Three Questions

Once people learn that I am a graduate student they usually follow up with three questions.

1. What do you study?
1. Which comes with a subliminal request, "please keep the answer short and comprehensible; if I'm actually interested and understand your short answer, then I will ask for more details."
2. When are you going to be done?
3. What do you think you'll do when you're done?

Quick Notes for a Friday #4

I've got a lot of links to pass along, so I'll try not to say too much.

Dissertation Update #1: Ionosphere and Rockets

The current chapter that I'm working on covers the period from 1956 to 1967. It's the tenure of the second chairman of the Defence Research Board, a man by the name of Hartley Zimmerman (full name Adam Hartley Zimmerman, father of Noranda CEO and Member of the Order of Canada Adam Hartley Zimmerman).

Survey: Advertising on Academic Blogs

Create your free online surveys with SurveyMonkey, the world's leading questionnaire tool.

Teaching Tip #3: How to Structure Your Weekly Discussion Section

Before I get to any further examples of lesson plans, I'm going to pass along a tip about structuring a class that I probably should have made the second Teaching Tip. I like to structure my sessions the same each week, so that there is a comfortable routine for everyone. I have four main components that I find work for me.

1. Attendance and announcements [1-3 minutes]
2. Questions generated by the students about previous weeks, lectures, the reading, assignments, etc. [2-5 minutes]
3. Active discussion of the readings [35-40 minutes]
4. My summary of the important points of the discussion and a preview of what they will be doing the following week and a repeat of any announcements [2-5 minutes]