“As your mentor it’s my job to put my arm around your shoulders, and kick you in the tail.” When you work at a college with a 30% 5-year graduation rate it can be hard to decide where to start improving. At my institution, a […]
Category: Intentional Teaching
Things Successful Students Do
We’re whole people. You may have heard the term “work-life balance” before. Personally, I don’t like the use of the term “balance” here because it implies that work and the rest of our lives are somehow opposed to each other. Instead, let’s focus on nourishing […]
The Importance of (Every/No)thing
“Is this on the exam?” “Sort of.” I’d just shown my students how to use trigonometric substitution to simplify the process of integrating functions involving radicals. If esoteric integration techniques aren’t your thing, what you need to know is that there are many of them. […]
Multiply Yourself
As I wrapped up my undergraduate degree, I decided to stick around for a masters. Why? I met someone, and she wouldn’t be graduating for a couple more years. Get a masters, graduate at the same time, happily ever after. The plan changed, but the […]
Integrity as a Learning Objective
It’s that time of year, writing course syllabi and deciding on the policies that we’ll be living with for the next 15 weeks! One component that always causes me to stop and think is the “Academic Integrity” section of my syllabus. Cheating is more common […]
Playing the Game
There are different types of games. The simplest ones are what we call zero-sum games. In order for one player to score a point, the other players lose the opportunity to score. I’m reminded of a game I used to play as a child called […]
The spot that’s left for humans
“What is really clear fo me is that if you have a job where we can specify what “good” and “bad” results look like, there’s a computer that’s going to be able to do that job really soon.” Seth Godin We’re living through at strange […]
200: It’s Complicated, to Put It Simply
This is the 200th post at tonyferrar.com! I started writing here in August 2016, just under three years ago. I set out to create a place for students to find advice from a positive voice. What I didn’t realize is how much I would grow […]
Three Keys to Surviving Crunch Time
One of the worst feelings in life is that deep tired, almost an ache in your chest that sets in after pulling an all-nighter and watching the sun come up. The last few weeks of the semester used to be such a grind for me, […]
Early Career Advice that I’m Thankful I Followed
I found out that I was going to be a dad in February of 2016. In March, I attended the Building Future Faculty Workshop. In April, I lost my job after my postdoc funding evaporated. Needless to say, this was a chaotic time in my […]
