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Got up at 6 am as usual and had tea sitting up in bed with my husband - it's always good to start the day together. :-) Then 30 minutes of exercises (bike, aerobics - we do this together), fed the cat, watered the pot plants with the shower water, glanced at the morning paper over coffee and got ready for the day. Chatted to the our three kids (17-22, the younger 2 are still at Uni, one in science) milling around in the kitchen having breakfast and making lunches, also one of the boyfriends who had stayed over and talked to the medical student who boards with us during the week about his assignment due that day (it's pretty full-on
at our place in the mornings).

Got in to the office around 8.30am. I spent most of the morning finalising the exam paper for the "How science works" unit here at Monash. This involves coordinating with a number of guest lecturers, Monash lecturers from several School and the Malaysia and the off-campus coordinators. I like to set questions in rough proportion to the number of lectures so that's about 1-2 multiple choice and a short answer for each lecture. Quite tricky with so many visiting people, and slightly different version of the course on the different campuses (so we have to have some choice on the paper). This semester I decided to set two longer answers as well (about 12 minutes) because I think that gives a chance for people with more extended knowledge to shine-it's less of the rote learning, and tests a different kind of knowledge. I thought of setting three of these, but students often find it hard to gear up and think about 3 different essay questions in one exam so I decided to limit it to two.

I have to make sure the questions were not ambiguous and are fair so that meant re-checking the powerpoints for each lecture.
So you see- a lot of thought goes into an exam.

Other morning activities:
-writing sample questions for the students and put them on the web site
-monitoring the student and tutor discussion groups on the Unit web site.
-Had coffee with one of the tutors to discuss some difficult assessment issues
-sent off some study materials to the co-ordinator at Monash Malaysia. I have been videoing some of our special lectures (and my new ones) here at the Clayton campus and sending them to the other campuses on DVD, along with my powerpoint files

In the afternoon I attended a course on using online assessment and
grading tools in the courseware delivery program we use here at Monash. (Lunch was eaten at the same time.)

Other afternoon things:
-finished preparing for Monday's lecture, made PDFs of the notes and got that all set up on the web site.
- dealt with crucial emails only
-got two other people to proof read the exam paper.
- dealt with some difficult people issues raised by students and tutors. :'(
-finally finished the exam paper at about 7 pm .
Exhausted.

Got home after everyone had gone out for the evening. Scrounged some left overs for dinner . I normally enjoy cooking but tonight I was just too tired. I read some of Bill Bryon's " a short history of everything". - I'm rereading this to see if it would be suitable to use as a supplementary test for our unit. Maybe. :-\

Why did I do all this? I am the Subject coordinator. The exam had to be done by the Monday as the Unit is also taught in "off campus" mode and that requires extra time for distribution to different sites. I did the web course was because I am moving to a primarily on-line delivery system and I want to include on-line assessment and administration. (supplemented by lectures for on Campus students and readings for off-campus).

In High school - I was interested in anything and everything to do with Biology really. - apart from being a regular teenager :-) I thought I might be a doctor but decided science was more fun. Now? I have just started a new job in Science communication at Monash, a shift from my primarily Plant Physiology research focus but picking up on my interest in science in general and tertiary teaching ( I worked for a while in course ware development and multimedia part time while the kids were young).

I hope to get some decent research in chemical ecology up and running here too, probably starting in the midsemester break. I definitely want to keep being a plant scientist.My area of research is how leaf chemistry (protein, toxins - or secondary metabolites, change with environmental variables like atmospheric CO2 and nutrient supply. Mostly I work on eucalypts. Right now I need to get some of my specialised equipment set up and get some plants growing.

I am also the "ecophysiology" representative on the Australian Society of Plant Scientists, and am in the middle of organising a symposium for our annual conference in October.