Just a public service announcement/question: This blog can be accessed, for the moment, on the web through one of two domain names: http://castingoutnines.wordpress.com or http://www.castingoutnines.net. The latter is a holdover from when I used to self-host this blog, and I have it mapped to the WordPress.com domain. The thing is, I pay $8 a year to map the castingoutnines.net domain to this blog, and my one-year period is up in a few weeks. Does anybody use the castingoutnines.net domain to come here? Would it be a lot of trouble to switch to using the RSS feed or using castingoutnines.wordpress.com instead?

If you do, and it would be, then I’d like to hear you say so in the comments. Otherwise I’ll probably let the domain name mapping lapse to save the $8.

Some time ago, I posted a very skeletal outline of a new Statement of Teaching Philosophy and got some good feedback. After struggling to write something that doesn’t sound like it came straight out of a Miss America pageant, I ended up throwing out the whole thing and starting over. After locking myself in my basement (my preferred location for really serious thinking and writing) for two hours, I had a totally new version of the document which I actually was sort of happy with. Only problem: It was four pages long in 10-point font. A few minutes ago, I finished a two-day editing process which got it down, barely, to two pages.

I’m hoping that you people out there can be kind again and read, review, and comment on this statement. The plain text version of the statement is “below the fold”. You can download a PDF of it here. Thanks in advance.

Robert N. Talbert, Ph.D.
Statement of Teaching Philosophy

My vocation to education has two inextricably linked parts: to learn, with increasing depth in my subject area and with increasing breadth across the whole spectrum of intellectual life; and to teach, leading students into a life in which they think and learn on their own with disciplined creativity and with a taste for the pleasure of asking and answering important questions about the world. Mirroring this dual nature, my philosophy of teaching is rooted in my conceptions about how people learn. Through a diverse collection of teaching experiences throughout my life — not only as a professor but also as a tutor to middle school kids with ADD/ADHD, a literacy tutor to adults recovering from brain injuries, and as a dad to my preschool-aged daughters — I can point to six basic observations about how people learn which shape my teaching today.

1. People learn because they have questions. Real learning of a subject does not begin until the student has taken enough interest in the subject to form an honest, significant question which renders the subject worthy of attention. Sometimes these questions are practical, sometimes purely aesthetic or asked out of mere curiosity. But learning does not begin unless, and until, those questions are formed in the minds of the student.

How does this translate into teaching? My classes ground themselves in reasonable, interesting questions for which we need the mathematics under study to answer. For example, on the first day of a calculus class, I give an example of two related quantities, such as the price of oil and the price of a gallon of gas. Then I ask: How can we make this relationship precise? How fast is the price of gas changing? By how much can I expect the price of gas to change over a given period? These are questions of interest to the everyday consumer, but they are also questions which motivate the main ideas of calculus (the function, derivative, and integral), and students see why we need these topics.

2. People learn by interacting with the world around them. No learning takes place by mere observation. Learning takes place when students work out the particulars of the concepts they are seeing. This is true no less in mathematics than it is in the humanities, the arts, or athletics. Each concept must be made concrete through individual effort in order to internalize it and ask the right questions about it.

How does this conception translate into teaching? Active learning, especially involving computer technology, is a core element of my teaching. For example, students in my Quantitative Reasoning course go house-shopping online using a real estate web site to gather data which they then use to calculate mortgage payments. Students in my Topics in Geometry course use dynamic geometry software to investigate constructions and formulate conjectures which they then prove. Students in my Differential Equations class use computer algebra systems and spreadsheets to find analytic, numerical, and graphical solutions to dynamical systems in finance and biology.

3. People learn best when they are taught how to learn. If a student is taught only content, learning takes place no faster than the rate at which the professor teaches. But if a student is taught not only content but process — the methodology by which new knowledge is generated in a subject — then the student can learn on his or her own; and the more he or she knows, the faster he or she will add to the knowledge base. Lifelong learning begins with learning how to learn on one’s own in this way.

How does this conception translate into teaching? Effective problem-solving a central goal of each of my courses. I designed and teach a course for sophomore mathematics students called Methods of Problem Solving in which Georg Polya’s four-stage problem-solving heuristic is employed in a variety of settings. I include a “mini-Polya” course in other courses, especially at and below the level of calculus, where students often struggle with solving problems. Assignments in these courses include problem sets which require structured problem-solving and clear exposition of reasoning.
4. People learn best when they are challenged. The goal of an education is not merely the accumulation of content knowledge but the creation of a lifelong learner. A student cannot become a such a learner if his or her academic work is unchallenging and the expectations are low. All students deserve to be given work that “stretches” them and to have high standards set for them. Otherwise there is no learning and no growth taking place, only a gradual settling into a lifelong, suboptimal level of skill.

How does this conception translate into teaching? I model the assessments in my courses using Bloom’s Taxonomy, a standard six-tiered framework of cognitive tasks. Some assessments focus on tasks in the lower three tiers (understand, remember, and apply). Others focus on the upper three tiers (analyze, evaluate, and create). For example, calculus students are given problem sets which require not just calculating derivatives but calculating the same derivative in multiple ways using a model that they have created with a spreadsheet, comparing the results, interpreting the meaning of the results in context, and deciding which derivative calculation is the most realistic. Also, each of my upper-level courses has a significant creative project built in; for example, Modern Algebra students created an online solutions wiki which contained the proofs for their exercises, and Cryptology students created a web site on cryptography during World War II.

5. People learn as much outside the classroom as they do inside. The life of learning truly takes hold in a person’s life when learning becomes de-institutionalized and seen as part of the fabric of everyday life. The learning experience for students should include numerous, inviting venues for learning outside the classroom. Every moment and location should be seen as a time and a place for learning.

How does this conception translate into teaching? I am almost constantly thinking about mathematics, teaching, and learning. Through my blog Casting Out Nines (http://castingoutnines.wordpress.com) and through microblogging platforms such as Twitter (http://twitter.com/roberttalbert), I carry on “back-channel” discussions on a broad range of subjects which include not only students but also professionals and interested readers from all over the world. I have helped develop numerous off-campus and after-hours opportunities for students to interact with mathematics and technical professionals, for example through shadowing programs with professionals in jobs that use mathematics. On a different level, I like to let my personal life be visible and accessible to students — through sharing stories about my kids or making food for evening classes — to let students know that becoming a lifelong learner and mathematician need not come at the expense of a fruitful personal life.

6. People enjoy learning things. When a person sets out to answer a question he or she believes is difficult and important, and when through hard work and perseverance that person arrives at an answer and a host of related questions, it feels good. When we learn, we have accessed that which makes us truly human: the ability to combine our thoughts and memories together with what we learn from the world around us to create something new.

How does this conception translate into teaching? In the end, my level of enthusiasm makes or breaks the learning experience for students. I am genuinely enthusiastic about learning and about mathematics, and I believe I have a responsibility to model a life of the mind that takes genuine pleasure in learning things and shares that pleasure shamelessly with my students. I try to transmit that pleasure and enthusiasm in each class meeting.

Since teaching and learning are inseparable, another key element in my teaching is my scholarship, which has lines of activity in mathematics and in teaching. I have included my scholarship about cryptography, for example, in my Modern Algebra course and the interdisciplinary course on “Cryptography, Privacy, and Leadership” which I designed. I have shared my work in Web 2.0 technology with pre-service mathematics teachers and used it to develop online group course projects. Making my scholarship accessible to students is another instance of de-institutionalizing learning in order to enflame the students’ curiosity. (More details about my scholarship can be found in my Statement of Scholarship.)

1. Holy Spirit (Third Day, Third Day)
2. Talk About Suffering (Phil Keaggy, Phil Keaggy and Sunday’s Child)
3. Curses (Steve Taylor, Squint)
4. Saturn, the Bringer of Old Age (Holst, The Planets, perf. by NY Philharmonic)
5. The Finer Things (Steve Winwood, Back in the High Life)
6. Telephone Song (The Vaughan Brothers, Family Style)
7. Fire (The Jimi Hendrix Experience, Are You Experienced?)
8. Give Thanks to the Lord (Christ Community Church, re:awakening)
9. Searchran Charin Tsiall (Clannad, Magical Ring)
10. Perpetual Change (Yes, The Yes Album)

“Perpetual Change” (#10 on the list) is a personal favorite of mine, even though I’m no longer the die-hard Yes geek I was when I was in high school. Here’s a very cool performance of this, with Yes vocalist Jon Anderson together with the Paul Green School of Rock All-Stars. Pretty amazing considering that the instrumentalists here are just teenagers!

• How to deal with feelings of inadequacy, from xkcd.
• edwired has some thoughts on the future of the academy in an economy where giving away your product doesn’t necessarily make your business unprofitable. Academhack follows up with related thoughts on using video podcasting to replace the usual lecture format. Interesting idea in giving away the podcast and then charging for in-class activity.
• Why pay dues to join a fraternity or sorority when you can pay one low price and have all the drunken party games on your Wii? I find it ironic that the Association of Fraternity Advisors would be so shocked. Where do you think the idea for the game came from, people?
• I’ve had a couple of posts lately about what I’d do if I were the university president. Now there’s a series of articles out on the same subject except with contributions by people who are probably a lot more qualified for that position than I am.
• Here are some updates on Xian-Jin Li’s purported proof of the Riemann hypothesis which I first blogged about here. Summary: There are some flaws, but it might be fixable.
• 50+ productivity blogs you’ve never heard of before. So please, spend lots of time reading those productivity blogs instead of getting stuff done. (Or better yet, write blog posts about spending time reading those blogs instead of getting stuff done…)

Good quote about attendance via Study Hacks:

“The following are valid excuses for skipping class: I have a fever of 105 degrees; I need to fly to L.A. to accept an Academy Award; today in class we are reviewing a book I wrote; my leg is caught in a bear trap. The moral of this exercise: Always go to class!“
– from How to Win at College

Here are some memorable excuses I’ve had before:

• A student missed class because, he said later, he had to go to the doctor. Fine, I said, just bring me the doctor’s note and I’ll excuse the absence. Instead of a doctor’s note, he brought me a bottle of pills that he said the doctor gave him. The bottle didn’t have a label on it.
• A student approached me the day before a final exam to request that he be excused and take the final exam later in the week. The reason? He claimed his dad was a famous NASCAR driver and had called him up that morning telling him to come work with the pit crew at a big race. I told him to tell his dad that as soon as the final is over, he could join up with the team. (This was while I was at Vanderbilt,  so it’s actually possible that his dad really was a famous NASCAR driver.)
• A student missed three days of class. Later, he explained: He was in jail for a week. Turned out it was true. So I’d add incarceration to the list in the quote.

What good skipped-class excuses have you heard (or can you make up)?

Blogging is light right now because I’m on sick kid duty at home. But I wanted to check in to mention that this post is the 1000th post I have made here at Casting Out Nines. I’ve been thinking I need to say something stupendously wise for such a milestone, but I think that’s putting too much pressure on me, as I am accustomed to neither stupendousness nor wisdom. So instead, I just wanted to note some cool stats about the blog:

• As I said, this is the 1000th post since the blog’s inception on December 3, 2005. That was 949 days ago, so I’ve averaged right at one post per day for 2.5 years. That’s been pretty much my goal for posting and will remain so.
• This blog has had a total of 9,568 approved comments. That’s an average of about 10 comments per post, which is stat I am particularly pleased with, as it indicates that CO9s is not an echo chamber, as so many blogs are. The median amount of comments per post is probably more like 0 or 1, but at least occasionally there are substantive conversations that arise from the posts here, and I’m very humbled and thankful for that.
• The Akismet filter has blocked 42,159 spam comments, not counting the 38 that are in the queue right now. I think a spam-to-legitimate comment ratio of 4.5:1 isn’t too bad for a blog these days.

So instead of something stupendous, I’ll just say “thanks” to all readers and commenters, past and present, who have made blogging here such a satisfying and educational experience.

Due to circumstances surrounding this article from last week, which you can read about in an update there, I need to be clear about something very important here:

Casting Out Nines is a private blog operated by me as a private citizen. This blog is not, in any way, affiliated with my employer. Opinions, statements, and comments here are not to be construed as me speaking for my employer. Those statements are my own, and nothing that occurs here should be implicitly or explicitly connected with my employer.

That’s all for now.

Good article here at the Chronicle on balancing teaching with research, from a neuroscience professor who makes it work for him.

The reality of modern academe is that, no matter what your institutional affiliation, the time you can devote to research is being squeezed by multiple competing demands. No simple solution to that problem exists for any of us. But I have found that rethinking the nature of our professional commitments, such that teaching activities bleed into research ones (and vice versa), can be an effective way to reduce the time crunch. Academics describe their workload of scholarship, teaching, and service as if those were entirely separate entities. In reality, the line between teaching and research is usually much fuzzier.

Read the whole thing, in which Prof. Gendle writes at length about the potentially prosperous symbiosis between teaching and research. He points out three key scholarly skills which teaching reinforces: developing your presentation skills, responding appropriately to odd questions, and making connections across fields. He emphasizes his success in maintaining an active research agenda while keeping a “moderately heavy” teaching load, which for him is 5-6 courses per year. My teaching load is 8 courses (6 preps) per year, and to that situation Prof. Gendle says:

I am fortunate that my teaching load still allows some dedicated time for research. That may not be the case at institutions with teaching loads of seven or more courses in a single academic year. Teaching loads of that magnitude often pass a tipping point for most faculty members (myself included). With that many courses, there simply are not enough hours in the day to conduct classes, grade papers, etc., and still have time left for research.

Gendle is in the psychology department at Elon University, which is well-known for being an undergraduate institution with a reputation for engaging students in meaningful scholarly work.

Do any of you teach at institutions with a 7+ course-per-year teaching load, and still manage an active research program of some sort?

1. Out of the Silent Planet (King’s X, Gretchen Goes to Nebraska)
2. Not Just For the Dead (King’s X, King’s X)
3. Over the Hills and Far Away (Led Zeppelin, Houses of the Holy)
4. Swlabr (Cream, Disraeli Gears)
5. Stomping Grounds (Bela Fleck and the Flecktones, Live Art)
6. Love Struck Baby (Stevie Ray Vaughn, Texas Flood)
7. On My Knees (Son Seals, Essential Chicago Blues)
8. Howlin’ for My Darling (Howlin’ Wolf, His Best: Chess 50th Anniversary)
9. In Your Own Sweet Way (Dave Brubeck, Ken Burns Jazz: Dave Brubeck)
10. You Should See The Way It Feels (David Wilcox, East Asheville Hardware)

This being Independence Day, I’m going to choose the “most American” song from the list this week to feature. I think that would be “Love Struck Baby” by Stevie Ray Vaughn. SRV embodied the very best of a truly American art form: the blues, and not just the blues but Texas-style blues. If you want to be proud that you’re an American, just watch this clip. Don’t miss the behind-the-back solo around 1:35.

Bonus: You know, Chicago blues is also a quintessentially American musical style, and it’s as fun and musical as Texas blues. To prove that most things are interconnected, here’s a clip of Son Seals (#7 on the list) doing “The Sky is Crying”, which provided Stevie Ray Vaughn with a posthumous radio hit back in the 90’s.

…then I might be driven to drink because of the job stress, but I don’t think I would drive around drunk either:

The president of the University of Evansville was arrested for driving while intoxicated Wednesday evening.

Stephen Jennings, who has been president since 2001 at the dry campus, was driving with a blood-alcohol content nearly twice the level at which a driver is considered intoxicated, according to a probable cause affidavit posted online by the Evansville Courier and Press.[...]

“I have obviously made a very serious mistake, and I apologize to the campus community and the community at large,” Jennings said in the statement. “I will take every necessary action to ensure that it doesn’t happen again.”

Jennings pleaded guilty to two counts of operating a motor vehicle while intoxicated Thursday morning via video from the Vanderburgh County Jail, according to court records. He was allowed to enter the deferral program because it was his first offense.

If Jennings successfully completes the program, the charges against him will be dismissed.

According to the article, Jennings was pulled over after weaving his car between lanes on a major highway. Then, after police “immediately smelled a very strong odor of alcohol beverages” and noticed his “bloodshot and glassy eyes”, Jennings refused a field sobriety test; then he claimed he hadn’t been drinking; then he admitted to having two beers. Then they found his blood alcohol content to be 0.14, which is way more than you’d get after two beers. Unless those two beers were in addition to a bottle of scotch.

The trustees at UE are rallying around Jennings:

“The board feels he has done a wonderful job for this university and this community,” board Chairman Niel Ellerbrook said in the statement, “and it is our intention to do whatever is needed to help Steve.”

That’s nice, but if I were a trustee and not just a university president, I’d have to think that raising money and representing the institution to the public — which are two of the main jobs of the president — are going to be a lot harder when you’ve been arrested for DUI.