This is a spectacular and moving essay: Our Houses Became Boats: Surviving Hurricane Maria and salvaging my career in its aftermath

Why academe should honor prickly women. Continue reading →

One hundred twenty nine. I’ve been doing this, every other week, for a while now.

Students learn by doing, not from listening.

The extraordinary life and death of the world’s oldest spider.

A spectacular commencement address by George Saunders. Continue reading →

(image: first Matilija poppy of the season)

Early luck in grant funding has massive long-term effects on future funding (and here’s the original paper)

Are fieldwork studies being relegated to second place in conservation science?

This is shameful to the extreme: How the University of Minnesota hides its professors’ sexual harassment Continue reading →

This article about getting things done in large organizations is so, so, so good.

Modest advice for new graduate students Continue reading →

Three guidelines and two workarounds for tackling makeup exam policies

A better way to make tenure decisions

A major feature in The Chronicle about What It’s Like to Be a Woman in the Academy. The second piece — “we’re not even close” is so on point. Continue reading →

This case study of search committees demonstrates how downright sexist conduct is pervasive in academic job searches.

When it comes to time management in academia, here is some highly condensed wisdom.

It’s well established that student evaluations of teaching performance are gender biased. Based on that fact, then, here’s an intriguing question: Are they illegal? Continue reading →

Why I stopped writing on my student’s papers.

Four very practical solutions to make conferences less difficult for scientists who are bringing babies and small children, brought to you by Rebecca Calisi and a Working Group of Mothers in Science. Are you part of an organizing committee? Please heed.

The case for inclusive teaching

The blog The Novice Professor has a lot of great stuff, it’s definitely one to watch. And the author routinely shares great stuff about learning and teaching on twitter. Continue reading →

Got milk, must conference

Bioinformatics skills – How to get them and not get scared

Being an academic after experiencing personal catastrophe

How do we ensure the future of our discipline is vibrant? Student reflections on careers and culture of ecology Continue reading →

This is wonderful: NSF is now requiring awardee institutions to report findings of sexual harassment by personnel on NSF grants, and to report when individuals are placed on leave related to an investigation. And they are prepared to take serious measures in response. Here’s the NSF statement, and related stories published by Nature and The New Republic. (How bout rounding up a few PIs and your Title IX coordinator, and schedule a meeting with the person in charge of post-award at your university, to make specific plans for implementing this, including the reporting mechanisms and training that NSF expects.)

In favor of “slow teaching.”

Intellectual property law 101 for academics Continue reading →

Things that are useful to know when you’re teaching with active learning

What I’ve learned from my 4 year old (By the way, I’m psyched that Viet Thanh Nguyen is now a contributing opinion writer for the NYT, I’ll be keeping an eye out for his future pieces)

Citation vacuums Continue reading →

Start the first day of class by telling your students an engaging story.

The Biology Department of San Francisco State wrote a detailed academic paper about a successful department-wide professional development plan to improve their teaching.

Scientific knowledge is drowning in a flood of research. Continue reading →

Here is a Digital Studies 101 lab, to guide students in a direct exploration of the Dark Web.

This three-part story about data storage is amazing and important. I had no idea how much of the data being stored today is still on magnetic tape, nor an idea of the consequences.

Surviving the pre-tenure years Continue reading →

What I wish I knew before becoming a professor

The accidental citizen science of security cameras

The futile resistance to classroom tech

Rare diseases are not rare Continue reading →

When reviewers know the identity of authors, it turns out that famous names, prestigious universities, and top companies are far more likely to have their papers accepted. This effect was measured in an experiment, and it’s astounding. This is the new paper I will point folks to when they say that single blind or “open” review is more fair. It just isn’t.

A profile of the few people remaining in the US who depend on iron lungs to stay alive, a window into the history of manufacturing, medicine, and our failed social safety net.

By Scientists For Science — The Scientific Society Publisher Alliance. Scientific societies are designed to represent the interests of our own communities, and this new organization is designed to promote society journals. Continue reading →

Understanding student resistance to active learning

9 myths holding you back from stellar slides. Not as clickbaity as it sounds.

Continue reading →

Best practices for writing multiple choice tests

Criticizing another scientist’s work isn’t bullying. It’s science.

Science Friday covers the movement to make alpha smaller. Continue reading →

Transformative research is not easily predicted

Staying in the game Continue reading →

This is the best explainer ever about social class in universities. Please read and share, especially with the graduate admissions committee.

Don’t teach students the hard way first.  Continue reading →

Can you pick the bees out of this lineup? No really, can you?

The NSF-DEB blog has a post about the new guidelines for graduate fellowships, which have a deadline next month.

President Trump’s War on Science. This is an important comprehensive editorial from the Editorial Board of the New York Times. Continue reading →

Hope Jahren’s New York Times piece about the Norwegian summer is achingly gorgeous.

The biggest misconception about today’s college students. Yep.

When memorization gets in the way of learning. It’s from 2013, but so what. Continue reading →

This, I think, is ingenious and next-level stuff: Designing malware to hack bioinformatics software by coding it into the DNA of organisms that get sequenced! Which, in the future, maybe could be a real problem?

This is old news, but not to me. In Holland there is (was?) a place that used a misting spray of synthetic DNA that could be used to identify folks who committed robberies.

Now that it’s start-of-semester-get-your-syllabus-ready season, let me remind you of this useful course workload estimator, to make sure that your expectations are well calibrated relative to the number of units associated with a course. Continue reading →

A quick guide to effective grassroots advocacy for scientists.

Why I don’t ask students to write the thesis statement first. Continue reading →

Wow. This opinion piece written by a scientist, who is a whistleblower working in the Department of Interior, is both important and landmine. They essentially reassigned him — and many other senior scientists — to work in the mailroom. Far away from home. We knew in advance that our new federal government was going to be anti-science, and in places like this, it’s as clear as ever. If you haven’t seen this yet, it’s a short op-ed and a key piece of information if you’re trying to stay even the slightest informed about science policy in the US kleptocracy.

This one-minute clip of a US congress member asking a NASA scientist whether it is possible that a civilization was on Mars thousands of years ago is also a must-see. Continue reading →

Why teachers suck

“Rather than teaching students to fail, I want them to learn to define their own personal rules for the game.”

A sense of duty to teach climate change. (Amy Harmon of the NYT has another spectacular piece.) Continue reading →

The case against using Turnitin in your own classroom.

When teaching for understanding is pitted against teaching for doing well on the test.

Stop the presses!!! Here is a shocking new finding: A new meta-analysis shows that student evaluations of teacher performance are unrelated to student learning. Continue reading →

David Attenborough regrets spending so much time away from his family. (I should note that I’m writing this from a field station in Costa Rica, missing out on the duties and joys of parenting. It’s my shortest summer research trip down here ever, for this reason.)

Open science has an image and behavior problem. Continue reading →

It’s been two weeks already!? Here’s some reads for what remains of the long holiday weekend, for those of us in the US.

In mentorship, a sense of belonging may be most important

Getting past Bloom’s taxonomy in a way that focuses on the minds of the students

This online comic as struck a big chord with a a lot of women I know. It explains how many men don’t share the burden of parenting and running a household by simply thinking that doing stuff when asked is enough. The cognitive load of keeping track of domestic affairs is not a trivial matter. Continue reading →

Why academics need to focus on structuring their time

Superstar artist Ai Weiwei wrote a piece about how censorship works for the New York Times — gosh knows he’s had plenty of opportunity to gain expertise. It’s revelatory, and relevant for those of in the US more than ever.

On being broken, and the kindness of others. Continue reading →

The Field Guide to Dumb Birds of North America

“To teach, we must believe in the potential of each person in the room.”

The founders of the field of cryptanalysis, William and Elizabeth Friedman, had a cipher on their tombstone. Which was just solved. Continue reading →