Category: Uncategorized

I really had fun learning about my implicit associations using Project Implicit. If you haven’t visited this website, you should. The website contains a broad range of tests designed to reveal your implicit associations. The tests are a series of exercises where you are asked to sort words/pictures into groups as fast as possible. The words/pictures are broken down into categories. The categories and words/pictures stay the same throughout the test but the grouping instructions change. For example, the table below shows the categories and words for the Gender – Science Implicit Association Test (IAT), the test associated with the title of this blog.

Implicit Association Test

Next, you will use the ‘E’ and ‘I’ computer keys to categorize items into groups as fast as you can. These are the four groups and the items that belong to each:

Category	Items
Male	Man, Son, Father, Boy, Uncle, Grandpa, Husband, Male
Female	Mother, Wife, Aunt, Woman, Girl, Female, Grandma, Daughter
Science	Astronomy, Math, Chemistry, Physics, Biology, Geology, Engineering
Liberal Arts	History, Arts, Humanities, English, Philosophy, Music, Literature

There are seven parts. The instructions change for each part. Pay attention.

Project Implicit

During the test, you might be asked to group words in the Male category with words in the Science category, and words in the Female category with the words in the Liberal Arts category. Then, you might be asked to group Female with Science and Male with Liberal Arts. Sometimes, the categories aren’t grouped and sometimes groupings repeat, you just have to pay attention and respond as fast as possible. At the end, you take a brief survey and get your result.

I am a female Chemist, so I wasn’t surprised when my result for the Gender – Science IAT was “a moderate automatic association for Male with Liberal Arts and Female with Science.” However, my implicit bias is definitely showing. What I found most interesting was the breakdown of results based on web responses, which is provided at the end of every test. The Gender – Science IAT breakdown is below:

Based on the breakdown, I am definitely in the minority when it comes to my implicit association. Over 70% of respondents have at least a slight implicit association of Male with Science and Female with Liberal Arts with only about 20% having little to no automatic preference.

We really need the percentage of no preference results to increase. We need more Females in Science!

Lord Rayleigh famously explained why the sky is blue. He was also a Nobel Prize recipient, but for a completely different reason. In 1894, he discovered (quite accidently) a new element, the inert gas argon. This story is one I remember from reading my student’s analytical chemistry textbook. It also relates well to my first lesson from The Chronical of Higher Education article, Small Changes in Teaching: The First 5 Minutes of Class. Lesson #1: start with something engaging! Storytelling wasn’t actually one of the author’s tips for starting a lecture, but the article started with a story and that grabbed my attention enough to keep me reading on. Here are James M. Lang’s other suggestions with my thoughts and comments.

1. Establish a purpose for each class by opening the lesson with questions. The questions should be answered during the lecture to demonstrate learning.

I like this idea of asking questions at the beginning of class because it right away tells the students that there is a point to the lecture and to the material they are learning. I am imagining a lot of “Have you ever considered this,” or “How might you determine this,” questions for an Analytical Chemistry class.

1. Review the previous lecture material by asking the students to give the review, aka “retrieval practice.”

I always appreciated when my professors would review the material from our previous lecture. Though it took up some precious minutes of class time, it really helped to get back in the mindset of the course, especially after a weekend or having three other classes in between. I like the idea of asking the students to give the review because it creates an opportunity to gauge what they remember and clear up any misconceptions.

1. Reactivate what students learned in previous courses or have heard about in the media.

This is so important. I love when professors do this or when I can do this for my students. It’s that “Oh yeah, I remember that!” moment when everything floods back to the front of your memory. Reactivating the student’s memory helps gauge their knowledge and understanding and helps them make connections that can bolster learning.

1. Have the students write down their answers.

This is not something I have considered before though I think it is a good idea. Ask the students a question, have them write down their answer, and then at the end of class after you’ve answered the question in the lecture have them look back at their answer. That way, they can recall what they knew before the lecture and remember what they learned during the lecture.

I found this article very valuable and look forward to implementing Lang’s suggestions in my classroom.

Preamble: If I estimate where my wealth would be if I chose a vocation over undergraduate and graduate school, I could easily have bought a house by now. After five years at university and two bachelor’s degrees under my belt, one in Chemistry and one in Forensic and Investigative Sciences, I started out earning an annual salary of less than $45,000 and had $18,000 in student loans (thanks to my middle-class parents who could afford to help me pay for college). Thank goodness I was also living at home and not paying rent because rent on Long Island (NY) would have been more than two weeks of my salary. I went back to school 1.5 years later, working toward a PhD in Chemistry and making enough to save a little (thanks to my wife, who is also in graduate school, and our relatively low rent). If and when I graduate and find a teaching position at a university, there’s a good chance I will be making just a few thousand dollars more than my starting salary out of college. To sum it all up, that’s 11 years of schooling, $18,000 in student loans, and little in savings. Meanwhile, I could have spent 2 years at a vocational school, earned money while taking classes, and started out making $45,000 a year, according to nprEd’s recent article, High-Paying Trade Jobs Sit Empty, While High School Grads Line Up for University.

So what’s wrong with learning a trade? Nothing.

In the United States, most vocation professionals are well respected and well paid. Then why aren’t more high school graduates going to vocational schools and earning certificates and associate degrees? The nprEd reporters highlight both the high demand for vocational workers in the United States and the contradictory high school-to-four-year university pipeline view of many parents, schools, and high school students. The imbalance is likely caused by the negative stigma around vocational work. Parents want more for their kids; they don’t want their kids to have to work “dirty jobs.” Plus, vocational work is for people who can’t cut it at 4-year universities, right? Hopefully this mentality changes, and soon because we need more people skilled in vocational work!

Based on the article, vocational work sounds like a good career/first serious job choice. There are more jobs available, workers are paid well, they start earning several years before university graduates, and they are re not swimming in debt from tuition at a 4-year university. Also noteworthy, salaries for jobs that require a bachelor’s degree are declining while demand for vocational workers is pushing salaries up up up!

Students at university should have a good plan for when they graduate. Instead, many of them come to college because they think they are supposed to or they have to in order to get a job. When I ask my undergraduate students what they want to do after they graduate, most of them stare back at me terrified and respond with “I don’t know.”

The moral of the story is, not everyone is fit for a 4-year university just like not everyone is fit to learn a trade. But, we need to do a better job of helping middle and high school students choose the path that’s right for them and prepare them for their futures.

I was thinking about how graduate students and faculty have a different relationship with campus than undergraduates, and how that might mean we have to do a little extra work if we want to be of most benefit possible to our students. I first came to Virginia Tech as a student in graduate school. My sister has been here since 2010, so I have visited and am vaguely familiar with aspects of campus and community life, but I, and I am sure many other graduate students, have a vastly different relationship to the university and town than undergraduate students. This is of concern to me when I think about preparing to teach my first course next year.

I want to be able to help my students not only succeed in my class but also college, overall, but I am concerned that I don’t know about the different resources available to them. If I don’t know what resources, services, etc. are available, I won’t be able to connect my students to the people, centers and services that might be of greatest help to them. I plan to spend some time this summer and over the fall semester visiting different buildings on campus to get a better sense of who and what is located where. I really want to incorporate campus resources into my classes (which will be comprised of primarily first-year students) so they can start off their college careers with a knowledge of where to turn when they need help.

The other day I received a text message from my good friend and former lab-mate who is now teaching undergraduate Chemistry courses at a liberal arts university. He asked for my help with getting some supplies together for a trip he was making to Virginia Tech with some of his students. They were doing an experiment and needed to use one of the VT Chemistry Department’s analytical instruments that was not available at his university. When I met up with him, his face was not as cheerful as usual; he looked exhausted. When I asked how he was doing, he said okay but described feeling burnt out, overworked and buried under his busy schedule. I was worried. My lab-mate is a pretty seasoned instructor, having been professor of record for general chemistry at Virginia Tech for several semesters before finding his new job. He was now in his second semester at his new university, teaching several undergraduate Chemistry courses. I knew the preparation for one of his courses was extremely challenging. The topic of the course was something he had never taught before, nor had he taken a class like it before in college, and he was basically starting from scratch. Nonetheless, I figured he could handle it.

I was worried for my friend’s well-being but I was also selfishly worried about my future. If I could potentially experience total burnout, did I still want to teach undergraduate chemistry? Of course I did because I love teaching, but I wanted to know more about other faculty experiences at institutions of higher ed, so I went searching and found a recent article by David Gooblar in The Chronical of Higher Education, 4 Ideas for Avoiding Faculty Burnout. Turns out, “faculty burnout” is very real and likely, very challenging to avoid, at least for new professors. The problem, teachers are so committed to their students and institutions that they get stressed out, depressed, and anxious. This is bad for teachers but also has a negative impact on student performance. A teacher’s commitment to their students requires further explanation. Teachers are not only committed to the success of their students in the classroom, they are also committed to their well-being. Teachers are academic instructors, mentors, therapists, guidance counselors, mandatory reports, and occasionally victims of irate student’s criticisms and banter, hats that weigh heavily on their mental health.

For those of you interested in teaching or already teaching in higher education, here are the suggestions Gooblar offered to help avoid faculty burnout:

1. Take time off, if only for an evening.
2. Remember that your job is a job – even if you love it.
3. Find ways to say no.
4. Choose sleep over extra class-prep time.
5. Don’t be afraid to ask for help.

I hope you find them helpful and wish you all the best.

When I was in undergrad, I was a peer facilitator for a group of 10 students in a freshman year seminar  for the honors college. Each year, I had a variety of student personalities and strengths, including the exuberant and outgoing students and also the thoughtful and shy students.

I was fortunate to have such a small group because I was able to develop a system to gradually build shier students up to participating in group discussions without penalizing them for their personality and characteristics at the outset.

The first thing I did was set ground rules for our group. At the time, I had some quote or clip from The Daily Show or something similar, but now by rules are essentially “you are free to share a difference of opinion but will not be permitted to deny, denigrate or disrespect another individual’s identity or existence.” This helped to foster an open and inclusive conversation where everyone would feel comfortable sharing.

The purpose of grading class participation was as a means to gauge engagement with class topics and readings. So, for the first 3 weeks of class while everyone was still getting comfortable with one another, my shy students would have to take notes and email me their thoughts and places where they would have contributed in class. This way, I could ensure they were engaged, but they didn’t have to push themselves beyond their limits straightaway.

For the next 2-3 weeks, I would open class discussions by asking my shy students questions directly, so they were participating in group discussions but didn’t have to work themselves up right to find the breaks in conversation and courage to speak up or over other students.

After that sort of introductory period, I would have another face-to-face meeting with my students to check in and see how they were feeling and let them know that I would expect them to start actively participating in class. We would usually set a goal number of times per class that would increase over time.

I think this strategy works well with shy students, students with anxiety and could also work will for students who have a language barrier, with some adaptation. I know I will have to change some things to get this to work with the bigger classes at Tech, but I really want engaging all students to be a focus and area of success for me as an instructor.

About six years ago, when I was working in a quality control lab in my home country, we started getting a lot of samples from on local products such as Hibiscus sabdariffa (Bissap), Baobab tree powder (Bouy), etc. But the most remarkable were samples of Moringa oleifera, locally called Nebeday in my country. We know that is was used in traditional medicine and in making the sauce for what we called “Thiere Mboum”, a well appreciated local meal. The fact that we were getting more Moringa samples such as the entire leaves, powder, seeds like never before made us to pay more attention on it. Furthermore, one day I saw my brother drying Moringa leaves under the balcony after coming back from the national park where he exercises on weekends. He started giving Moringa tea to his kids every day.  Many people begun paying more attention to Moringa after many scientific papers were published regarding health benefits and other properties of this plant. Many people would only use it when recommended by traditional doctors. But since then, I have been reading more and more about Moringa and my findings brought me to start using Moringa leaves powder daily in my consumption and advise people to use it in a regular base. I also found that people are now doing businesses and making a lot of money on activities surrounding these plants. However, I do not think that some are doing it in an ethical way. For instance, recently I was discussing with one of my brothers about doing business on our local products, Moringa included. He was not aware of the profits people can get just by the production of Moringa. And he suddenly says “Oh so that is why one guy (referring to a foreigner) is there in a village in our region producing Moringa?”. My reaction was oh my God! Yes, that was my reaction because even though some of them care and tried to help local people, these foreigners sometimes never tell the truth to people in rural areas. They just care about making profit and that`s it. And as people in my country like sharing and helping, I am sure they might host him in their house, help him in planting and harvesting his Moringa, etc. They might be doing everything for free or for just little amount of money while the guy will be making money selling his products directly online or supplying retailers in town or abroad. Since then I cannot stop thinking about that and feel a moral obligation to do something. I do not know where that will take me but what come to my mind whenever I think about this fact is inciting to action. Everything might be okay, but if you have learned about what happen to many people in similar conditions, you will always have some doubts. I have no problem with people who do business (whether they are local or foreigners) in our resources (mostly plants that have health benefits) as that can help promote those products and satisfy consumers’ needs for healthier diets. But people should be treated fairly.  What should I do? How will I proceed in case that the guy is proceeding in an unethical way? Please shoot me some ideas in case you have some.

What I have blogged about last time led me to keep thinking about the way people see or value what they consider to be their values  . And many questions come to my head:

Do certain persons really care about values? How can one get rid of self-pride?

Are what some authors report just their perceptions of how individuals who experience cultural differences manage to make a path while transitioning socially, or is this the reality?

In my country, at a young age, I heard people saying “les alliènès culturels”, “les dèracines”, or les “complexès”. In these terms, they refer to all those educated persons (mostly those who studied or have stayed abroad for too long) who they consider as “people who have lost their roots”. Those individuals are singled out based on their ways of thinking and making decisions (which is sometimes different from the traditional ways), their ways of embracing political ideologies, and even earlier (some decades ago) based on their way of dressing. However, when I have grown up and listened to or read texts written by some of the individuals qualified as such, I have realized that they are not what people think they have become. It is just a misinterpretation of the elite`s logic way of understanding issues and their expectation for more rationality. Additionally, those who did not go to school or did not have higher education are sometimes frustrated and would always criticize the intellectuals based on just jealousy. In contrast to what people think, those highly educated persons are well rooted and some of them are even mad and disappointed because of how local people have exchanged their culture, their rituals, believes, and even food. I am comfortable to talk about this given the fact that I have transitioned many times from one environment to another and I can be considered as a member of “first generation to go to college” because I am the first female in my family who has gotten to this level in higher education. To me being a “first generation to go to college” is a joy, I have never found it challenging. And based on what I am aware of, the only way “first generation to go to college” used to be problematic in my country was when some family members wanted you to become the wife of X, Y or Z. That could be the end of your days at school, but fortunately such practices have largely disappeared as today many parents are educated and understand the importance of their children’s success. I am proud and so tied to my values that I have never considered to get rid of them for a better integration or adaptation to a given environment. Maybe this is specific to me, but I am not ready to give social class discomfort a room in my life; that would be destroying to me. I grew up in a small village, my parents were farmers, I did my primary school in that rural area and went straight to the biggest city of my home town. I went to secondary school and was most of the time the top of my class. Then, after that, I went to high school and university and never feel  a need or an obligation to give up my values. Maybe that was related to the fact that I early realized that others were just humans like me and I did not care about social classes. The only thing I remember caring about was respect, I would never tolerate people trying to mess around with me. I used to be tough on those who dare to try me at a point that most of them ended up fearing me. Furthermore, as most of the time I was doing far better than them in assignments and exams, which allowed me to gain more respect from my surrounding and be more free of what would be considered social burdens. I thing knowing who you are and what your values are is more important than being willing to abandon your roots that you should be proud of. Nowadays, many people, mostly those living in cities have no value reference point and behave poorly because of this void in their lives.

With our last class discussion on Innovation districts, I thought it would be interesting to blog something about the much talk about smart city development and its connection and impact on existing universities. In this blog, I introduce smart cities briefly, next discuss the relationship between a university and its host city (town) and conclude with how this relationship can be further strengthened.

There are a number of smart city definitions, most of them focus on integrating technology, research and data in unique and useful ways in order to boost economic growth, efficiency, sustainability, and quality of life. Sometimes this can be as simple as offering hot spots and online tools to help users to easily pay utility bills, find restaurants or look up transportation schedules. To work well, smart cities really need only three things; a smart and innovative population – that’s where higher education comes in; a strong entrepreneurial ecosystem, i.e. businesses, and smart government and infrastructure.

The relationship between universities and their host cities (towns) is fundamentally symbiotic. It is mutually enriching, along multiple dimensions. In other words, a strong university helps build a strong city, and a strong city helps build a strong university. Colleges and universities are essentially mini cities. They may have their own transportation systems, housing developments and perhaps even their own electricity and water systems. Therefore they are perfect testing grounds for larger-scale initiatives. Universities should take advantage of these opportunities. This will help the cities and provide students with valuable skills.

The literature on smart cities shows that ‘smart cities’ in particular are privileged sites for innovation, entrepreneurship, and the flourishing of ideas and opportunities. For instance, universities and research institutes thrive in part by solving problems brought to them by demanding customers – who become partners in an interactive innovation process. This symbiotic relationship is a win-win situation for both cities and universities.

Further, smart cities and universities or research institutions thrive in the same environments and fuel the same outcomes. As most creative, energetic, and entrepreneurial people, who can choose where they want to live, often decide to live where there are good schools and hospitals, vibrant neighbourhoods, stable property values, and so on… and all of these features are more likely to be present when one of your neighbours is
a research-intensive institution or educational centre. Thus it is important for the city and the university to collaborate and develop as a smart community, mutually benefiting each other.

References:

http://www.president.utoronto.ca/secure-content/uploads/2015/02/Universities_and_Smart_Cities_ORF_January_2015_Full_Text_and_Slides.pdf

https://universitybusiness.co.uk/Article/how-will-higher-education-help-to-make-our-cities-smart-1513790042

https://mytechdecisions.com/it-infrastructure/universities-can-play-key-role-creating-smart-cities/

 

 

Post our presentation in the International week for Grad 5104, discussing about Higher Education in India and getting questions about International students coming to India for education, I wanted to explore this more and thus thought of writing a blog about it. In this blog, I talk about some of the facts about education system in India, international student population coming to pursue education in India and mentioning some of the links for some of you who may have an interest to pursue education in India.

Starting with giving a bit of historical perspective about education in India. The country has been a major seat of learning for thousands of years. India was home to both Takshashila –  one of the first university in the world, and to the inventor of the digit 0 – Āryabhaṭa. Indian educational system is as encompassing and as diverse as its history, making studying in India unlike anywhere else. India is home to the world’s largest university by enrollment, Indira Gandhi National Open University, with 3.5 million students.

India is perceived across the world, especially in the developed nations as a country that sends international students. However, the paradigm has shifted over that past few years and an increasing number of students from various countries are now opting to study in India. Indeed, the 2015 Open Doors report from the Institute of International Education found that India is the 12^th most popular country for US students abroad. This was surprising for me as well.

Most of the international students come from countries such as Nepal, Malaysia, Afghanistan and a number of African and middle eastern countries. The most popular courses for foreign students include Bachelor of Technology and Bachelor of Business Administration, followed by Bachelor of Arts, Science and Commerce degrees.  In fact, there are over 2,000 foreign students studying engineering and medicine each. However, nearly 80% of the foreign students are enrolled in undergraduate courses. In India, Karnataka is by far India’s biggest hub for foreign students followed by Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra and Uttar Pradesh.

One of the major reasons which is attracting international students to India is the availability of quality education at a reasonable cost. Compared to international study hubs like the USA and Australia, the cost of education is negligible. The average tuition fee in India works out to be around $1,000 compared to about $ 25,000 in the US. While living in India can be challenging for international students, it is surely an affordable and rewarding experience.

At present, the Government of India is taking several steps to attract more foreign students such as promising to waive or discount fees and to expedite visas under a programme called ‘Study in India’ launched by the Human Resource Development Ministry and aided by the External Affairs Ministry. Through Study in India, foreign students will have access to a range of educational institutions, from smaller private colleges that offer diplomas to large universities offering undergraduate, postgraduate and doctoral degrees. The list includes the Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) and other esteemed institutes. The program aims to target students especially from the “partner countries” — countries with which India has warm diplomatic relations — such as Nepal, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Egypt, Iran and Rwanda.

I hope this blog provided you with a brief idea about scenario of international students coming to India. For more information, please refer to the following links.

References:

https://www.thenational.ae/world/asia/india-offers-fee-cuts-to-attract-foreign-students-1.723801

https://www.huffingtonpost.in/2017/03/31/in-the-developing-world-india-is-a-major-hub-for-foreign-studen_a_22020122/

https://studyabroad.careers360.com/articles/study-in-india-know-all-about-studying-in-india

https://studyabroad.careers360.com/articles/top-courses-study-in-india