Thoughts of cool weather bring me back to the years I lived in Japan.  One of the highlights of those years was hearing a vendor–pulling a roasting/grilling cart from street to street– shouting “Yaki-imo!  Yaki-imo” (baked sweet potato) to anyone who could hear him.  The sweet potato vendor and his song of “yaki-imo” in autumn is akin to the tinny tune of the ice cream vendor on a hot summer’s afternoon.  For each vendor, the children (and adults) come running.

I have not found a comparable “yaki-imo” vendor in the United States, but there are sweet potatoes.  As we noted last week, Autumn is upon us, and it’s time to think about changing our eating habits to conform to the seasons . . . or least to seasonal foods.  At my local farmer’s market last weekend, I found an abundance of sweet potatoes.  The farmers said that there will be a several more we...

In many parts of the country, Autumn approaches.  With this season we have sweaters, scarves, crunchy and colorful leaves, brisk weather.  We have the harvest of fresh fall vegetables and the desire for comfort food.  What better on these cool afternoons than a cup of vegetarian chili?

Several ProfHacker readers have asked about vegetarian food options for lunch.  Today, we have a vegetarian chili, but made in two different ways.  The recipes are similar, but the options demonstrate the versatility of such a dish.  One version of the chili is quite simple, requiring little more than cans of beans and some spices.  The other version includes vegetables.  Both are good.  You can make this chili over a weekend and have the chili available throughout the week for lunch (in this case, the Mr. Bento works wonderfully, but any microwaveable dish would be appropriate for your...

Each of these methods has drawbacks:  you could lose that piece of paper (that’s happened to me).  You could not understand Excel well enough to know how to create the formulas necessary to calculate the grades (that’s  happened to me)...

Salads are a good option for lunch.  They can be healthy, light, and filling.  They can be easy to prepare and even easier to carry to work (in Laptop Lunches, in a Mr. Bento, or even in a plastic bowl).  Salads can provide significant health benefits when we eat them regularly: an increase in fiber, vitamins, and minerals.  Salads can also lower caloric intake, and get us closer to the recommended daily intake of fruits and veggies.  That is, salads can provide health-producing effects if we don’t smother the salad in some creamy salad dressings, mounds of cheeses, and heaps of other goodies found in most salad bars.

Salads are good and they are good for us, but they can become boring.  Lettuce and tomato salads can take us only so far.  When salads become boring, we don’t eat them.  Instead, we are apt to grab a quick fast food burger or something equally unhealthy from a...

In composition, writing groups are standard operating procedure.  It’s in these groups that we learn to write, learn to read, and learn to be constructive critics of others’ work.  (Or, that’s the goal.)  First-year students need guidance when they learn these skills.  They need to know they are not alone as they become competent in academic writing, and they need to learn that others have strategies and skills that might be helpful to them.  First-year students are not the only ones who need this type of support.  So do first-year tenure-track faculty.

Forming a writing group for first-year tenure-track faculty is a proven method of helping these faculty members strengthen their confidence as academic writers in the often overwhelming and stressful time of acclimating to a new career, a new life, and a new professional perception of one’s self.  Writing groups can help...

It’s almost midterm, a time to gauge just how well our students are learning the material we are teaching them.  But what about our performance?  Who is evaluating how we are doing, if we’re being effective, or if students are learning?  Mid-term teaching evaluations can be a wonderful tool to gauge how students are perceiving the course, the material, and our teaching.

By conducting mid-term teaching evaluations, you have the students’ perspective once they’ve experienced enough of the course to provide constructive feedback, but while there is still enough time in the course to make some substantive changes (if needed). Learning about a potential problem can have long-term results for you and for your students.  For students, a mid-term evaluation can provide an outlet for simmering frustrations that you could possibly change.  On the other hand, you have the...

Last week, in the What’s for Lunch column, we discussed taking a lunch to work instead of stealing your coworkers’ food or eating food from a vending machine. Bringing lunch from home is a smart move, as it can save time and money. This week, we will assume that you will remember your lunch (because you have placed it next to something you won’t forget, like your car keys or your shoes). Below the jump: a recipe for pulled pork and how it can make two very different lunches.

Brian Croxall ( of Team ProfHacker) gave me a recipe for pulled pork a few months ago, and it’s wonderfully easy to prepare and very tasty. Pulled pork, while good for dinner or a Bar-B-Que, can also make a terrific sandwich or a delicious salad for lunch when you have some left over.

If you have been teaching for any length of time, you have probably heard the phrases “student-centered” pedagogy or “teacher-centered” pedagogy.  The use of these strategies (positively or negatively)  can affect student learning, teaching evaluations, or even tenure and promotion decisions.

Last week, I had my first peer-to-peer teacher observation as a new assistant professor.  After teaching at the college level for 10 years, I felt my teaching and pedagogy were sound, so I wasn’t too concerned about being observed by a colleague.  In a debriefing after the observed session, my colleague noted that the class seemed to be “teacher-centered.”  This was not offered as a critique, but simply as a statement.  The statement, however, surprised me.  I had always seen myself as a “student-centered” type of teacher.  Since I teach composition, which is...

You oversleep. 

You don’t have time to make breakfast, so you grab a Pop Tart as you rush out of the house, hoping you won’t be late to work.

Lunchtime rolls around, and you’re hungry, so you...

1. ...buy something from the fast food outlets on campus
2. ...steal someone else’s lunch from the communal refrigerator
3. ...scrounge for left over crackers and salad dressing in the break room
4. ...grab a Twix and a Diet Coke from the vending machines down the hall
5. ...don’t eat, as the Pop Tart will tide you over until dinner.

Any of these responses would be suitable on occasion (OK, stealing someone else’s lunch is never a good idea), but these options are not good long-term solutions to the “what-am-I-going-to-eat-for-lunch” problem.  (Nor is it a solution to the “I-have-overslept-again” problem, but that’s for another post.)

If you’re like me, the last thing you’d think of on ...

I am constantly looking for ways to simplify my life so I can at least carry less around with me every day.  Over the years, I have tried to downsize my bag.  I reason to myself if I carry a small bag, I won’t put much in it, just those things I need.  I’ll carry the smaller bag around for a while content that I’m living the “less is more” life.  I carry around this smaller bag until it breaks.  It breaks, you might wonder, not because it is cheaply made or inferior to other bags.  It breaks because I’ve stuffed too many things I “need” into it.

I carry around a lot of equipment stuff, but they are things I use almost daily.  Check out the contents of my bag (check the Flickr notes).  I have adopted some ProfHacker tips (Natalie Houston’s suggestion of using a timer), but I haven’t yet adopted others fully (like using DropBox instead of carrying...