Page Proofs

I corrected page proofs over the weekend. That's an exciting stage, but I consider it a high-pressure situation. I hate the idea of missing something. I read an article by a top scholar is a top journal last week, and there was a misspelling in the abstract. It just confirmed the pressure of looking at page proofs.

I'm considering taking a break from my two blogs for a while. Very few people look at this blog, so it wouldn't be missed. My other blog gets a lot of traffic, but it's getting harder to have good material. I can tell I've rushed through writing the last several weeks. That blog gets a decent number of hits, but I don't know how many of those are people that follow the blog and how many see tags and click to the blog (mostly the second type I think). I just need a break. We'll see how the rest of the week goes.

Interesting Presentation

Yesterday, I had a student presenting on presentation delivery. She wanted to demonstrate the differences between impromptu, extemporaneous, and manuscript delivery. So she found three volunteers. She told the first to do a 90 second speech on Oreos, and he did predictably. She gave the second volunteer a notecard with a brief outline and told him to do a 90 sec. speech on Oreos following the outline. He did better, but hadn't practiced so it wasn't very polished (we discussed how typically extemporaneous means that you've practiced and know your material ahead of time). She gave the third volunteer a scripted speech about how to eat Oreos. I could be completely wrong, but I don't think the student in charge knew why everyone laughed at this third speech. When someone told her after class, she turned completely red and seemed genuinely surprised. Word choice is key. When you describe the details about how to eat an Oreo, a few words can make the speech sound very sexualized. The class was crying and falling out of their chairs they were laughing so hard. Like I said, maybe I'm gullible, but I don't think it was on purpose. Either way, it was an interesting speech.

Meetings today

Today is a busy day of meetings, but I should have some time to get things done.

Division meeting this morning. Rather than wait to be "nominated" for an unpleasant committee, I found one that would be better and volunteered for it. And it works with my research (somewhat) so that's nice too.

Meeting with one of the guest speakers coming to my class later today. Should be good. So far, I think my guest speakers have had mixed reviews. Two more, and I really want them to be good.

Finally, I'm meeting with the research team that I'm on for the summer, even though we haven't gotten final approval for the funding that will support us. We need to get going if we're going to be ready for the beginning of the summer.

Whew!

I made a commitment last night that I'm really going to try to not work in the evenings and limit my weekend work time. I gave up evening working for Lent, but it seems like a good idea to reserve that time for family.

Congestion

I helped someone move dusty furniture this weekend, and I picked up some sinus congestion as a reward. It's nice that I have student presentations in one class and a guest speaker in the other--I don't have to do much prep work. But I guess I could have called in sick if not for those commitments.

Conferences and Classes

So I looked at the reviews for the paper that got rejected from NCA. One reviewer hated it, one reviewer loved it, and one reviewer was in the middle. I'm still not sure how it got rejected.

Booked flight and hotel for ICA yesterday. It's kind of annoying that I couldn't get in the conference hotel, but the overflow is close. Maybe it'll be nice to be out of the traffic.

One of the classes that I will teach in the fall only had 4 students register for it last week. However, it's a required class, so it has to be offered. I'll probably pick up another student or two before the fall, but it'll still have the feel of a directed studies. Which is great for the fall--I was already planning on having the class help me study dissent and feedback in an organization. This will make it easier to manage. What may be more problematic is the spring class that the same students typically take. That class doesn't work as well for a directed studies format. It will take creative planning.

I found out last week that I'll have a grad assistant in the fall. I'm pumped about that.

The Calm After the Storm

After a crazy end of the fall semester and an even busier February, I think I'm in a little bit of a lull right now. My classes are going well and pretty much on auto-pilot until finals. I'm working on a couple of writing projects that are close to finished. I'm sure I'll be busy again toward the end of April finishing things up, but it's nice to not feel overwhelmed right now.

I have two papers that are close to being ready to submit to journals. I think. Both of them have been rejected from a conference, one from ICA and one from NCA. The ICA-reject was only partly done at the ICA deadline, so I can kind of understand that one (although I thought it was still good enough to be accepted). The NCA one was almost finished, so I'm a bit confused as to why it didn't get accepted. I'm hoping they will release the reviews soon so I can get any feedback that's useful before sending it to a journal.

Not a lot to say today

Not a lot to say today. I'm plugging away on a couple of papers that I'd like to submit late this month or early next month, before the end of semester blitz. It was a relaxing weekend, and I'm ready to hit it this week.

Blogging Woes

I was just on my other blog (the one that gets 10 times more traffic than this one). I've been using Firefox since I was hit with virus a couple of months ago. Many of my posts have formatting issues or html leaking through. The other blog is done on WordPress (grrrr), so apparently Word Press has trouble with Firefox. Not a good start to the day.

Student Research Banquet

Last night, my university had its annual student research banquet, where undergraduates who did research with faculty over the summer present what they did. It's a scary time for me, a control freak, as I watch students give their own perspective on what they did with me. Both during and after the presentation, I found myself wanting to jump in and clarify. During Q & A after, I sat on my hands as audience members asked questions which, to me, had easy answers. Don't get me wrong. The students did a fine job overall. It's just hard to give up that control. Having read Freire, I understand why problem-posing education is so much more challenging for teachers. I've got to get better at it.

Fall registration was this week. One of my classes is an elective, not required by any degree plan. I was a little nervous about whether this class would get the required number of enrolled students, but it easily passed that number. Big relief--it's a class I'm really excited about teaching, in spite of the fact that it's a new prep.

Paulo Freire and my teaching

I recently read Paulo Freire's Pedagogy of the Oppressed, and it really made me think about how I teach. Freire argues that there are two classes of people, oppressors and oppressed. Because the Oppressors are typically the ones in charge of education, teaching tends to keep the Oppressed in a subordinate state. Some benevolent Oppressors may try to educate Oppressed in such as way as to liberate them, but those efforts are doomed to fail because the Oppressors only know what Freire calls "banking education." In this system, teachers make deposits into students and expect the ability to make withdrawals at exam time. Freire contrasts this with what he labels "problem-posing education" where teacher-students pose a problem to student-teachers (recognizing the co-existence of knowing and learning in everyone), and then the student-teachers use the knowledge that they already have to develop solutions to the problem.

So as I teach students the importance of dissent, am I depositing a value in them, expecting them to be able to do it? Or am I posing a problem (oppressive silence in organizations) and letting them work through the solution? As I think about the Fall semester and my teaching then, it's definitely something upon which I will reflect.

By the way, if you are familiar with Freire's work, I apologize for the oversimplification of his ideas. Although not an easy read, I highly recommend Pedagogy of the Oppressed to anyone teaching.

Students are registering for classes this week, beginning today. Normally, I'm always curious who will take my courses. But this fall, I'm scheduled to teach an elective, so I'm particularly watching to see if the class makes. I've advertised as needed, but I haven't heard from people. This year, I only taught seniors, so they are little help. I need 8 students. Come on. Don't make me get re-assigned to left over classes!

Back at it again

I'm finishing Defensive Driving to take care of a ticket. I've done the comedy courses before, but this is an online course that isn't a comedy. This is much more of a deterrent to speeding--I never want to take this class again.

It's nice to be back with students. Spring Break was a much needed break. February was so intense. I was busy last week, but it was mostly stuff around the house and hobbies. It was nice to not have to push so hard on school stuff.

However, I did get some stuff done. I resubmitted an article that had a revise and resubmit, I got caught up on grading, and I submitted an article for initial review. Not bad for a week off.

Spring Break!

I'm taking Spring Break off from blogging. Be back on Monday.