hmmm, something I hadn't considered, thanks Jenny. I don't currently teach beyond the odd class filling in for other faculty or doing a session at our Journal Club, so this isn't something I had really thought about until I was considering applying for an instructor position that was asking for a teaching statement, and as I thought about it, I started to wonder if there were ways to introduce these concepts into an undergraduate curriculum starting in 1st year. So now I'm looking to see if any examples exist.
-Robert On Tue, Apr 21, 2015 at 2:03 PM Jennifer Bryan <[email protected]> wrote: > Hi Robert, > > You should get in touch with Mine Çetinkaya-Rundel about this: > > https://stat.duke.edu/~mc301/ > > She's using R Markdown, for example, in undergraduate courses. > > > One observation: In many institutions, undergraduate teaching falls > disproportionately on faculty, sessionals, adjuncts with high teaching > loads. Over the years, that limits the time and mental energy the > instructor for research and other non-teaching projects. This cuts off > prime opportunities to develop and use software carpentry skills. This is > especially true for the folks teaching undergraduate science labs, i.e. > they aren't necessarily data/cs/stats people by training. > > So, I think it's no coincidence that you see more of this at the grad > level. You're right, a lot of it *could* show up much earlier. But, > speaking for myself, I have the luxury of time and energy for this and > generally get deployed on graduate courses. It would be great to figure out > how to help this stuff trickle down more! > > > -- Jenny > > > > On 2015-04-21, at 10:43 AM, "Robert M. Flight" <[email protected]> > wrote: > > > Does anyone know of any examples where software carpentry type skills > have been integrated into an undergraduate science curriculum? It seems to > me that the various skills taught in software carpentry could be integrated > into an undergraduate science curriculum if done correctly, given the > prevalence of data manipulations that are frequently performed in > undergraduate science labs (chemistry titrations / conversions, physics > equation fitting, biology number manipulations), at least in my experience > over 10 years ago. I don't imagine that things have changed, and have > likely gotten worse. > > > > I know that Jenny Bryan is integrating a lot of this stuff into her > advanced stats class (which is awesome), but the more I think about it, it > seems that it would be useful to introduce things earlier rather than later. > > > > I would be very appreciative if anyone has any specific examples from > their own or others teaching. > > > > Regards, > > > > -Robert > > > > Robert M Flight, PhD > > Bioinformatics Research Associate > > Resource Center for Stable Isotope Resolved Metabolomics > > Markey Cancer Center > > University of Kentucky > > Lexington, KY > > > > Twitter: @rmflight > > Web: rmflight.github.io > > EM [email protected] > > PH 502-509-1827 > > > > The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds new > discoveries, is not "Eureka!" (I found it!) but "That's funny ..." - Isaac > Asimov > > > > Jennifer Bryan > Associate Professor > Department of Statistics and > the Michael Smith Laboratories > University of British Columbia > Vancouver, BC Canada > >
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