This week I met with 2 job candidates (who were both fantastic), went to 1 prospectus defense (also wonderful), had 2 conference calls (both very productive), advised two students about jobs and conference papers, taught twice (and was snowed out once), observed my TA teach once (she's awesome), went to a business meeting for an interdisciplinary group on campus (amazingly on topic for this group), ran lab meeting, attended 1 faculty meeting, spent Tuesday night on the phone with various people gushing about election results, attended our departmental colloquium (guest speaker, yeah!), helped see 1 subject (3 more canceled due to snow), met with an RA to design stimuli for a new project. And a few more things, I'm sure. The key point is I spent no time alone or in my office from 8-5 most days this week excepting office hours.
This is an unusually scheduled week for me. And on top of being heavily scheduled, it was very people oriented. Everything went really well. Everyone seemed mostly on the ball. But I came out of it feeling just a slight bit done with talking to people. Usually I get together with people tonight and I ended up declining. I have no special plans for this weekend (until church on Sun morning and small group Sun night). I'm tempted to attend a different church on Sunday just so that I can really not talk to anyone until Sun night (I won't for a variety of reasons, but it's tempting!).
Next week I am promising myself that Tuesday midday and Thursday all day are remaining free for ME time. (ME time = research writing projects, data analysis, and non-other-people-meetings).
I really am an introvert.
Saturday, February 09, 2008
Thursday, February 07, 2008
Imposter Syndrome: New York Times
The NY times has an article about Imposter Syndrome - something I've talked about and read about quite a lot here in the blogosphere
Psychology - Imposter Syndrome - Feeling Like a Fraud - New York Times
Okay, I can see that. It's all about managing expectations. But at the same time, how is that even in pseudonymous blogs we, as women, tend to project a profound lack of confidence about our abilities. (Not that there isn't an audience in a blog... but not in the same way. Not in the way that someone can actually evaluate your abilities on whatever it is that you have described about yourself). I wonder how the need to compete - the need to prove yourself - plays out differently in individuals who have been encouraged to have self confidence and speak up for themselves and those who have been encouraged to be self-effacing. How does self-effacement change the expectations that we set for ourselves and the goals we try to acheive? How much more could we accomplish if we gave up saying we were incompetent and just did it?
Okay, I can see that. It's all about managing expectations.
Psychology - Imposter Syndrome - Feeling Like a Fraud - New York Times
Social psychologists have studied what they call the impostor phenomenon since at least the 1970s, when a pair of therapists at Georgia State University used the phrase to describe the internal experience of a group of high-achieving women who had a secret sense they were not as capable as others thought. Since then researchers have documented such fears in adults of all ages, as well as adolescents.Imposter syndrome seems to be gender specific. The article reports that women are more likely to do this than men. And that this syndrome leads to a higher degree of competition - a sense of not wanting to fail - an over compensation if you will.
Two Purdue psychologists, Shamala Kumar and Carolyn M. Jagacinski, gave 135 college students a series of questionnaires, measuring anxiety level, impostor feelings and approach to academic goals. They found that women who scored highly also reported a strong desire to show that they could do better than others. They competed harder.The interesting finding, to me, is that with an audience people tend to understimate their abilities and that without one, people tend to overestimate. So Imposter Syndrome is a response to being judged. Being noticed. Not a personality trait, and not necessarily a true reflection of abilities.By contrast, men who scored highly on the impostor scale showed more desire to avoid contests in areas where they felt vulnerable. “The motivation was to avoid doing poorly, looking weak,” Dr. Jagacinski said.
In short, the researchers concluded, many self-styled impostors are phony phonies: they adopt self-deprecation as a social strategy, consciously or not, and are secretly more confident than they let on.
“Particularly when people think that they might not be able to live up to others’ views of them, they may maintain that they are not as good as other people think,” Dr. Mark Leary, the lead author, wrote in an e-mail message. “In this way, they lower others’ expectations — and get credit for being humble.”
Okay, I can see that. It's all about managing expectations. But at the same time, how is that even in pseudonymous blogs we, as women, tend to project a profound lack of confidence about our abilities. (Not that there isn't an audience in a blog... but not in the same way. Not in the way that someone can actually evaluate your abilities on whatever it is that you have described about yourself). I wonder how the need to compete - the need to prove yourself - plays out differently in individuals who have been encouraged to have self confidence and speak up for themselves and those who have been encouraged to be self-effacing. How does self-effacement change the expectations that we set for ourselves and the goals we try to acheive? How much more could we accomplish if we gave up saying we were incompetent and just did it?
Okay, I can see that. It's all about managing expectations.
Wednesday, February 06, 2008
Super Tuesday
Oh my goodness. I do have a preference, but things are so very very close that it's driving me nuts. I just want to know. Even if it's not who I want, I'd like a clear winner. Everything's close and this proportional vote thing might be fair but it means that actually counting delegates is hard (even though the tv is trying). Precise numbers are needed to really count. I'm glad to see that the main division in the dems is a generational divide and not a racial one and I hope that continues to be true tomorrow and into the future. I hope that the dems continue to hang together and this doesn't turn bitter or abrasive in a way that splits the party. I'm hopeful because everyone I've spoken to seems to be talking about how tough it was to pick. Because they all were good.
The one good thing is that the republicans seem to be still hashing it out too. I wonder if a McCain/Huckabee ticket would crash and burn or would reunite the republican party.
The one good thing is that the republicans seem to be still hashing it out too. I wonder if a McCain/Huckabee ticket would crash and burn or would reunite the republican party.
Tuesday, February 05, 2008
Why do you teach [Applied Library Science] and how is academic freedom important to that effort?
As usual, I'm a little late to the party. I'm responding to a meme started by Dr. Crazy and continued by many many people who are mostly all listed here. Like Dr. Freeride the reasons why I teach vary according to the class itself.
My course load* consists of Introduction to Information Systems from a Users perspective - A large undergraduate survey course that is required for our major and also meets gen ed requirements, Advanced Applied Card Cataloging - a highly applied graduate course that is an elective and is outside my major research focus**, and Intro to Applied Librarianship - a graduate class that every student has to take in conjunction with their first practicum experience in a library. I teach the didactic part; their supervisors teach the applied part. Every other year I teach a graduate seminar on a topic of my choice, usually theoretical epistomology.
One answer which would be flip and not entirely true (but not entirely false) is that I teach because it is a job requirement and necessary in order for me to be employed in a way that allows me to do my research***.
Introduction to Information Systems from a Users perspective
This is a survey course and basically I get to spend 1-2 weeks on each major topic and by the end I feel like everyone knows just enough about everything to be dangerous. My unique stamp on this course is that I use it to introduce students to ways of thinking about things. I think (I hope?) that our understanding of how individuals develop mental structures to store information and access/apply that information in everyday life will change as these students continue through their professional lives. With that in mind, what I really want students to learn in this class is how to be good consumers of information. There are a few key things that I think they need to learn (because if they don't they'll be clueless in the future and it will reflect badly on our program) but really I want them to learn to approach research and research design well and be good consumers of information so that they can design useful ways of delivering that information in whatever format it is in.
Academic freedom is important in this class because it allows me to choose how to deliver the material (as lecture/as research articles) and choose which epistomology theories I want to highlight. I'd have a hard time teaching some theories with a straight face.
Advanced Applied Card Cataloging - In principle this is the 2nd course students take in this area, but in reality the only students who take it are those who haven't satisfied the requisite number of organizational classes in their undergrad. A few students do just love the topic and enroll though. The students are in their final semester of classes so they think they know what they need to know and want you to only teach them those things.
So I have a real mix of students and abilities and interest levels in this class. We do lots of problem sets. Where would you shelve THIS book? Given these filing numbers from an unknown library, discern the cataloging system being used and apply it to a new item. I truly teach this because it's assigned to me. I try to teach the students to see patterns more than anything else. When I have the opportunity I try to stretch them to think about things that they might not NEED to know, but will allow them to think in more flexible ways or approach a cataloging problem in a creative manner.
I'm not sure how academic freedom influences this class. It's something I just do and the current state of the theory is such that I just present it and they practice til they can do it. It's like elementary math - practice, practice, practice! Perhaps if this were actually the 2nd class for these students and/or they had an instructor who specialized in this area it would be less practice and more theory oriented and this would all matter. I'll have to puzzle over this a bit more.
Intro to Applied Librarianship This class is probably the one in which academic freedom matters the most to me. I was given a list of (rather disjointed) topics to cover and I organized them into as sensible a manner as I could imagine. Basically it's a class for everything that people think the students need to know but don't actually want to cover in their own classes.
Academic freedom allows me to emphasize things like, say selection of library materials and materials organization, over more practical information like, sharing materials with users. Again, it means I can put my own spin on the details and can help students to approach problems in a variety of ways. I'm still refining this class, but I do think that this class, of all of them, is the one that I've put my own stamp on. I try very hard to stick with the topics I'm supposed to cover but at the same time I try to stretch it to highlight the areas I think are important.
*I am clearly not a real librarian and I am making these course titles up. I am not sure if this cover really works, but it is what it is.
**Someone more senior than me teaches both the required and elective courses that are immediately in my area.
***As I read over the posts about why teaching, I realize that I'm very much in the right place for me - a research intensive university where I can expect my teaching to reduce as I get grants. I don't have the passion for it that others seem to. That said, I try to be good at it and constantly improving. And I do have clear ideas of what I want students to know and be able to do at the end of my courses, even if I am not passionate about the process. I take lots of ideas from other teachers - like how to effectively use small groups to support discussion, giving regular/limited feedback on writing up in a large class, speed dating for research proposals, and use of in class problem sets/examples. Nonetheless I struggle to create chemistry in a classroom and would just as soon skip the whole process if I could.
My course load* consists of Introduction to Information Systems from a Users perspective - A large undergraduate survey course that is required for our major and also meets gen ed requirements, Advanced Applied Card Cataloging - a highly applied graduate course that is an elective and is outside my major research focus**, and Intro to Applied Librarianship - a graduate class that every student has to take in conjunction with their first practicum experience in a library. I teach the didactic part; their supervisors teach the applied part. Every other year I teach a graduate seminar on a topic of my choice, usually theoretical epistomology.
One answer which would be flip and not entirely true (but not entirely false) is that I teach because it is a job requirement and necessary in order for me to be employed in a way that allows me to do my research***.
Introduction to Information Systems from a Users perspective
This is a survey course and basically I get to spend 1-2 weeks on each major topic and by the end I feel like everyone knows just enough about everything to be dangerous. My unique stamp on this course is that I use it to introduce students to ways of thinking about things. I think (I hope?) that our understanding of how individuals develop mental structures to store information and access/apply that information in everyday life will change as these students continue through their professional lives. With that in mind, what I really want students to learn in this class is how to be good consumers of information. There are a few key things that I think they need to learn (because if they don't they'll be clueless in the future and it will reflect badly on our program) but really I want them to learn to approach research and research design well and be good consumers of information so that they can design useful ways of delivering that information in whatever format it is in.
Academic freedom is important in this class because it allows me to choose how to deliver the material (as lecture/as research articles) and choose which epistomology theories I want to highlight. I'd have a hard time teaching some theories with a straight face.
Advanced Applied Card Cataloging - In principle this is the 2nd course students take in this area, but in reality the only students who take it are those who haven't satisfied the requisite number of organizational classes in their undergrad. A few students do just love the topic and enroll though. The students are in their final semester of classes so they think they know what they need to know and want you to only teach them those things.
So I have a real mix of students and abilities and interest levels in this class. We do lots of problem sets. Where would you shelve THIS book? Given these filing numbers from an unknown library, discern the cataloging system being used and apply it to a new item. I truly teach this because it's assigned to me. I try to teach the students to see patterns more than anything else. When I have the opportunity I try to stretch them to think about things that they might not NEED to know, but will allow them to think in more flexible ways or approach a cataloging problem in a creative manner.
I'm not sure how academic freedom influences this class. It's something I just do and the current state of the theory is such that I just present it and they practice til they can do it. It's like elementary math - practice, practice, practice! Perhaps if this were actually the 2nd class for these students and/or they had an instructor who specialized in this area it would be less practice and more theory oriented and this would all matter. I'll have to puzzle over this a bit more.
Intro to Applied Librarianship This class is probably the one in which academic freedom matters the most to me. I was given a list of (rather disjointed) topics to cover and I organized them into as sensible a manner as I could imagine. Basically it's a class for everything that people think the students need to know but don't actually want to cover in their own classes.
Academic freedom allows me to emphasize things like, say selection of library materials and materials organization, over more practical information like, sharing materials with users. Again, it means I can put my own spin on the details and can help students to approach problems in a variety of ways. I'm still refining this class, but I do think that this class, of all of them, is the one that I've put my own stamp on. I try very hard to stick with the topics I'm supposed to cover but at the same time I try to stretch it to highlight the areas I think are important.
*I am clearly not a real librarian and I am making these course titles up. I am not sure if this cover really works, but it is what it is.
**Someone more senior than me teaches both the required and elective courses that are immediately in my area.
***As I read over the posts about why teaching, I realize that I'm very much in the right place for me - a research intensive university where I can expect my teaching to reduce as I get grants. I don't have the passion for it that others seem to. That said, I try to be good at it and constantly improving. And I do have clear ideas of what I want students to know and be able to do at the end of my courses, even if I am not passionate about the process. I take lots of ideas from other teachers - like how to effectively use small groups to support discussion, giving regular/limited feedback on writing up in a large class, speed dating for research proposals, and use of in class problem sets/examples. Nonetheless I struggle to create chemistry in a classroom and would just as soon skip the whole process if I could.
Monday, February 04, 2008
Jan Goals - Recap
Since it's snowing so hard that I can't make it to the super bowl party I had planned to attend, it seems like a good time to claim for catching up on blogs and self reflection.
I made some progress on Jan. goals - all the teaching preparation ones and one of the writing ones got checked off. The other writing one was too big to be managable so I've broken it into smaller bits. Hopefully I can cross off two smaller bits this month and then the rest will fall into place. Unfortunately the data collection and personal ones lagged a bit. The MS student bailing and lack of clarity on data interpretation for the collaborative project really mean I won't be taking anything to the intimate summer conference in the upper midwest. But I should have tons for the national convention in the fall. Such is life.
I was fantastic at menus and groceries and dishes while classes were on break but not at all good once things started. I made homemade mac & cheese, apricot pork chops, white bean, sausage, & spinach caserole, tilapia with curry sauce, and a winter squash soup. And I also ate stuff in the freezer - chicken cacciatore and raviolis. The tilapia was unexpectedly fantastic; the apricot pork chops I won't be making again - they were dull. I've still been eating well since school started because I had enough stuff in the freezer, but I haven't been restocking it at all. And this last week I drifted amazing close to junk (apple caramel bites from sonic) even though I had stuff for a crock pot meal at home. Hopefully I'm back on top of things this week since I went shopping and have stuff for roast chicken chimichangas, chicken caccatore and tilapia with orange glaze. I wonder if Sunday posts on upcoming/completed meals would be a fun way to keep motivated. I divided this all up into weekly to dos because again, monthly it's easy to loose track of what needs done.
The personal ones happened for the most part - my photo class has begun and I'm being more creative; I've been volunteering semi-weekly with the local homeless shelter; I did better about being in touch with far flung friends. But I think the weekly phone calls/regular letters to someone were the toughest to accomplish and will be the hardest to keep up. It's not that I don't want to connect with these people but our schedules seem not to overlap as much as I'd like.
So I've added in an updated list for feb. And I'm starting the month with a clean slate. Hopefully I can get through most of it. I'm skeptical a bit because we have a search on and feb. is short. But I'll try. And some is better than none.
I made some progress on Jan. goals - all the teaching preparation ones and one of the writing ones got checked off. The other writing one was too big to be managable so I've broken it into smaller bits. Hopefully I can cross off two smaller bits this month and then the rest will fall into place. Unfortunately the data collection and personal ones lagged a bit. The MS student bailing and lack of clarity on data interpretation for the collaborative project really mean I won't be taking anything to the intimate summer conference in the upper midwest. But I should have tons for the national convention in the fall. Such is life.
I was fantastic at menus and groceries and dishes while classes were on break but not at all good once things started. I made homemade mac & cheese, apricot pork chops, white bean, sausage, & spinach caserole, tilapia with curry sauce, and a winter squash soup. And I also ate stuff in the freezer - chicken cacciatore and raviolis. The tilapia was unexpectedly fantastic; the apricot pork chops I won't be making again - they were dull. I've still been eating well since school started because I had enough stuff in the freezer, but I haven't been restocking it at all. And this last week I drifted amazing close to junk (apple caramel bites from sonic) even though I had stuff for a crock pot meal at home. Hopefully I'm back on top of things this week since I went shopping and have stuff for roast chicken chimichangas, chicken caccatore and tilapia with orange glaze. I wonder if Sunday posts on upcoming/completed meals would be a fun way to keep motivated. I divided this all up into weekly to dos because again, monthly it's easy to loose track of what needs done.
The personal ones happened for the most part - my photo class has begun and I'm being more creative; I've been volunteering semi-weekly with the local homeless shelter; I did better about being in touch with far flung friends. But I think the weekly phone calls/regular letters to someone were the toughest to accomplish and will be the hardest to keep up. It's not that I don't want to connect with these people but our schedules seem not to overlap as much as I'd like.
So I've added in an updated list for feb. And I'm starting the month with a clean slate. Hopefully I can get through most of it. I'm skeptical a bit because we have a search on and feb. is short. But I'll try. And some is better than none.
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