Gamification

So, I heard this story on NPR this morning about "gamification." The idea is to apply principles of games to everyday problems and situations. The example given was an effort in Sweden to control speeding. In addition to issuing tickets and fines for those who exceed the speed limit, drivers who were caught driving at or under the limit were entered into a lottery with the chance to win a portion of the fines. It is an apparent success. The argument is that positive incentives, a key feature of games, are more powerful than negative sanctions.

What I found more interesting in the story was the SAPS model described by a marketing guru. SAPS stands for status, access, power and stuff. The guy, Gabe Zicherman, argues that these are the things that motivate people, and in that order.

I know in academia we often talk about needing to show someone the love--that faculty members like to be recognized, made to feel important, thanked for their efforts. Sure, we all like money, but money is not all that we need or want. Isn't it the same in most business and personal relationships? What we want is to be recognized, to have access to another person, to feel powerful? "Stuff" is way down the list.

http://www.npr.org/2011/03/27/134866003/gamifying-the-system-to-create-better-behavior

Work-Family Boundary issues

The most recent issue of the Journal of Health and Social Behavior has an interesting article about the stresses created by the blurring of the work-family boundary. The study looked at the effect of the frequency of work-related contact outside of normal work hours on feelings of guilt and distress. They measured things like taking work-related calls at home or bringing work home. The use of cell phones and email make such contact increasingly likely. I would say there isn't a day that I receive work related emails after 5 pm or a weekend day in which I receive no work-related emails. And, the expectation usually is that I will respond to those that evening or on the weekend.

The study concludes that this "boundary spanning" between work and family has a negative psychological effect on women, but not men. This distress is exhibited mainly through feelings of guilt by women. This guilt tends to persist even when the actual performance of the role is controlled. That is, women feel guilty even if they are not diminshing their performance at either work or home.

I have set aside one full week a year in which I don't look at email and don't answer the phone. There is a little bit of withdrawal, but overall, I find it quite liberating.

Living longer

In my population class last week we were talking about aging and longer lives. I asked whether any of them would be interested in extending their life by 50 years, and got few takers. (I did ask this, though, just as we are approaching midterms, the March doldrums, and have had over 150 inches of snow. Still, my class has me a little worried and I've decided we need to lighten things up a little in there...)

By chance, I was just reading a NY Times article about David Murdock and his quest to live to 125. That is the about the oldest age ever recorded, and about where many scientists put the maximum human life span. His efforts have led him to adopt a diet rich in vegetables and whole grains. He has cut out dairy products, red meat, and sugar.

There is considerable doubt that such a plan will really work. But, it will be interesting to see how well he does. So far, he is looking pretty healthy.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/06/magazine/06murdock-t.html?src=me&ref=homepage

Apodictic

ἀποδεικτικός

I learned a new word the other day...apodictic. It means "clearly established, incontrovertible, beyond dispute." I love it! I only wish I could apply it to some real world situation.

I ran across the word while reading an article on immortality to prepare for class. The article talks about some of the potential drawbacks for long life. One of these, perhaps, could be the inability for us to remember our earlier "self."

I usually ask my class about their earliest memory. For most it is around age 4 or 5. If I think back about my childhood my earliest memory seems impossible. It involves taking my older sister to nursery school. I imagine it was in the spring, so the year would have been 1959 and I would be just 2 years old. On the road to the nursery school water has covered a large section, it is flooded. My mother tries to drive through the area and our car stalls in the middle. Here she is with 3 young girls, stuck in the flooded road. A farmer comes with a tractor and pulls us out. Do I really remember that event? I think I do. I know I remember being in the nursery school building before I myself went there. On the other hand, I always tell my class I remember virtually nothing of third grade. I don’t remember where my classroom was in the building, although I remember every other one. I don’t remember the name of my teacher. The only thing I remember from that year was being kept in from recess one day to be tested to see if I should skip to fourth grade. I failed, and stayed a third grader.

Does it matter if we can remember things from our earlier life? One theory is that the brain has limited capacity for storage and so "trivial" events are jettisoned. At the same time, the memories we keep may not be very reliable over time. They are shaped by later events, by changes in feelings and the stories of others.

So, here is the quote that caught my attention: "Whether or not that 'memory' is veridical is probably impossible to determine, but its role in giving coherence and continuity to existence does not depend on the memory being apodictic." My interpretation: It doesn't matter if what you remember is an accurate recall of reality. It only matters that it means something to you.

Comparisons

In my new administrative role, I'm often asked to compile data to be used in comparisons: comparisons among departments in my school, across schools and colleges in my institution, or even across institutions. The data requested is often very similar; "What is the stipend amount for graduate students?" "What is the teaching load for faculty?" They seem easy enough to answer. For the 2010-22 academic year students supported as graduate assistants will get $16,000. In my school, the teaching load is 2/2, 2 courses each semester.

But how useful is that information? Some students receive support for the summer, some don't. Some on assistantships are teaching a class, others are grading papers. Some students find other ways to supplement their stipend, taking under the table jobs, some have the financial support of a partner or parent.

Some professors teach large introductory courses, others teach small graduate seminars. Some teach "service" courses outside of their research interests, some teach only things closely related to their areas of interest. Some teach 3 days a week, some only 1.

As a diehard empiricist, I want to believe that most of what we want to know can be determined, that there are answers to these questions, values attached to them. With data we can sort and rank and determine what is "best." I'm not ready to give up on empirical data yet, but as I fill out another form asking me to provide data on "the number of graduate courses per semester" I do have my doubts about the success of my efforts.

Alphabetizing

I alphabetize. My teaching assistants do not. I must be "old school," because I don't understand how you can grade 45 papers and record the grades (in an alphabetical file) without alphabetizing. I mean I understand how it can be done...it just doesn't make sense to me. I want all the papers in order before I record grades. Then I can go right down the class list as I enter grades.

I have a few simple strategies for alphabetizing. Usually I first sort the papers into 2 or 3 piles (A-M and N-Z for instance), depending on the class size, and then sort within the piles. For smaller classes I just continually sort and resort the pile in my hands, moving papers forward or backward according to the last name. I always have a few puzzles--the students with hyphenated names or double names. So, is Meyer-Himes filed under M or H? What about Meyer Himes as a last name? My computer generated classlist sometimes does things differently than I would.

I do have a little trouble with the end of the alphabet. I can't tell you, without getting a running start, whether V comes before or after W. I don't know why, but I also get X and Y confused. Seems to me that X should come after Y. I mean, both X and Z are so infrequently used, why not just stick them at the end together. I was discussing this problem with my son's 16 year old friend. He confessed to having troubles with the PQRST sequence. For some reason, we seem to do better up to M then things fall apart. Although another hard area could be the JKL region.

I remember spending a lot of time learning about alphabetical order in elementary school. We regularly did exercises putting words in order. I don't know if it was merely a way for the teacher to keep us busy, or if there was some real reason to learn that. After all, most of us were not going to be file clerks in the future. I suppose an argument could be made for dictionary usage.

Overall, I guess my desire for alphabetical piles of papers is one more example of my desire for order. I wish that desire for order would spill over into my thoughts about housekeeping.

Memory training and mistakes

Sunday's NYTimes magazine features a story this week about memory training. This is not the kind of memory training that we usually hear about--how to remember names or how to work our brains to slow cognitive decline. This was "extreme" memory training, the kind used for competitive memory contests. Turns out that the techniques for this kind of extreme memorization are virtually unchanged since 86 BC. Our brains do better at spatial/visual memory than other types of memory. The big trick of memory champions is to place objects you want to memorize into a spatial pattern--usually a house. Each room contains something to remember, an object or set of objects. We remember them as we walk through the house.

Interestingly, I just read a novel, "Madonnas of Leningrad," in which this technique played a major role. A docent at the Leningrad art museum remembered paintings this way after they were stored for the war. In her old age she would walk through the museum in her memory and remember every painting.

The most interesting part, however, was about how to overcome a memory plateau. This research was based on speed typists. They went through a learning phase and then the process became automatic. They increased their speed until they reached a plateau, fast and accurate typing. How to get faster? Research showed that in order to get faster the typists had to force themselves to type faster, even if they made errors. They would identify when and where they made mistakes, and then practice those sequences. With this technique, their speed improved.

The point was that they had to push past their comfort zone, the speed at which they felt comfortable before they could get better. To quote, "To improve, we have to be constantly pushing ourselves beyond where we think our limits lie and then pay attention to how and why we fail...Psychologists have discovered that the most efficient method is to force yourself to type 10 to 20 percent faster than your comfort pace and to allow yourself to make mistakes. Only by watching yourself mistype at that faster speed can you figure out the obstacles that are slowing you down and overcome them." Bottom line: in typing, like in life, we need to push ourselves out of our comfort zone, make mistakes, and learn from them.

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2011/02/20/magazine/mind-secrets.html?emc=eta1