Fall 2014 semester preview

As of yesterday, I'm officially an employee and noob professor at UTT. As a way of previewing my plans for the semester, I decided to outline my plans for the semester. The bonus side effect is a feeling of accountability for me to report back about said plans as they come to fruition!

I'm fortunate as a new professor to have a semester reprieve from teaching. However, I'll be teaching bioinformatics (a lecture and lab) next semester, so I'm doing some professional development homework to give myself the best start possible to developing the course. I'll definitely be doing a lot of writing over the next few months about my preparations for teaching this course and related professional development workshops.

• I'm participating remotely in the instructor training series for Software Carpentry (SC). I've talked before about my experiences attending Software and Data Carpentry Bootcamps, so I'm excited for more in-depth training, this time in how to apply the pedagogical methods the folks at SC have developed. I was excited to see a few familiar names of folks I respect also taking this course, so I'll certainly be in good company!
• I'm stalking a few Coursera MOOCs over the next few months. I say "stalking" because I'm more a passive observer than active participant. I'm interested in seeing how the course material is presented and the scope/depth of assigned materials. I'll also be cruising the forums to get an idea of the types of questions students commonly ask. I'm hoping this will be a good way to expose myself to a mindset of student learning. Here are the courses:
• Data Analysis and Statistical Inference
• Bioinformatics Algorithms
• Algorithms, Biology, and Programming for Beginners
• Bioinformatics: Introduction and Methods

I'll be traveling a bit this semester, too. I've tried to limit myself to one work trip a month, and the resulting schedule reads like "Kate Visits Places She Used to Work":

• September: Visiting U of Missouri, where I did my graduate work.
• October: Departmental seminar at Western Kentucky University, where I did my Bachelor's.
• November: Catalysis meeting (long term experimental evolution) at NESCent, which occurs right before a meeting to celebrate accomplishments of sponsored scientists and projects.

Of course, this is all in addition to the plethora of other routine tasks that I'm learning are a part of the professor job package: writing manuscripts, analyzing data, consulting with students and colleagues on projects, applying for grants, attending meetings, etc. My goal here is to have a decent balance between development of my educational and research job responsibilities. Will I manage it? Stay tuned to find out!