In article <dv13d9$8qk_001@s929.apx1.sbo.ma.dialup.rcn.com>,
<

In article <20060312062343.O70045@emu.uq.edu.au>,
Timo Nieminen <uqtniemi@mailbox.uq.edu.au> wrote:

On Sat, 11 Mar 2006

Timo Nieminen <uqtniemi@mailbox.uq.edu.au> wrote:

Clearly, the best choice, in terms of cost, would have been to hire
a flunky at $10/hour to do data entry, another flunky at $10/hour to

the entered data and fix errors, and then pay a physics undergrad

$100/hour for 1 hour to write code to convert. It's always all about
management failure, isn,t it?

But it would have taken somebody with $5000/hr. experience to
figure this out. It is much easier to have only one body to
beat up when things are late than a new employee sector.

I hope not, since I thought it was plainly obvious.

It's only obvious to those looking from the outside in.
IME, the people who owned the data would get too caught up
in the details. It's rather like a car. You own an old
car that you've nursed through all kinds of breakdowns,
tuneups, bandaids, gum and spit but the CEO of the company
that manufactured it didn't care about it at all.

People care about their data. Even converting it is traumatic.

OTOH, maybe it means I
should increase my standard consultancy fee :)

Perhaps you should :-). Somebody told the story of a guy hired
to fix a blockage of some sort. He walked around the plant for
a while then took out his wrench and hit a pipe. It fixed the
problem. Then he sent a bill for his work, $5000. The company
objected and asked for an itemized bill. He charged two bucks
for labor and $4998 for knowing where to hit.

I've told this story badly; the one I read was written better.

I got another story from an electronics newsgroup of a guy who was hired
as a consultant. He redesigned a particular circuit so that it used fewer
parts and could be manufactured more cheaply and reliably. And they
didn't want to pay him. They looked at the much-reduced circuit diagram
and said something like "We're paying you $xxxx for THIS?"

He gave them exactly what they asked for, and it can take a great deal of
skill to make something simple. But then it looks easy.

On Tue, 28 Feb 2006, Andy Resnick wrote:

jmfbahciv@aol.com wrote:

Andy Resnick <andy.resnick@op.case.edu> wrote:

This afternoon it's my turn to present at Journal Club. I'm the
only physicist in the group, and I make a point of picking a physics
paper. This term I picked "Freezing Transition of Interfacial Water
at Room Temperature under Electric Fields"... it's a PRL paper, but
it has clear biological implications. We'll see how well I do...

Progress report? If you have the time, and don't mind.

Heh... well, let's see... the paper turned out to be a dud: there's an
erratum which nullifies their main result. The good news is that only
3 people showed up to hear about it (there's about 8 in the group).

Oh well, there's always next time.....

Give them my microrheometer paper. Tell them that this could be used to
measure viscoelastic properties inside cells. Let them think about that
for a while, and then ask them why it hasn't been done yet (by us or by
others).

Hi,

I am currently in my first year of teaching an algebra-based
physics class to students who are primarily biology majors.
For whatever reason, most of the biology professors at our school tend
to "spoon-feed" these students, giving them review sheets that tell
them
exactly what they need to know. So they just memorize the information
on
these sheets. Most of these students do not put much effort into their
biology classes.

In the physics class, I am trying to emphasize the main concepts,
and then the students are expected to apply these concepts to novel
problems. My approach has been to assign
lots of practice problems, and to make the exam problems somewhat
different than any of the homework. The students need to put in much
more effort than their biology classes, and if they do not, they tend
to do poorly on the exams. I have had some low averages on class exams.
I am finding out the hard way this year that the students resent
this
approach alot. When they do bad, rather than concluding they need to
put more effort into the class, they think I am being unfair to them.
As a result, my teaching evaluations took a major nosedive this year,
and there was even a petition drive protesting my policies. So I was
hoping to get some advice on how I can improve my approach, or if I
just need to expect this kind of response as a result of making the
students think.

Thanks - Leon

Hi,

I am currently in my first year of teaching an algebra-based
physics class to students who are primarily biology majors.
For whatever reason, most of the biology professors at our school tend
to "spoon-feed" these students, giving them review sheets that tell
them
exactly what they need to know. So they just memorize the information
on
these sheets. Most of these students do not put much effort into their
biology classes.
In the physics class, I am trying to emphasize the main concepts,
and then the students are expected to apply these concepts to novel
problems. My approach has been to assign
lots of practice problems, and to make the exam problems somewhat
different than any of the homework. The students need to put in much
more effort than their biology classes, and if they do not, they tend
to do poorly on the exams. I have had some low averages on class exams.
I am finding out the hard way this year that the students resent
this
approach alot. When they do bad, rather than concluding they need to
put more effort into the class, they think I am being unfair to them.
As a result, my teaching evaluations took a major nosedive this year,
and there was even a petition drive protesting my policies. So I was
hoping to get some advice on how I can improve my approach, or if I
just need to expect this kind of response as a result of making the
students think.

Thanks - Leon

Hi,

I am currently in my first year of teaching an algebra-based
physics class to students who are primarily biology majors.
For whatever reason, most of the biology professors at our school tend
to "spoon-feed" these students, giving them review sheets that tell
them
exactly what they need to know. So they just memorize the information
on
these sheets. Most of these students do not put much effort into their
biology classes.
In the physics class, I am trying to emphasize the main concepts,
and then the students are expected to apply these concepts to novel
problems. My approach has been to assign
lots of practice problems, and to make the exam problems somewhat
different than any of the homework. The students need to put in much
more effort than their biology classes, and if they do not, they tend
to do poorly on the exams. I have had some low averages on class exams.
I am finding out the hard way this year that the students resent
this
approach alot. When they do bad, rather than concluding they need to
put more effort into the class, they think I am being unfair to them.
As a result, my teaching evaluations took a major nosedive this year,
and there was even a petition drive protesting my policies. So I was
hoping to get some advice on how I can improve my approach, or if I
just need to expect this kind of response as a result of making the
students think.

Thanks - Leon

Hi,

I am currently in my first year of teaching an algebra-based
physics class to students who are primarily biology majors.
For whatever reason, most of the biology professors at our school tend
to "spoon-feed" these students, giving them review sheets that tell
them
exactly what they need to know. So they just memorize the information
on
these sheets. Most of these students do not put much effort into their
biology classes.
In the physics class, I am trying to emphasize the main concepts,
and then the students are expected to apply these concepts to novel
problems. My approach has been to assign
lots of practice problems, and to make the exam problems somewhat
different than any of the homework. The students need to put in much
more effort than their biology classes, and if they do not, they tend
to do poorly on the exams. I have had some low averages on class exams.
I am finding out the hard way this year that the students resent
this
approach alot. When they do bad, rather than concluding they need to
put more effort into the class, they think I am being unfair to them.
As a result, my teaching evaluations took a major nosedive this year,
and there was even a petition drive protesting my policies. So I was
hoping to get some advice on how I can improve my approach, or if I
just need to expect this kind of response as a result of making the
students think.

Thanks - Leon

Hi,

I am currently in my first year of teaching an algebra-based
physics class to students who are primarily biology majors.
For whatever reason, most of the biology professors at our school tend
to "spoon-feed" these students, giving them review sheets that tell
them
exactly what they need to know. So they just memorize the information
on
these sheets. Most of these students do not put much effort into their
biology classes.
In the physics class, I am trying to emphasize the main concepts,
and then the students are expected to apply these concepts to novel
problems. My approach has been to assign
lots of practice problems, and to make the exam problems somewhat
different than any of the homework. The students need to put in much
more effort than their biology classes, and if they do not, they tend
to do poorly on the exams. I have had some low averages on class exams.
I am finding out the hard way this year that the students resent
this
approach alot. When they do bad, rather than concluding they need to
put more effort into the class, they think I am being unfair to them.
As a result, my teaching evaluations took a major nosedive this year,
and there was even a petition drive protesting my policies. So I was
hoping to get some advice on how I can improve my approach, or if I
just need to expect this kind of response as a result of making the
students think.

Hi,

I am currently in my first year of teaching an algebra-based
physics class to students who are primarily biology majors.
For whatever reason, most of the biology professors at our school tend
to "spoon-feed" these students, giving them review sheets that tell
them
exactly what they need to know. So they just memorize the information
on
these sheets. Most of these students do not put much effort into their
biology classes.
From my experience, I wouldn't say that the students don't necessarily

In the physics class, I am trying to emphasize the main concepts,
and then the students are expected to apply these concepts to novel
problems. My approach has been to assign
lots of practice problems, and to make the exam problems somewhat
different than any of the homework. The students need to put in much
more effort than their biology classes, and if they do not, they tend
to do poorly on the exams. I have had some low averages on class exams.

I am finding out the hard way this year that the students resent
this
approach alot. When they do bad, rather than concluding they need to
put more effort into the class, they think I am being unfair to them.
As a result, my teaching evaluations took a major nosedive this year,
and there was even a petition drive protesting my policies. So I was
hoping to get some advice on how I can improve my approach, or if I
just need to expect this kind of response as a result of making the
students think.

Thanks - Leon

Hi,

I am currently in my first year of teaching an algebra-based
physics class to students who are primarily biology majors.
For whatever reason, most of the biology professors at our school tend
to "spoon-feed" these students, giving them review sheets that tell
them
exactly what they need to know. So they just memorize the information
on
these sheets. Most of these students do not put much effort into their
biology classes.
In the physics class, I am trying to emphasize the main concepts,
and then the students are expected to apply these concepts to novel
problems.