I'm Retiring From My Full Time Engineering Faculty Position at Holyoke Community College

“Often when you think you’re at the end of something, you’re at the beginning of something
else.” – Fred Rogers

After an enriching and fulfilling career spanning five decades, I am announcing my retirement from my full-time engineering faculty position at Holyoke Community College (HCC) effective August 30, 2024. This decision comes with mixed emotions, as I reflect on the journey that has shaped not only my professional life but also my personal growth.

Teaching has been more than just a job; it has been a vocation that allowed me to inspire and nurture countless students, guiding them through the complexities of engineering principles and practices. My time in academia has been marked by moments of profound satisfaction, seeing students evolve into competent and confident engineers and technologists, ready to make their mark in the world. Each graduation ceremony, each successful project, and each breakthrough in understanding (and of course each belly-flop failure) has reinforced my belief in the power of education.

The field of engineering itself has undergone tremendous transformation during my tenure. From the early days of teaching with chalk and blackboards to leveraging cutting-edge technology and online platforms, I have witnessed and embraced these changes, ensuring that my students received the most current and relevant knowledge. The shift towards digital learning, in particular, has been a remarkable journey, one that demanded continuous adaptation and learning on my part.

Retirement from HCC marks the beginning of a new chapter, where I am eager to channel my energy and expertise into some exciting consultancy projects, writing, mentoring, and of course some part-time teaching. The flexibility will allow me to spend more time with my family and yeah (!) - get in a little more fishing. 

Will this be a “sabbatical”  or a permanent change? Having experienced "retirement" in the past and not having it “stick”, I've learned to appreciate the unpredictability of life. This journey has taught me to embrace uncertainty and always stay open to whatever opportunities and possibilities the future may bring.

My academic career has been a tapestry woven with dedication, passion, and countless rewarding experiences. I carry with me a wealth of memories and the profound satisfaction of having contributed to the field of engineering and to the lives of so many young minds. 

Nonverbal Overload In An Online Engineering Classroom

Last week, Stanford researchers published a new study: Nonverbal Overload: A Theoretical Argument for the Causes of Zoom Fatigue. The study is a first shot at pointing out Zoom, WebEx, etc design flaws to isolate research areas for social scientists and to suggest design improvements for technologists. Researchers found four quite different causes for fatigue and recommend solutions for each:

Close-up eye contact is exhausting. Solution: Minimize the face sizes of attendees into grid view, and sit back a bit to allow yourself more personal space. 

Watching yourself is exhausting. Solution: Confirm that your lighting and setup look good, and then adjust the settings to hide your view of yourself.

Sitting immobile is exhausting.  Solution: Create a wider visual field for your camera. 

Video chatting is cognitively exhausting. Solution: When it’s feasible, turn off your camera for breaks—and turn your body away from the screen.

It's all exhausting! I’ve done some of my own experimenting and agree with the Stanford findings when it comes to the online classroom. Here’s how I’ve been working on some course content delivery improvements in one of my online classes.

Pre-Recorded Lectures
I’ve been pre-recording lectures  for about a year now and posting them. In one of my classes I recently started watching them with students during class sessions – I share my screen and audio, playing the videos.  Electrical engineering courses are 95% applied math and lectures typically involve a short introduction to a topic and then working sample problems. I am not a fan and do not use PowerPoint. I record lectures using an iPad and Apple Pencil. 

Class Sessions
Students are required to take notes as they would in a traditional in-person lecture with me writing on a board in front of the class. They ask questions, verbally or in the chat box. By watching my own lectures with the students, I’ve found myself much more aware of non-verbal cues. I’m able to watch the chat box, catch any mistakes I’ve made, pause a video for discussion, etc. I’m no longer sitting with my head down writing on an iPad, cranking out math problems while what seems like talking to myself. I’m much more focused on the students and the way I’m explaining the material. When they ask me to pause a video, I have a pretty good idea they are following the lecture and taking good notes!

Assessment
After each class is over, students are assigned between 1 and 3 quiz/homework problems that are due the next day at noon. I also post the videos for students to access.

Breaks
I do try to squeeze a 5 min break in when I can even though I’ve not been very good at that. I also try and keep videos to around 25 minutes so if we miss one of the 5 minute breaks there is a natural break between each video. 

Cameras

Students typically do not turn their cameras on and I’m ok with that in my classes. Some faculty will disagree.

Future Plans
We're charting new ground so every day is a work in progress - so far student feedback has been very positive with plans to further refine (have some interesting ideas for exams) and expand methods to other classes I teach.

End of First Full Week Teaching – Fall 2020 Semester Remote

Some quick thoughts/observations after the first week: 

• Email volume from students is through the roof. Not meeting in person means not being able to ask questions. Email does not scale in an online “classroom” setting. I’ve used Slack in the past in courses with mixed results. At Holyoke Community College (HCC) we are using Moodle as a learning management system (LMS) and there are ways to integrate Slack with Moodle – as an example see https://zapier.com/apps/moodle/integrations/slack I’m not sure if I have the proper privileges to do this. Will give it a try this weekend. Some are using Discord and I am also considering giving that a try.

• The more I use Moodle the more I like it. I’ve used lots of different LMSs over the years and Moodle is very nice. I’ve been really impressed with the IT staff and Moodle admins at HCC.

• More on Moodle – very nice on mobile devices. I’ve been able to make my Circuits 1 Electrical Engineering course content 100% mobile accessible. I like to think of mobile as the lowest common denominator for our students. At home they may not have a computer, have to share one, not have access to broadband, etc. The majority do have cell phones with data access though.  

• I bit the bullet on a 12.9 inch iPad Pro over the summer and it has really been nice. Using an Apple Pencil I’m using GoodNotes to record my lectures and keep track of just about everything else in my life. 

Finally, I snagged the pic here from a recent (and brilliant) Nokia ad...... imagine what it would have been like back then.....

STEM Education: Preparing for the Jobs of the Future

Back in April 2012, the U.S. Congress Joint Economic Committee published an interesting (and upsetting) report titled STEM Education: Preparing for the Jobs of the Future. I find this report particularly interesting because it was prepared by an economic committee and not an education based committee. As a father of two STEM women and someone who has focused a large part of his career on STEM education, I found the Why Are We Falling Short in STEM section particularly disturbing...... not because I disagree with the findings but because (unfortunately based on my observations) I agree. Here's a list of what I find most disturbing as quoted from the report:

• Science and technology curriculums are often thin in K-12 education, and may not be enough to provide students with a solid foundation in STEM upon which to build.
• Part of the problem is that it is challenging to attract and retain STEM-trained individuals to teach STEM subjects at the K-12 level when higher wages and employment opportunities outside of the education sector make working in a STEM profession an attractive alternative.
• Furthermore, while the quality of math and science teaching is the greatest factor in improving student achievement in STEM fields, not enough  K-12 math and science teachers have  hands-on experience working in STEM.
• Teachers may also lack an educational background in STEM. For example, the National Science Foundation (NSF) found that 36 percent of middle school science teachers and approximately 30 percent of middle school math teachers lack in-field training.
• Finally, there is the matter of culture. While not easy to quantify, to the extent that math and science are not considered “cool” among image-conscious high school students, inevitably many talented young people will be turned off from pursuing degrees and careers in STEM fields. Women may be particularly  unlikely to pursue STEM as a result of gender and cultural norms.

Lack of a science and math foundation at an early age, underprepared teachers, cultural issues.... can it be fixed? I encourage everyone to read the report.

Video: I Am Worried About My Grade

With the end of the semester coming in a few weeks it's that time of year on college campuses. This is for those of you who teach. If you've been at it long enough, you've probably heard just about all of these.
Enjoy!

Students - you need to be a little more creative and  thanks to Jean and Diane for passing this along.

Violinist & Violist Philipp Otto Naegele [1928-2011]

On the night of January 30, 2011 after a short illness, Philipp Otto Naegele passed away peacefully in his sleep. A brilliant violinist and violist, Philipp was a guiding light in the classical music world and a dedicated and inspirational teacher and mentor.

[http://www.philippnaegele.com/PhilippNaegele/Home.html]

He was my youngest daughter’s violin teacher for the past four years. Born in Stuttgart, Germany in 1928, his mom a physician and his father artist Reinhold Naegele. With the rise of Hitler in 1939, and 11 years old, he emigrated to England via Kindertransport, a rescue mission for primarily Jewish children that took place nine months before the war started. In 1940 he crossed the Atlantic to the U.S. by naval convoy - a pretty dangerous thing to do with Nazi U-Boats patrolling the Atlantic and those convoys being pretty easy pickings.

In the U.S. he settled in New York City where he went to school, eventually obtaining his doctorate in musicology from Princeton University. He also spent a graduate year on a Fullbright Fellowship at the Vienna Academy of Music studying violin with Franz Samohyl. Imagine going back to Europe after the war......

He then spent  eight years as violinist in the Cleveland Orchestra and the next 36 years as a faculty member in the Smith College music department, eventually becoming the William R. Kenan Professor of Music Emeritus at Smith. In 1950 he became involved with the founders of the Marlboro School and Festival (Vermont) where he began a participation as violinist and violist - and ultimately translator - that has endured till now.

My daughter spent an hour a week with Dr Naegele for the past four years. Extremely modest about his abilities and accomplishments, he was old school - a tough but caring teacher. Prior to Dr Naegele, she had been taking lessons from the teacher she started with at three years old. An excellent teacher but we felt it was time to move on. Dr Naegele treated her like an adult - an eye opener at first! If you were not prepared for your lesson he would let you know. There was one particularly busy week when she had not had a lot of time to practice. Five minutes into the lesson he sent her home, telling her to come back after she had practiced.  A good life lesson for an 11 year old - she was always prepared after that!

Thanks so much Dr Naegele, Eva and the rest of our family are really going to miss you.  Our thoughts and prayers are with you and your family.

--
Dr Naegele lived in Northampton, MA. For more information on his incredible life see http://www.philippnaegele.com (That's where I got the sketch above by pianist Amy J. Yan. Hope that is ok.)