Panic at the Start of the Semester

I'm sure I've mentioned before (a lot, maybe too much), that I am teaching a course in bioethics. In the past, I've been called in to give short workshops on these topics for a group of student researchers. This helped me develop my approach and some of the material I am using this semester, but is my no means equivalent to ACTUALLY teaching this class. The two big differences I see are 1) I have to give them grades, and 2) We will be enduring 14 weeks of eachother's company. These two differences result in a lot more, well, time being put into the effort. And obsessively re-writing my syllabus.

Although I've had a pretty good idea of what I want students to get out of this course for a long time, trying to define that in terms of a syllabus, gradable assignments, specific readings etc has proven to be challenging. Every few days, I'll get some other insight to how I want the course to go, or what the students should do/ get out of the experience, and I re-write the syllabus, re-tool the schedule and start writing new course documents. There is a lot to keep on balance. I want to have a lot of the structure for the course laid out, but still leave a lot of flexibility to cater to the interests of the students. I want to take on challenging subjects, but I don't my students to get incensed with eachother. And then there are my knowledge gaps. Besides the obvious fact that I have no formal training in bioethics, philosophy or social sciences, I am supposed to help my students with their writing, learning how to structure arguments, and I am totally dreading the big Environmental Ethics question.

We are a broad bio department, which means we graduate microbiologists ans ecologists side by side. I felt compelled to include an environmental ethics topics to include these students, and also because it is an important issue that future scientists ought to know about. I was waffling about picking some specific topic (Round-up ready plants, or mining issues), but after some soul searching and talking to Noel, I realized that I need to do for environmental ethics what I did for the other topics. Read up a whole lot, subscribe to blogs, and see what presents itself. And once I started in to that, I realized that I should just do the Big Environmental ethics topic (re-arrange syllabus, again). At the moment, I am thinking about environmental ethics is terms of "What happens when science and politics/economics disagree?" as a kind of capstone case study. I don't have a reading picked, and I don't know if my students will be up to this, but I think we will all benefit from the challenge.

Classes start Aug 30, and mine meets Tuesday nights. One way or another, I need to stop fussing with the syllabus and present it to my 8(! yes, I got an extra!) students. It's so soon!
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The news round-up: summer drags along in a steamy haze. Matt and I went to Kennywood last weekend and rode on the NEW rollercoaster, compliments of our friend J. Tonight we are going to a fundraiser/beer tasting even at the zoo, which promises to be a blast. Matt's back has been troubling him most of the week, so he's been trying to be stoically low key. I'll probably send him to the doctor's next week, he is not a very patient patient. I am currently enjoying the juicy sweetness of a yellow seedless watermelon I bought at a farmer's market- awesome. Also, we are out of Q-tips. We are out of Q-tips because my crazy cat figured out how to get into the closet, so he can get himself Q-tips to chase around the house anytime he likes. Which is often.