I'm here at the undergrad research faculty development workshop. I got up at 3:30 to head towards the airport, flew out (and man, are my arms TIRED from kayaking yesterday!), and got here to listen to some presentations.
There's something ironicly unsettling about listening to a lecture on learning that's supposed to be based on questioning, action, doing, and participation.
And powerpoints. Could I hate them more? Yes, I probably could. But when someone hands me a printout of their powerpoint slides, I just cringe inside. Why can't they just hand me a nice, clean one page outline of their presentation? Why must it take up six pages, because each bullet point is on it's own separate powerpoint screenshot thing? Wasting paper!
The bad news so far is that no one in the humanities seems to have much luck using the science model of having students to research added onto a lab or field project centered on a professor's research. I have some ideas about why this is, mostly that the add ons that students are doing are less real "research" than data collection.
But the corollary that folks seem to have found, that humanities faculty research doesn't generally benefit from collaborating from students is disappointing to me. Not unexpected, but disappointing for sure.
Well, off to an early bedtime, freezing in an over air-conditioned dormitory room.
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