Intro Geology Teaching Successes & Um, Not Successes

Meaghan has now taught three terms of Introductory Geology as an adjunct, and has a few things she's been sampling with her teaching that went well, and a few that, well, didn't. Since she's no longer working for CWU and won't be teaching this year but instead traveling and looking for a more permanent position (HINT HINT READERS WHO ARE EMPLOYERS), here's a review of what she's learned so that it can benefit anyone else looking to teach an introductory geo class.

But it's a lot easier to write in first person so we're going to do that in 3...2...1...NOW: For context, the classes I've been teaching are:

1. Between 30 and 85 students
2. 4 days a week for an hour
3. Cover only a single quarter (10 weeks, September to December)
4. Have an accompanying lab, but the lab grade is separate and also optional so not all students are taking the lab
5. Are stand-alone intro courses: CWU doesn't have an intro geology series, just several variants of one class so students can choose to take whichever intro class that seems most appealing
6. Meet one of the gen-ed standards, so typically are full of freshman that are undeclared
7. Have a high failure rate. All the intro science classes do at CWU, though.
8. Have some form of Canvas (online software) component
9. And are taught using a mixture of Powerpoint and other activities/discussions

OK! Now onto the teaching techniques!

Photo by the AMAZING Marli Miller, whose photos are all free for geology class use!
http://geologypics.com

Do I Even Want To Go To This Grad School?

Congratulations! You are considering going to graduate school in some sort of STEM field*. Ahead of you are a mountain of applications and decisions, and just think - that sensation you have of maybe I'm not worthy? Yeah, get ready for a LOT OF THAT. It can be really intimidating to apply for graduate school, and lots of people get too stuck in the mind set of "well what if I'm not good enough" when what they really need to be focused on is whether or not the place they are going is good enough for them. There will be plenty of time for self-doubt once you get into graduate school, but trust us, this absolutely is a key time to be picky.

But graduate school is a big life choice, and whether you have one school in mind or many different schools you now get to ask yourself the really awkward questions that will help you decide: Do I Even Want to Go to This Graduate School?

WHAT IS THIS?

How to Not Drop Out of Graduate School

You may have noticed that as of late, our posting frequency has declined. Part of that has been a lack of good material, part has been an excess of trips (backpacking! Spain! Other exciting destinations like Ottawa!), but the biggest part has being trying to find the answer to the title of this blog post: how the hell to not drop out of graduate school. Meaghan just finished her 3rd year of not-dropping-out, and Amy just finished her first, so at this point we're kind of becoming experts in this whole "not abandoning ship" thing, but the past few months have really put that to the test. There's a lot of reasons to drop out, and a lot of reasons not to drop out - the pros and cons lists of graduate school isn't what we're here to discuss, but rather the ways you stay just barely afloat right up until you're rescued by graduating.

Trigger warning: we will be discussing some of the aspects of depression and anxiety that go hand-in-hand with graduate school.

A Love Letter to the University of Oregon

I, Meaghan Emery, love my job.

Thiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiis much

Like all good jobs, mine is fascinating, challenging, filled with the support of amazing co-workers, and is preparing me for my future. Also like many good jobs, mine is exhausting, sometimes bewildering and full of bizarre red tape, and frequently follows me home. My job is salaried, which is a fancy code word I've learned means "work more than this number of hours," and divides up in the following ways:

• about 20 hours of actually paid time in the museum or the classroom depending on my exact role that term 
• about 20-35 hours of technically unpaid research time which is often eaten up by proposal-writing instead

• and about 5 hours of bitterly wasted hours answering emails and attending meetings. 

Sometimes I work weekends but not always - sometimes I can go climbing instead. My job helps subsidize the conference I attend each year (so professional). I have health insurance - like, we're talking really good, 15$-massages-without-referral health insurance. Oh, and I get paid well enough to pay my bills and buy new climbing shoes when I want them, rather than when I need them.

I have this fantastic job for two reasons: because my department and my advisors value and emphasize the importance of a healthy work-life balance, and because my school has a union that advocates for me, protects me when I am weak, and works hard to keep the University an amazing learning environment and workplace.

Our excessively patriotic union logo.
Yes, we see what you're doing there, GTFF, with your subliminal "THE UNION IS FOR 'MERICA" message.

How To Drink and Write Grant Proposals

Amy and Meaghan are experts on writing grant proposals.

It takes lots of grants to fund these pimpin' gold chains.

No really, we are. We've written dozens of grants and scholarship applications, from tiny 100$ travel grants to enormous grants that provide funding for several years. We've also even received several of these grants - Amy received both the Goldwater Scholarship and the National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship, and Meaghan has received grants from the Field Museum of Natural History, American Museum of Natural History, Harvard's Museum of Comparative Zoology, and others. But this isn't going to be a post on how to make your proposal great, because honestly that's the least difficult part of actually writing a grant proposal (strange though it may seem). The very hardest part is actually vomiting that shit out on paper so you have something to get started with. That's what we're going to talk about today: paper brain vomit.

Trolling the Fossil Freeway with Ray

Even if you haven't heard the name Ray Troll, it's still almost guaranteed that you've seen some of his artwork. Maybe you saw an amazing museum exhibit, or picked up a copy of Cruisin' the Fossil Freeway, or perhaps you remember a few weeks ago for Mary Anning's birthday we debuted an awesome piece of his:

“Mary Anning's story was really inspiring to me and Brad when we made that book all those years ago and then finding out “she sells seashells by the seashore…” it's all about her..." - Ray Troll

But Ray Troll is much more than an amazing artist: he's a top-notch paleonerd, amazing author, game-creator, science education advocate, fish enthusiast of the strongest sort, and also a musician! He also recently completed a project close to home for the Vengeance Team: he painted the mural of the Saber Toothed Salmon fossil, part of the Explore Oregon exhibit at the University of Oregon Museum of Natural and Cultural History (That exhibit is freshly opened and extremely awesome, so if you get a chance you should swing by and check it out).

Amy and blog assistant/boyfriend Kelly were lucky enough (Meaghan is SUPER GODDAMN JEALOUS) to sit down with Ray Troll and his wife Michelle at their beautifully fossil-decorated house in Ketchikan, Alaska and pepper him with questions about his music, art, connections to Mary Anning and paleoichthyology musings while Meaghan sat at home grumbling and doing science stuff.

Forever the image of Meaghan's Envy

Backcountry Navigation Tips: Bush Evasion Tactics

Amy is back in Alaska, and preparing herself for a job that involves collecting deer poop in the back country. Yes, that's a job, and yes, we'll talk about it in more detail in a future blog post. But Meaghan is feeling helpful, and wanted to give Amy a few tips she learned in the backcountry while surveying for lichen and slugs (yes, that's also a job, and yes, we'll talk about that too some day). Today's tips are all about the worst part of fieldwork: getting through shrubbery.

See, all bushes are horrible when you're walking off trail, but they're all awful in their own ways: each is its own special, shitacular snowflake. Some bend beneath your weight only to slam back up into your crotch when you least expect it, while others offer a wooden jungle gym you'll have to force your way through like Catherine Zeta Jones in Entrapment. Here, Meaghan shares some of her top moves for circumnavigating shrubbery struggles.

#Sarcasticthumb

GSA 2013: The Good, The Bad, and The Coyote Ugly

GSA was full of its fair share of tummy aches, talks where squinting was the only option, and hilarious, fabulous geology. First off, I finally physically met my mentor, Kate Zeigler!

Amy, Kate, and their Paleozoic pal eurypterid!

Our meeting in person was almost more than the geology gods could handle, but we fortunately weren't struck down and made into fulgurites (heh) as we dined on burgers and milkshakes. I could finally ask some questions that are hard to phrase over email ("Erm soo paleomagnitude... that's like, yeah, basalt points north? Poles switch and it blows my mind?") I also got a chance to grill her on some hard hitting paleo-questions which will be featured in an upcoming Vengeance Team interview (Meaghan guest stars and wow, what a guest she makes...).

I hadn't realized how much I had in common with Kate, who has been my mentor through the Huffington Post Girls in STEM program from afar for a few months. We have plans to rock climb in New Mexico whenever my skin becomes so pale that the SW sun is the only cure to my vitD deficiency.