Monthly Archives: December 2012

December 10, 2012
4:36 am
by: Mike Ekoniak

Course Evaluations When Dropping

Now that Virginia Tech’s course evaluation system (SPOT) is completely online, I think a really easy change that we should make is to survey students that drop or withdraw from a course.  With the old paper-based system this was probably … Continue reading → Continue reading →

Posted in Preparing the Future Professoriate

December 10, 2012
1:37 am
by: Phil

The End is Near

Of this course, anyway.  And I wanted to take a moment I have to ask if you, my fellow peers, if you had questions for one another.  Not just questions for myself or for Karen, which we will have the opportunity tomorrow to do.  I want to know more about the other disciplines and how […] Continue reading →

Posted in GRAD 5104

December 9, 2012
4:46 am
by: souvik

Being a faculty: duties

I already posted this in the forums, but was not sure where exactly to put this. So I am having this blog entry as well.   Throughout the entire course so far we have gone through various aspects of academic … Continue reading → Continue reading →

Posted in PFP12F

December 9, 2012
4:28 am
by: Phil

The Choice of Higher Education

A lot of what was talked about this week revolved on the idea of changing higher education.  Many of us even talked about not requiring people to get bachelor or advanced degrees.  I agree to this idea, but only to an extent.  For now, I will limit this to the US, as some of what […] Continue reading →

Posted in GRAD 5104

December 9, 2012
3:04 am
by: Tarantulana

Blog 10 – Changing Higher Education

In this blog, I’m going to discuss two topics in higher education where I would like to see a change.  The first of these topics, a redefinition of our grading system, was prompted after our class discussion of the flaws … Continue reading → Continue reading →

Posted in PFP12F

December 8, 2012
4:48 am
by: Tarantulana

Blog 9 — Parental Expectations

Did anyone else see this article in The Chronicle today?  The article discusses the disconnect some first generation college students feel when interacting with their families and includes stories from interviews with several Ph.D. students from working class backgrounds. As … Continue reading → Continue reading →

Posted in PFP12F

December 7, 2012
7:17 pm
by: Tarantulana

Blog 8 – Citation of Unethical Studies

One thorny issue that we spent some time in class discussing, and which I’d like to discuss further here, is the ethical obligation of a scientist when considering whether to cite a study with unethical data collection methods. For the … Continue reading → Continue reading →

Posted in PFP12F

December 7, 2012
6:01 pm
by: souvik

A course-a journey! PFP 2012

The semester is almost over. For most of us it has been a struggle as always and for some lucky few it has been a cruise! I was thinking about this semester, the PFP course and all the marvelous experiences I … Continue reading → Continue reading →

Posted in PFP12F

December 7, 2012
5:15 pm
by: Tarantulana

Blog 7 – Communicating Science

Although I was out of town during the special class on communicating science, I’d like to use this blog to talk about why communicating science is so important and how we, as scientists, can improve this communication. Why Is Communicating … Continue reading → Continue reading →

Posted in PFP12F

December 7, 2012
5:03 pm
by: souvik

Entrepreneurship in higher education

I always wanted to write about it. I don’t remember anyone talking about this aspect in the blogs.(pardon me if I missed) We all look for jobs when we graduate from our universities. Specially in higher education, after finishing Masters … Continue reading → Continue reading →

Posted in PFP12F