Institutional change and why it is so slow

I have been following the blogging activities about the AAPT meeting held this week in Edmonton (from afar still, but not quite as afar as usual....) I found loads of interesting stuff on this blog, particularly the last post on 'Twisting the Ivory Tower'.

I was reading through it thinking "yes......yes......yes" about the rationale for change and the drivers and barriers....similar issues once again (Plus Ca Change!)

(Also interesting to see that the MIT students when first introduced to TEAL in their E&M class petitioned against its introduction....!)

Critical mass

I went to give a talk today at SFU (that's about it for the Physics and
Education part of this one...!) After coming back across town I grabbed
my bike and headed downtown to the Art Gallery for something I had
previously been told about: Critical Mass - where many hundereds, or
even thousands, of cyclists take to the streets to remind the drivers fo
Vancouver that cycling is a Big Thing in the city. The route is not
pre-determined, but chosen by the people at the head of the queue and
traffic at intersections is 'corked' by cyclists who stop the traffic.

It is a wonderful atmosphere; like a carnival - there were people with
speakers on the back of their bikes, bubble machines, people in fancy
dress. I saw tandems, unicycles, recumbents, dogs and children being
towed along. We rolled around the city in the Friday evening sunshine
for two and a half-hours - and the peleton was still rolling on as I
left to come back of Burrard St bridge to get home by dark! The best bit
was stopping the traffic on both directions on top of the Lions Gate
Bridge. People raised their bikes above their heads to cries of "We're
not blocking traffic: we ARE traffic".



Most delayed motorists took it in good heart, some tooting support,
which was greeted with furious bell-ringing and cheers. There was the
odd arse giving people abuse (It raises some people hackles for reasons
other than being held up for a few minutes. There's a political
dimension to this whole idea, which started in San Fransisco and is now
held regularly around the globe).

It's the law here to wear a helmet while cycling, yet about half of the
riders yesterday did not. Some saw it as a chance to ride hat-less,
without fear of being fined. But if anything, the risk of falling off in
a tightly-packed group of cyclists seems to me to be higher than when
cycling in regular traffic here. I saw at least 3 spills, one person
quite badly injured coming down a slope in Stanley Park, with what
looked like a nasty bang to the head.

Snowshoes in July

"... All work and no play" as the saying goes, so we spent this weekend doing the Tourist Thing. On Sunday we cycled downtown and took the SeaBus over to North Vancouver and then up to Grouse Mountain. The main trail up - the Grouse Grind - was heaving, even at 10am, so we opted for the 'road less taken' (as some American poet once wrote), the BC Mountaineering Club trail.

Once at the top, it is like a tourist theme park at 11oom; all very nice, but far too busy for my liking. So we headed on up the trails, aiming for Goat Mountain. Surprised to find that once we got off the beaten path, we encountered snow. And lots of it, too. A sign suggested that the trail beyond Dam Mountain was 'closed due to adverse winter weather conditions' - and in July! It'll start snowing again in a couple of months time!

The strange thing was it was well over 20 degrees, even that high up, with the snow that was lying melting from underneath. Very cool. We could have done with snowshoes.....

1500, and counting

I was learning today about Physics 101, UBC's equivalent of Physics 1A. It is delivered annually to a monsterous 15oo students. Yes, 1500.... 3 lots of 500 a term. Incredible. The people in charge of it must have to spend literally half their lives on admin and logistics. It puts into perspective the scale of our largest course, at nearly 300. I shall never whinge again about course organisation admin.

At the same time, I heard that the faculty member who is in charge of the course (who coincidentally shares my surname....) is also an academic advisor. To all 1500 first year students.....

I shall trot this out the next time I have to 'persuade' one of my colleagues to take on a course, or a measly 30 student directees......

As I approached the Physics building the other day, I saw this chalked on the ground. You never see that kind of thing chalked outside JCMB.....

Turns out there was an outreach programme in town, evidence for which was soon obtained once I got in the building and was almost taken out by a gaggle of excited 10 year olds, resplendent in matching bright red T-shirts.

It got me thinking about the number of our students that would chalk that after their degree, and how many of them would have swapped 'ro' for 'su'...? But then again, maybe some of those that think that never get to graduate anyway and fall by the wayside en route.

Plus ca change.....

'.... plus c'est la meme chose', as the saying goes

Or for those of you without the fantastic command of 1980s O'level French that I still retain (...ahem) 'The more that things change, the more they stay the same'.

Why that for a title, you might be wondering? Well, I am happily ensconsed in the offices of the Carl Wieman Science Education Initiative on my first day here. It is Monday here (...but feeling distinctly like Tuesday already.....) and after the usual battle to get signed on to the wireless network as a visitor, I have just been signed up to 'CWSEI Basecamp', (built from www.basecamphq.com) a mailing list / discussion group about all things SEI.

It's a treasure trove of info, discussions and resources. Despite it being the middle of July, there's no less than 4 events this week (one of them being my talk tomorrow). Goodness knows how busy it must get during semester time. I am off to do some homework for the reading group meeting this coming Friday :-)

Based on the few conversations I have had thus far, it does seem like things over here, in the education sphere are much the same as we face over in the UK. A recent poster prepared by the folk here has the following under its 'Results so far" section; "Significant minority of faculty resistant to change (expected)". Sounds all too familiar, doesn't it? Also I have learned today that a current challenge being tackled here is to try and address the Hons level courses, much of the previous innovation having started off in early years teaching. Familiar, again then....

Onto other matters (or as they say in the news bulletins over here: 'sports and weather'). We are now settled in the flat, have done a bit of exploring and met some of the natives. One of them is of the feline variety ("Elvis") and bears a stunning similarity to his namesake in the late 70s (ie incredibly fat). I shall post a photo later to prove it.....

For now though, the attached photo is the view from the flat. We have acquired bikes now so are fully mobile; this is the view looking north towards the downtown area, complete with picture-postcard mountains.

Having told Susanne that the grid system on to which Vancouver's roads are laid out mean that it is "impossible to get lost", my natural navigation skills have already shone through, and resulted in us getting a little bit lost already. Twice already, in fact; slight matter of confusing north and south. Plus ca change, once again.....

Oooh Canada!

I am off to Canada in a week to take a holiday.

No, wait, that should be to undertake a Royal Society funded fellowship visit to the Carl Wieman Science Education Initiative at UBC.

I thought that this would give me a good opportunity to re(start) my blogging..... doubly so, because it is going to be an interesting few months for Physics, what with Wakeham, the HEA Subject Centre Review etc.... And then there's the almost constant supply of news stories about how the subject is going to hell in a handcart (more on that later....)

So back to the holiday. At present, I am considering the whole work-life balance thing while out there, and reports of the weather forecast ('scorching', in the words of a colleague's mother) are suggesting that the scales may well tip towards life rather than work to start with.....

As for working conditions, compare and contrast: