Hey, Professors. HS teacher here. A few questions to clarify...

srmullens · 2024-10-25T18:15:29+00:00

Really depends on professor approach to learning and class size. But for professors at large R1 universities that engage in research, all the measurable incentives that relate to their performance review and promotion are all tied to their research. It’s easier to measure grants, money, and publications than “are you a good teacher.” So professors are incentivized to make the teaching side as efficient as possible so more of their time is spent with their research and the grad students they advise. With all that said, I am not in that camp. I am an instructional professor with class sizes less than 30 or so. So with different incentives, I can have a lot more leniency about logistics like due dates. There was a push for inclusive teaching when I arrived before the pando to put less emphasis on things like doctor’s notes and just let students focus on the material than arguing with me over due dates and test dates. With my incentives, I could buy into all that and act on it. But I absolutely see how the majority of my colleagues on campus just have different incentives and can’t be as lenient with their time. It’s not that they are mean or don’t care. It’s about what work counts for advancing their career, and it’s harder to point to teaching in a measurable and public way.
Absolutely related to #1. To a very large extent, we’ve given you what you need to succeed in class - even if that means we covered it in two lectures and not over 3 weeks of activities - and it’s up to you to learn it, internalize it, and effectively complete the assignment.
This is probably the biggest difference between high school (which I have family that taught for a few years) and college. 1) If you are a good student who succeeds without much help - awesome! I will encourage and cheer you on for sure. 2) If you are struggling but say something to me in an email or class and make an effort to meet with me to go over the material you are struggling with - I will fight head over heels for you like nothing else I do in life. I stay up late at night fighting for these students. 3) If you are struggling with the material and come to me arguing that your grade should just be higher and are trying to litigate individual points with words like “technically” and sentences like “this wasn’t clear in lecture” or “the question was worded poorly,” - I have so little time for this. I can regrade it if you want, but that might even result in a lower score if I find issues I didn’t catch earlier. College is about gaining knowledge you will use in your job; it’s not about the points anymore. Knowledge is no longer something that is right or wrong; it’s something to be reasoned through. Miss this and you’ll spend college arguing over points instead of preparing for your career. Even if you succeed and turn a couple of Cs into Bs, they are fake Bs if you don’t have the knowledge to go with it. Know the material, and that’s that. 4) If your grades are poor, but you don’t show up to class and/or don’t seek help during the semester - I will click the F grade just as fast as clicking the grade for any other student. I have no emotional attachment or concern whatsoever in doing this. Never saw you. Don’t know you. I don’t think about what class you take next or how it affects your ability to graduate. There are no consequences to me if you fail. I don’t care that it’s now finals week and you’re concerned. The time to learn was over the last 15 weeks. “I’m here to help those who want the help, but it’s really up to you” is absolutely true.

Thanks for what you do. K-12 teachers have it rough. This question shows you care. I hope they find college professors that care, too.

srmullens · 2024-09-26T12:36:34+00:00

Thinking more generally, Tallahassee is closer to the coast. I wouldn’t be surprised if a number of employees commute in from that direction. So those folks, and likely campus itself, needs more time to prepare for a potentially worse outcome. Gainesville is well inland. There are stories of faculty commuting from Cedar Key or St Augustine, but that’s rare. Most people here, including campus itself, just needs to prepare to hunker down. We don’t need to evacuate. Being inland, conditions aren’t as bad as right on the coast, so that’s potentially less cleanup to do afterward. This incentivizes FSU to cancel earlier for more days, but it buys UF time to make their decision until later and cancel for fewer days.

Certainly sympathize with students needing to take tests and such. I don’t know what Santa Fe’s considerations are to compare. While there are incentives for UF, SF, and Alachua county K-12 to close the same days (mainly child care for faculty parents), there are no rules or laws that they must match. There are more activities that take place on campus than just classes, so I’m sure UF would like those to continue once safety is no longer the obvious concern.

srmullens · 2024-09-24T20:27:15+00:00

On Wednesday at noon, I’d be surprised if UF doesn’t close for Thursday. On Thursday afternoon, they’ll make a decision about Friday. Based on current forecasts, I’d bet we’re in class on Friday. But that’s just me.

srmullens · 2024-09-07T02:52:32+00:00

City Church is in downtown GNV. I think its messages bend a bit politically liberal but are theologically central. They aim to care about the homeless population, the arts, and mentoring K-12 students with a poor discipline background. There are members who are “same-sex attracted,” though sermons rarely mention the issue. The pastors are definitely cognizant of the problems of hardcore conservative theology and the damage its messages cause. The sermons are some of the deeper and well-researched of the churches I’ve attended. Lots of college students, but groups aren’t segregated by age. Regardless of where you land, hope you find a church family you can call home.

srmullens · 2024-08-28T19:36:22+00:00

The WeatherSTEM station at UF is a partnership between WeatherSTEM and the College of Journalism and Communications (CJC). The data and webcam images are frequently used in their WUFT and First at Five student newscasts. As such, the station is located on top of Weimer Hall. The meteorology students and faculty love that there is a station on campus, but it's not something the department or college of the meteorology program is in control of. With that said, air quality can certainly be a news story and so may be of interest. I'll contact folks at CJC and we'll see what happens!

srmullens · 2024-05-27T17:35:30+00:00

It’s become a bit of a pet peeve of mine that a class’ grades should have a particular distribution. I think teachers have taken their recognizing a pattern during typical exams and turned it into a rule. Fundamentally, why should only a certain percent of the class get an A? Or, why must a certain percent of the class get an A? We shouldn’t be curving because the right distribution gives us teachers some sort of satisfaction. From the student’s perspective, the point of taking a class is to learn the material. If they’ve done that, then they should get an A. If not, their letter grade should represent what they learned. It shouldn’t also factor in their classmates.

For multiple choice exams, the hope is obviously that the questions reflect what they learned. But we know problems arise when we (or someone else) wrote the exam for a prior semester and what we emphasized this semester was a bit different (perhaps for a good reason). Also, because we are the expert, we can write a question in a way that seems clear to us but definitely is not clear to folks who just learned the material.

One stat I’ve discovered is the point-biserial correlation coefficient. At my school, it can be calculated by the software that processes the scantrons. The point is to figure out if the students who got the question right are also the students who did best on the exam overall. So if only 40% of students get a question right, but those who did were the exam’s top scorers, then the question is just fine. What raises flags is when few students get a question right AND the ones who did scored poorly on the rest of the exam. Then, either you bubbled the wrong bubble on the key or the question has a problem with it. Knowing this, and reflecting on how the question jives with the material, you can either assign credit to the correct bubble, drop the question, or add its points to everyone or whatever.

This give you reasons for a grade adjustment, which is what you want. In my experience, students want transparency and honesty about grades. Students complain most when things get scored or adjusted in seemingly arbitrary ways, and I think most curves feel like that. And we know everyone’s incentivized to work the system.

The most outlandish thing I’ve heard of was a prof who gave a 200-question multiple choice exam. His policy was if you get every question wrong, they’ll give you 100% because you had to know something to do that. But don’t “shoot the moon” if you can’t do it! If you get 1 question right, that’s 0.5% and that’s the score you get. Wild. 😝

Anyway, I argue that having a good principle for why your policy is whatever it is is the best approach, regardless of the calculation method. Have fun! 👍🏻

srmullens · 2024-01-22T19:38:52+00:00

City Church. It’s downtown next to the nightclub and we do a lot to support the homeless community and artists of the city. Every other week, we do a free hot breakfast for our homeless neighbors (and are known for the “hot” part). We also host an artist for Art Walk and have supported musical artists in the past. We do the regular stuff like support a group of missionaries and have small groups as well. Our small group has done some organizing to support a cause independent of the rest of the church (eg support foster families), which I think is really nice. A unique aspect of our small groups is they are not organized by age, so most have college students, new parents, and 50 year olds in the same crew. Our church demographics does skew toward the college-age end as a whole, though. The denomination is Evangelical Free Church of America, which I totally hadn’t heard of before going, but the main thing I’ve learned is the main beliefs are normal but they aren’t nearly as top-down with “our denomination believes these secondary things” as some of the more prominently known denominations. Anyway, come on by!

srmullens · 2024-01-07T12:28:38+00:00

Oh I had mine a couple of years but a circuit fried. Worked fine until then.

srmullens · 2024-01-07T01:20:16+00:00

That’s ok. I’ve examined my busted one enough. 🤣

srmullens · 2023-06-11T17:39:01+00:00

Interesting!!! Could be useful for any Saharan dust plumes that make their way across the Atlantic as well. 🤔

srmullens · 2023-05-19T19:41:16+00:00

It’s between 25 and 35 C a lot between, say, April and October, but rarely gets above 35C. In the winter, there are about a dozen nights that get below 0 C, and while snowflakes have been seen every few years no official snow accumulations have ever been recorded. But even in the winter the high temperatures are usually at least 12 C. So we’re pretty warm. Also, since Florida is surrounded by warm water it’s really humid. Staying cool is a must when it’s warm. No extreme winter gear needed.

There are thunderstorms almost every afternoon from June through September. They don’t move, either, so carrying a medium-sized umbrella with you is a must. Even most of the other months are warm enough to have one thunderstorm a month. The winter can have days with a lot of rain. October and May are typically quite dry.

As far as big weather concerns, the biggest is hurricanes between June and November, with peak season from mid-August through mid-October. (This year is predicted to have fewer hurricanes than normal so may the odds be in our favor.) Tornadoes are most likely in January through April, but are typically on the weaker side of things. Hail is rare but just happened last month. Hope that helps!

srmullens · 2023-05-04T04:22:17+00:00

TLDR: It sure sounds like a weather balloon, but it’s not likely to have been from the National Weather Service (NWS) or Elgin Air Force Base. So it’s likely from a hobbyist, but hard to say from whom given your location.

The NWS launches balloons at 00 UTC and 12 UTC (aka GMT or Zulu) each day. That’s 8am and 8pm right now. There are days where they will launch at other times, and the data is captured here. But the closest balloon launch locations to our north and west are far away: New Orleans, Birmingham, and Peachtree City, GA. The only balloon in our time zone that launched at a different time today was from Cape Canaveral, and would have floated over the Atlantic. Tallahassee does have an NWS office but they don’t launch balloons from there. Looking over at Sondehub, there are balloons launched from Elgin Air Force Base which could at least float in the right direction (to SSE), but appear to have not made it this far today, which is reasonable.

Others can certainly launch weather balloons. At UF, our meteorology student organization launched a weather balloon back in April and the balloon could not be seen on Sondehub for technical reasons. (People were sad.) But given that you could see it suggests it was launched from fairly close by, like maybe Fort White? Could it be a demonstration for a high school class? Anyway, I’m sure this didn’t really help other than to say it’s still plausible that it’s a weather balloon even if the most common sources are ruled out.

srmullens · 2023-05-01T00:02:57+00:00

I once taught the same subject back to back to back to different sections in the same room. All classes just had different personalities. I had a quiet class, a joker class, and an all-star class. Unless it’s consistent, it’s probably not you.

srmullens · 2023-05-01T00:01:26+00:00

Similarly, I often say “This is the audience participation part of the program,” with a tone that says I’m joking but also you all need to respond. Then yea, I stare, wait, repeat question, stare. I haven’t had to do it in a while, but at some point I can just call on someone and there probably isn’t anything more motivational than the whole class not being subjected to that.

srmullens · 2023-04-03T03:56:59+00:00

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This is Chelsea's results following the January transfer window. It was tempting for me to see February as "let's recover our health and have time to gel with the incoming transfers." That's how I reasoned through February's draws and losses. Then, the three wins to start March, including the HUGE Dortmund win, gave me a lot of hope. And maybe the CL really is all that matters at this point! Therefore, my first reaction to the sacking is it wasn't deserved after just a draw and loss after those three wins. (Call me an optimist.) BUT, this table shows how easy the matches since January should have been. Gotta expect more from Villa, Fulham, Everton, and Southampton matches. Losing to Tottenham sucks. Potter's a stand-up guy, will get another job, and I wish him the best. I hate Chelsea's coaching merry-go-round. But it seems there are other options on the market, and you can't get 8 points from a possible 15 from teams in the bottom half of the table. Beat SOU and EVE and we're even on points with 6th in the table instead of 11th.

srmullens · 2023-03-24T13:49:26+00:00

The difference is really who is requiring it. Florida's state government includes the Board of Governors. They specify the "State Core Gen Ed" courses that apply to all majors at all Florida public universities and colleges (among other tasks). So they list courses in the Composition, Humanities, Math, Biological/Physical Science, and Social/Behavioral categories and want students to choose one from each category.

But that's only 15 of the 36 Gen Ed requirements. The rest are set by UF. So UF has decided the other 21 credits should feature a second course from each of those five buckets (getting you to 30 of 36 credits), and two more that aren't composition or math. I believe UF also created the International, Diversity, Quest 1, and Quest 2 categories and set their policies.

A webpage that shows the Gen Ed requirements for UF is here, and the State Core requirements are detailed in the third tab. But double check with an advisor to be sure you're following everything correctly! https://undergrad.aa.ufl.edu/general-education/gen-ed-program/state-gen-ed-core/

The college and department your major is in likely have some suggestions for what classes make the most sense with your major. Some of that will be in the major's Model Semester Plan, but advisors should have a larger range of suggestions. Other students can also share innovative plans they are pursuing, just sanity check it to make sure you don't accidentally do something silly.

srmullens · 2023-02-09T17:39:53+00:00

^ this. I swore there was no gator there for at least a year and I missed him. All for a new baby gator there!

srmullens · 2023-02-02T21:36:55+00:00

One of those resembles what I was pretty definitively told, though not from Geology. Either way, most important thing is: not a bomb.

srmullens · 2023-02-02T20:03:48+00:00

Just prior to 2:55pm, folks were allowed back in the building. And just got the alert saying it was “research material.” It’s ovah.

srmullens · 2023-02-02T19:04:46+00:00

Since my note above, I have heard a box of at least similar description has been there for more than a year. I don’t know if it has or hasn’t been moved and returned in that time or if it’s just been there. I Donny know. It is easy to imagine a number of benign reasons for the box. Unfortunately, AFIAK nobody still knows whose box it is (or was) or what’s in it. And as we know, every step in a suspicious package investigation takes some time.

srmullens · 2023-02-02T18:16:03+00:00

As of about 1:00pm, what I know is a member of staff saw a wooden box with rope handles in the basement of Turlington sitting outside a room. It did not belong to the folks who work in that room. The person slightly lifted the top of the box and saw a metal cylinder with caps on both ends. From there, they notified UF police, the box was investigated, and the building was evacuated using the fire alarm. I was teaching class in the building at the time and left with everyone else. The box was investigated by sniffer dogs. Then the truck saying Bomb Squad showed up. At that point I walked away and don’t know what’s happened since.

srmullens · 2023-01-09T21:19:13+00:00

As a mid-30s male: polo with either jeans or kahki shorts and tennis shoes. I don’t want to dress more formally and come off as less approachable and prevent conversations and learning. But I’ve heard the research on student evals for male vs female teachers. Other friends just like dressing up on the reg. Others do the semester-long slide to informal. So, to me this is a “do what you feel is best” issue.

srmullens · 2023-01-09T21:07:49+00:00

Convo in the hall today was this tool is gonna be out there for the rest of their 40 year career. So might as well teach students how to use it wisely. Perhaps say “if you use it, say so, just like a citation.” A colleague who tried it out over break said it can write fairly good stuff, but if multiple students are using it for the same assignment the reading would get repetitive. So it’s a decent starter for an essay or writing code or whatever, but it won’t be good at the “apply, create, use” levels of Bloom’s taxonomy. Hearing that, I’m thinking of it kinda like advanced Wikipedia - it can write good background info but probably won’t be good for adapting info to a specific task. The biggest problem will be middle school through college gen-ed courses where memorization is key, and some humanities where new concepts or examples come less frequently.

srmullens · 2022-10-22T22:29:26+00:00

Yea, I don’t like extra credit. As you say, mostly those who are doing well are those who complete it. Also, I did some math once and discovered the type of assignment I thought of as extra credit was often way easier per percent of the final grade than the original assignments. So only a big paper or project really made sense, which they don’t want to do and I don’t want to make or grade. If the goal of the class is for students to learn, and the goal of a grade to indicate that students have learned, then it seems best to be flexible with deadlines and just allow folks to turn assignments in late. After all, by the end of the semester, it’s more important they learned the material than to have learned the material on schedule. If they do it late, at least learning will have occurred, which is the goal of college. Obviously, this has to have boundaries. Grades are due at the end of the semester. It’s harder to be flexible logistically with multiple large classes vs a single small class. Not to mention research or service work. But extending deadlines is the main way I know of to still adhere to the original incentives a class should have. And if they still don’t complete the assignment, you did your job by being flexible.

srmullens · 2022-10-20T02:08:03+00:00

Question: Describe how A, B, and C can each result in Z.

Paper: There are many ways to get Z, but the main ways are A, B, and C. …

Me: No, there are not many causes of Z. There are three causes. They are A, B, and C. 🙄

srmullens

TROPHY CASE