required or taken to sample a field.  The point of a course is always to master a body of knowledge.  Certainly the level of mastery will differ between general education, lower division, and upper division courses, but the goal is still mastery at some level.  

The point of a grade is to provide some measure of the student's mastery relative to the required level of mastery.  If sliding by with a "C" is "easy", the value of the grade is pretty minimal.  Should such courses really receive the same weighting in the graduates grade point average as courses where a "C" grade is based on some less "easy" standard?  Should the "easy" courses get a lower unit load count than the "non-easy" courses?

There is a fairly commonly held belief among students that general education courses are not real courses, but are there for easy grades to boost GPAs.  To the extent that we faculty contribute to this mentality we undermine the benefit of a liberal arts education.  The next time we decry the scientific illiteracy of the general population we might ask ourselves if our own general education courses are "pretty easy Cs" or if they emphasize mastery that leads to a populace that has the ability understand the science upon which their lives depend.

T.S. Hall

Wednesday, April 14, 2010

Outside Class Time

I was just reading an article on course planning in which the authors indicated that one should plan their course to include the three hours of outside class time work your students will do for each hour of in-class work.  This three-to-one ratio is pretty commonly cited as the amount of out of class time students should spend for each in class hour.  Since studies in the University of California show that today's students report putting in about one hour of outside class work for each hour of in class work, what should one do in planning their course?

I alway thought there was some fantasy in the three hour number since our degree programs often require fifteen units per semester.  This would mean that a student taking a full lecture load would be studying 45 hours per week in addition to the fifteen hours of class time.  With the average student working about 20 hours per week, and allowing for travel time, eating, sleeping, etc one quickly runs out of time in the week.  Its no wonder students don't hold to the three-to-one ratio, particularly if they are going to work in a research lab.

Education folks advise that we should "teach the students we have, not the ones we wish we had".  If the ones we have only study one hour for each hour of class, should we back off on the idea that students should be putting in about nine hours per week of study time for each three unit organic lecture class?

I ask this because I increasingly hear from organic colleagues who have given up and are backing off on their course requirements "because the students just won't do the work".  These faculty fear their student evaluations and defend their behavior by saying they are teaching the students they have.

I don't have an answer to this issue, but I would be interested in hearing the opinions of readers.

T.S. Hall

Tuesday, April 13, 2010

Happy Birthday TJ

I have always been a fan of Thomas Jefferson and today is his Birthday.  So, I will offer up some words of wisdom from the founding father.

In arguing for a tax to support public education in a time when education was largely private and only available to the wealthy, Jefferson argued that public education would ensure that the upper classes would not overthrow American democracy and create a class system to the detriment of the working classes.  And so he wrote to a friend;

"If you think that education is expensive, try ignorance."

The issues today are different, but there is still a worthwhile warning in the statement.

T.S. Hall

Saturday, April 10, 2010

Alternate Careers

Lately I have been barely keeping up with my many responsibilities, yet I did take a moment to read an article on time management and getting more done.  I was intreged to learn that there are folks out there who are professional naggers you can hire to call, e-mail, or put the kitchen garbage in front of the door to the garage to help you get past those things you are procrastinating about.  (Oh Wait!  That last thing is a service provided by semi-pro spousal naggers.)  It is amazing what services people need today.

I wonder if there is a place in the university to offer the service to students, and faculty (not to mention bloggers).  Tired of nagging your students about assignments, farm it out to the Office of Professional Educational Nagging (OPEN).  They will contact your students every day asking them if they did five organic problems, finished their lab report, and made progress in their research project.

I would write more, but I just got a text indicating that the next organocatalysis lecture is not going to prepare itself.

T.S. Hall