Workshop Program

Note: the 2010 workshop is over. Find out more about the "Preparing for an Academic Career in the Geosciences" workshops,or read on for more information about the 2010 workshop.
Jump down to Friday * Saturday * Sunday

Thursday, July 29, 2010


1:00-6:00 Workshop Registration

Participants check in for dorm assignment and meal card. See travel and logistics page for additional information. Workshop registration is from 1:00-4:30 at Studio 1 (736 Escondido Road) and then from 5:00-9:00 at the workshop opening reception in Branner Dining Hall. Please check in for the workshop and get your name badge and workshop notebook when you arrive.

Optional Pre-Workshop Events on Thursday Afternoon

2:30-3:30 Concurrent Sessions

  • The Hydrologic Cycle of the American West during times of high CO2: A View from the Past - Page Chamberlain, Stanford University, Mitchell Building, Room 352 (third floor)
     
  • Straddling the Divide Between Fundamental and Applied Research: From the San Andreas Fault to Carbon Sequestration - Mark Zoback, Stanford University, Mitchell Building, Hartley Conference Room (first floor)
     

3:45-4:45 Concurrent Sessions

  • Families and Careers: A Panel Discussion - Robyn Wright Dunbar, moderator, Mitchell Building, Hartley Conference Room 

Discussion of issues, opportunities, and choices associated with families and careers, including children, dual-career couples, and more, followed by questions from the participants.

  • Tour of Labs and Equipment in the School of Earth Sciences - Jessica Warren, Marty Grove, and Caroline Harris - meet in Mitchell Building lobby (first floor) for start of tour

Workshop Begins


5:00-6:00 Reception and Icebreaker Activity - Branner Dining Hall (enter at back side of building; front doors are locked)

6:00-7:00 Dinner - Branner Dining Hall

7:00-9:00 Introductions and Opening Session - Branner Dining Hall

  • Welcome, Introductions, Workshop Goals and Overview 
    Heather Macdonald and Robyn Wright Dunbar
  • Where Do You Want to Go? - A Spectrum of Academic Careers: Panel and Discussion 
    Workshop leaders from different types of colleges and universities 

Each panelist will give a short overview of his or her current job. Following the presentations, you will have an opportunity to ask questions. The goal is for participants to learn more about the diversity of job opportunities available in academia.

Our academic career profiles page has links to profiles of many academic geoscientists, including most of the 2010 Career Prep workshop leaders. We also have a collection of profiles of geoscientists in geoscience education, outreach, and public affairs.

Friday, July 30, 2010

7:00-8:00 Breakfast - Stern Dining Hall

8:15-8:35 Overview of Day and Preparing Now For Your Future Academic Career in the Geosciences (PowerPoint 2007 (.pptx) 1.3MB Jul26 10) - Arrillaga Alumni Center, Fisher Conference Center, Room LLL
Heather Macdonald

Theme for the day: Who are you as a teacher?

8:40-9:40 Research on Learning: Concurrent Sessions

This session--designed for those who are not yet familiar with the application of research on learning to teaching or who want a review--offers a brief survey of some of the factors that seem to most impact learning (e.g., students' prior knowledge, misconceptions, active engagement, learning styles, content organizational schemes, metacognition, etc.). We anticipate most of you will find that this session contains significant new information.

Teaching Science: What Research Tells Us

This session is intended for those who have a working understanding of how learning research is applied to teaching. It will include a practical survey of quantitative and qualitative methods that can be used to collect and analyze data on student learning in different settings.

9:40-10:00 Break

10:00-10:50 Teaching Breakout Sessions I

Moving a class towards a shared goal can often come with obstacles that challenge the best of us. In this session, we will review strategies for dealing with common problems of the classroom, including handling emotional students, motivating poor performers, and helping students achieve their best performances.

Apply what we know about science learning to design effective courses. This session hits the highlights setting instructional objectives, determining course format, and assessment.

This session will provide examples to illustrate how you can incorporate local and/or global datasets into courses, thereby allowing undergraduate students opportunities to analyze and interpret real data. We will highlight case-studies that range in scope from short, in-class activities to multi-week course projects and discuss how to use archives as well as real-time datasets. Participants will examine a variety of data sources and begin identifying key concepts and/or course activities that would benefit from this practice.

11:00-11:50 Teaching Breakout Sessions II

Lecturing is an efficient ways for professors to deliver content to students, but even with the best lecturers, students sitting passively in a class may receive very little of the content delivered. We'll discuss numerous ways to make lectures an active experience for students, whether for a class of 20 or 200. Examples will include ideas for small group work, think-pair-share activities, demonstrations, various classroom assessment techniques, and using personal response systems (clickers) effectively with conceptests.

Students hold many misconceptions about how science really works, especially in the geosciences. In this session, we'll discuss strategies to address those misconceptions and integrate the real process of science into your teaching, from introductory science courses to beginning graduate courses.

Presentation graphics software is widely used in geoscience teaching, but straight out of the box, it can be pedagogically stifling. This session offers practical suggestions for enhancing your slide presentations, drawing on cognition and visualization research, information design, and aesthetic awareness.

12:00-1:00 Lunch and Optional Lunch-time Birds of a Feather Discussions (12:15-1:15) - Stern Dining Hall

Possible topics might include: Children and Careers, Non-Faculty Academic Positions, Being a Good Departmental Citizen, and Evaluation of Student Learning.

1:30-3:15 DesigningEffective Classroom/Laboratory Activities - Arrillaga Alumni Center, Fisher Conference Center, Room LLL
Heather Macdonald and other workshop leaders

For this activity, you will work in small groups to develop a classroom or lab activity that addresses a key concept or skill in your discipline. This session will be an opportunity to share ideas with other participants as you consider different ways to teach that concept or skill. 

View posters of the teaching activity ideas

3:15-3:45 Break

3:45-5:00 Teaching Statements Concurrent Sessions: Articulating Your Teaching Goals and Highlighting Your Accomplishments

This session is designed to "jump start" the writing process for those who have yet to draft a teaching statement. Participants will articulate their teaching goals and accomplishments and begin the process of folding these into a concise teaching statement.

Participants who bring five copies of their teaching statements will work in small groups, each with a workshop leader, reviewing each other's statements and offering feedback. Leaders will also offer their comments.

5:00-5:20 Reflection time and Daily "Road Check" - Arrillaga Alumni Center, Fisher Conference Center, Room LLL

6:00-7:00 Dinner - Stern Dining

7:30-8:30 Optional Evening Discussions:

Saturday, July 31, 2010

7:00-8:00 Breakfast - Stern Dining Hall

Theme for the morning: Who are you as a researcher?

8:15-8:25 Overview of Day and Report on Daily Feedback - Arrillaga Alumni Center, Fisher Conference Center, Room LLL

8:25-9:20 Presenting Yourself to Others (PowerPoint 850kB Jul27 10) - Arrillaga Alumni Center, Fisher Conference Center, Room LLL
Heather Macdonald and Francisca Oboh-Ikuenobe

In the job search process you will have very brief, yet critical, opportunities to convey your work to others. Participants in this session will refine a personal "Elevator Talk," a paragraph that describes the nature and significance of your research and is aimed at an audience of other geoscientists. You will then practice talking about your work to others.

9:20-9:40 Beating the impostor syndrome: Why we all feel like fakes, and why it does not matter (Acrobat (PDF) 470kB Jul31 10) - Arrillaga Alumni Center, Fisher Conference Center, Room LLL
Margot Gerritsen

9:40-10:00 Break

10:00-11:00 Moving Your Research Forward to New Settings: Breakout Sessions - Arrillaga Alumni Center, Fisher Conference Center, Room LLL

11:10-12:10 Research Statements: Concurrent Sessions

This session is designed to "jump start" the writing process for those who have yet to draft a research statement and will include discussion of key aspects of research statements intended for a particular type of institution (e.g., liberal arts college, research university).

Participants who submitted research statements in advance will review each other's research statements and will discuss key aspects of research statements intended for a particular type of institution (e.g., liberal arts college, research university).

12:10-1:00 Lunch and Optional Lunch-time Birds of a Feather Discussions (12:15-1:15) - Stern Dining Hall

Possible topics might include follow-up to the beating the impostor syndrome session, being an international scientist in the US, a question and answer (Q&A) potpourri, community college interviews, post-doc life, two-body "opportunity," getting a job overseas, and other topics suggested by participants or leaders


Theme for the afternoon: Choosing Where You Want to Go and Getting There

1:30-2:50 Mapping Your Career: Choices, Balance, and Action Planning - Arrillaga Alumni Center, Fisher Conference Center, Barnes Room
Heather Macdonald and all workshop leaders

Given where you are in your career and what you have learned at this workshop, reflect on your long term goals or "dream job." What are your next steps? What advice would help you most at this point?

2:50-3:10 Break

3:10-4:30 The Academic Job Search: Applications, Interviews, Teaching Demonstrations, and Job Talks (PowerPoint 215kB Jul26 10) - Arrillaga Alumni Center, Fisher Conference Center, Barnes Room
Heather Macdonald and all workshop leaders

How to tailor your application for each advertised position, what to expect during your interview, and how to prepare an effective "job talk" (research presentation and/or teaching demonstration). Brief presentations will be followed by a question and answer period and some mock interview questioning.

4:30-5:00 Negotiating Before You Accept an Academic Position: Setting Yourself Up for Success - Arrillaga Alumni Center, Fisher Conference Center, Barnes Room

5:00-5:30 Reflection, Next Steps, and Workshop Evaluation - Arrillaga Alumni Center, Fisher Conference Center, Barnes Room

6:30 Reception followed by dinner at 7:00 - Branner Dining Hall. Dinner will be followed by an optional contra dance for those who are interested.

Sunday, August 1, 2010

7:00-8:30 Breakfast - Stern Dining Hall

Optional Workshop Sessions - Mitchell Hall

8:30-9:30 Concurrent Workshops: Session 1

This session focuses on short term (three-five year) planning once you have landed an academic job. The emphasis is on how to effectively capture the "big picture" of your job responsibilities and to use this perspective to strategically plan and prioritize different facets of your work in the pre-tenure years.

This session focuses on strategies for running and funding international courses and research projects at a Primarily Undergraduate Institution (PUI).

We can eliminate stress for ourselves and our students by clearly detailing our expectations and course logistics in a syllabus on the first day of class. In this session, we will review different topics that one should address in a syllabus, both for the benefit of the instructor and the student. We will also discuss the many ways in which we can design a class and grading system that allows students to take control of their own class performance and feel happier and more engaged in the course.

9:30-9:45 Break

9:45-10:45 Concurrent Workshops: Session 2

We teach about Earth systems, processes, and history in real places that hold personal and cultural meanings and diverse kinds of relevance for our students. Their prior senses of place can either help or impede their learning. Participation in this session will explore the use of place as context and theme for relevant, inclusive, and trans-disciplinary place-based teaching; and the leverage of sense of place as motivation for learning.

This session will explore leadership and communication skills that are important in your success in teaching, research and service, motivating students and colleagues to ensure goals are successfully completed, and utilizing your time effectively.

10:45-11:00 Break

11:00-12:00 Concurrent Workshops: Session 3

The first step in achieving a good balance in our lives is to clearly set our priorities. Next, we need to be realistic about how much we can do. In this session, we will rank our priorities and use them to help us make choices about what jobs, projects, and activities we want to pursue. We will also review and share strategies for managing time and juggling the tasks that we do choose.

Writing well is hard (and even harder to teach), but well-written papers can be incredibly powerful in both our teaching and our research. In this session, we'll talk about ways to design courses that develop your students as science writers, including giving and receiving constructive feedback.

This session will focus on strategies for engaging in the teacher training efforts of your college/university.


If you attended any of today's optional sessions, please give us your feedback via the Sunday session evaluation form. Thanks!


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