After an unplanned summer hiatus Julia and Jonathan are back to talk about errors in research, and specifically how we can make fewer of them. Julia talks about her Error Tight project for implementing some culture changes, including standardization, how to cultivate a sense of shared responsibility in a research lab. Research mistakes reflect a failure of systems rather than a failure of people—so let’s improve our systems!

Theme music courtesy of The Bobby Dazzlers

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• The juice and the squeeze Episode 38: Big picture teaching

Wrapping up our mini-series on teaching, Julia and Jonathan talk about readings, grading, and how to fairly offer flexibility to students in our classes. In-class activities, quizzes, how many grades to drop, how to handle late assignments, how to get feedback from students, and more.

Theme music courtesy of The Bobby Dazzlers

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• Airtable

After “big picture teaching” last episode, Julia and Jonathan dive into the weeds a bit, spending a lot of time on the syllabus. Is it a contract? A way to communicate “hidden curriculum”? A fun way to connect with your students? In short, yes, and also, it depends. Also, maybe it’s unrealistic to expect students to carefully read all 20 pages of our syllabus without offering incentives (can you blame them?)?

Theme music courtesy of The Bobby Dazzlers

Links:

• Psych 3604 Spring 2021 Syllabus - Google Docs

OK, your turn to teach a course for the first time (or the Nth time). Now what? Julia and Jonathan share thoughts and experiences (and mistakes) from teaching lecture courses. For example, how do you decide what to cover (hint: you don’t have to teach all of the topics in the textbook)? How do we model excitement for learning? What hidden curriculum will you include? Also, Oregon Trail.

Theme music courtesy of The Bobby Dazzlers

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• The Oregon Trail (series) - Wikipedia

Julia recaps the first-ever Midwinter Ball and sets the bar high for future MWBers, as a prelude for talking about how life these days can be hard even if we are “fine”. Having a hard time is normal, and when it’s Kobayashi Maru time, there might not be a perfect solution. Take a minute to be extra kind to others this week and keep hanging in there!

Theme music courtesy of The Bobby Dazzlers

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• Sarah Smith on Twitter: "𝐩𝐚𝐧𝐝𝐞𝐦𝐢𝐜 𝐟𝐢𝐧𝐞 — 𝑛𝑜𝑢𝑛 — a state of being in which you are employed and healthy during a pandemic but you're also tired and depressed and feel like trash all the time" / Twitter

Julia and Jonathan share comments they made as part of a talk on science communication. Turns out, we scientists are ALL involved in science communication, whether we realize it or not (or whether or not we like it). Know your audience. Communication is a learnable skill. And many more tidbits on what is our longest podcast to date (!). Special consideration given to our experiences with Twitter and podcasts.

Theme music courtesy of The Bobby Dazzlers

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• Julia's open science course

How do you bring a research project from brilliant idea to completion? Julia and Jonathan talk about implementing a research project pipeline, including some nuts-and-bolts of how files are organized and what gets kept track of. If all you take away is that having a project log is a good idea, it will be time worth spent! Also, get prepping for celebrating Midwinter Ball (January 17).

Theme music courtesy of The Bobby Dazzlers

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• Checklist for scientific papers

Mentors are great, but can’t meet all our needs. In the last episode of 2020, Julia and Jonathan explore other people in our support networks, how we can find them, and why they are useful to have.

Theme music courtesy of The Bobby Dazzlers

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• The juice and the squeeze Episode 21: Congratulations, you are now a Mentor!

After very excellent banter about Frozen Custard and Julia inventing a new Winter Holiday, your hosts offer wide ranging thoughts on having children as an academic. The general theme is along the lines of “don’t let anyone tell you what to do but here are our experiences and some things you might want to think about”. And, a little about what we, and institutions, might be able to do to help normalize all genders being involved in childcare and family life.

Theme music courtesy of The Bobby Dazzlers

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• Ted Drewes Frozen Custard

Julia likes Halloween JUST A LITTLE and Julia and Jonathan start with their annual review of Julia’s Halloween plans. Then, on to talk about finding a research niche. It turns out it's not Leonardo Da Vinci times where it’s possible for one person to know everything, and Julia and Jonathan extol the virtues of programmatic research (and some hints on how to find your program).

Theme music courtesy of The Bobby Dazzlers

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• Some of Julia's Halloween decorations