How to watch a video of yourself without gagging

Although it fits the definition of torture given by most human rights watchdogs, watching videos of yourself teaching is also good for you.  This aspect of the FIRST IV training program was generally agreed by all of us to be the most valuable, and I want to share two of the insights we gained from the experience.

1) Watching the video by yourself is good, but watching it in the company of supportive but critical peers and mentors is about a billion times better.  Left to themselves, most people watch the video as hyper-critical train wrecks, obsessing about their annoying speech habits and the distracting way they rock from side to side whenever they're not speaking.  They also tend to see only the the disasters and not to notice the successes and opportunities for growth.  Other people keep you rational and point out the types of things you miss.

2) There is a very simple but powerful question you can ask yourself when analyzing your class: What am I doing that my students should be doing instead?  This was suggested to me by our group mentor and I found it very useful for several situations, but here are some of the examples that are less 'me-specific':

• I want students to become familiar with analyzing graphs, as well as use them to answer difficult questions, and I also expect them to do all that in the exam.  So why, when I presented a graph in class, did I first describe the axes, then describe the data, then spell out what it means and only then ask them a really difficult interpretive question?  Because that's how I present a graph during a science seminar.  But reading and interpreting graphs is what they need to practice, not me, so it would have been more valuable for them if I'd presented the question and then given the graph as a tool to answer it.  Then they would have had to mentally process the data before interpreting it and would have practiced the skills that I expect them to demonstrate in the exam.
• Why am I summarizing the textbook chapter in a lecture before asking the students to do an activity based on it?  Why should they bother reading if I'm going to tell them the most important bits in class?  I could ask them to summarize it and tell me the most important bits before we start the activity.
• I spend a lot of time coming up with questions to generate group discussion.  But they could also come up with discussion questions, and this would force them to engage more with the big picture.

You get the pattern?

My fingers + willemite + calcite + short wave UV lamp

And you thought we were out for the count

Summer is slightly less hot and sticky than it was last week.  Course-co-ordinators are starting to make demands.  Enrolling students are starting to make demands.  Bosses are starting to get their nervous twitches back.  Post-docs are starting to hit the books and panicking about the impossibility of juggling research and teaching.  That's right, semester is nearly upon us.  And with that, you can expect to find me posting again.  Hurrah!