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Can a person who doesn't like to talk much still become a good lecturer?
Can a person who doesn't like to talk much still become a good lecturer/academician? Do you have any experience like this or know anyone like this?

Why not? Just need to talk enough in the class.

The best lecturer I had fell into an almost catatonic state during class break, sat down at his desk, and gave as short answers as possible if people tried to engage him into a chat. We all learned not to try to. He is reportedly the happiest when alone, tending to his roses. While lecturing, he was a dervish and extremely efficient, constantly engaging and challenging our entire class in rather Socratic ways. By 25, he had seminal papers in 4 or 5 different sub disciplines [sic], & would soon receive the most important prize in his field outside the Nobel (...and then retire from research).

I am a rather un-social person, but I still like (and hope to be reasonably good at) giving lectures and doing classes. Different skills.

I had an astronomy lecturer who would stand extremely close to the blackboard and talk very quietly, but only when in a large auditorium. I later had him in a more advanced class in astronomy in a small auditorium, more or less a wide but shallow class room. Totally different person, now he could fill the room with his personality. It takes all sorts, just try to work to your strengths.

"Can a person who doesn't like to talk much" How do you know he/she "doesn't like to talk"? Talking abilities are quite dependent on the audience, and the alloted time (someone who os not good at prompt reply on the floor can be great on a chair)

Not sure if it's related, but from my personal experience (not related to academia though), I don't talk much because I have no interest on the topic, but I can explain well (verbally as well) for things that are on my expertise. I don't think there's a correlation between "don't talk much" and "cannot teach well".

Thank you all for your warm comments. Yes, I also think even if a person seems to not talk much, but if it's about his/her favorite subject I believe he/she would like to talk/share about it.

Not quite answering your question, but still: one of the best lecturers in algebra I had was my PhD advisor who was a stammerer. For obvious reason, he did not like to talk too much.

Absolutely, a person who's not naturally inclined to be a speaker can become a good lecturer and scientist.  One of my best professors, actually, was a person with such inclinations.  Finding that speaking was not something that he was good at, he turned it into an object of study and began collecting heuristics about what made a good and effective talk.  By studiously applying these heuristics to his own teaching and professional communication, he could at least ensure that his talks did not fail on any identifiable dimension.
Talks need to do a lot of different things at once: holding attention, identifying key salients, speaking at different levels to different parts of the audience, providing "breadcrumbs", etc. Because of this, it often turns out that it's much less important to do any aspect brilliantly than to make sure that no aspect has been neglected. This professor might not have been a brilliant and exciting comedian, like some who are natural lecturers, but he often gave better lecturers than the naturals.  The more natural lecturers were often simply less consistent: following their enjoyment and intuition produced brilliance in some aspects and weaknesses in others, while his stolid application of heuristics ensured an across-the-board solidity of presentation.
In short: ultimately, it's not a matter of talent but of choices for how to invest in acquiring skills.

Thank you for the tips! Especially this one: "it's much less important to do any aspect brilliantly than to make sure that no aspect has been neglected".

The method he used would be useful for generations of lecturers!

I used to be INCREDIBLY shy as a child / teen / young adult.  I hated public speaking and did anything that I could to avoid it.
Mid 20s I ended up unemployed and was told by a family member that you don't even need to interview to be a substitute teacher, you just sign up, get a background check, and start getting work.  Desperately needing money, I went for it.  And they were right, I started getting work right away.
It was stressful at times but it helped me get out of my shell a lot.  And not just get out of my shell, but plan and execute strategies to keep my "audience" (the kids) engaged.  Because let me tell you something about teaching elementary kids... you either take command and keep the kids engaged, or you spend the whole day dealing with discipline issues instead of teaching, which is the most frustrating thing in the world.  It was a trial by fire, so to speak, and I figured it out in time.
I grew to love it (went back and got a teaching degree and teach elementary computers now) but moreso I found that A. I was no longer terrified by public speaking and B. I actually kind of liked it.
So I started signing up to do presentations at various video game conferences / etc.  Now I was presenting for adults but honestly... it's not that different from teaching elementary classes.  Make a plan that covers the entire time period you're going to be up there.  Have alternatives if your plan isn't working.  Keep the audience engaged (I always plan "activities" for the audience so it isn't just me / my partners up there talking.)  The vast majority of my anxieties used to come from "what if I flop in front of a crowd" and although that is always possible, good planning and audience engagement goes a long way towards minimizing that risk.
Not sure if this helps you since I don't teach adults, but I've thought about moving in that direction sometimes to pick up some extra work, like teaching night classes or whatever, and while the before-elementary-teaching me would never have even dreamed of trying to teach college classes, now it's like yeah, why not?  Current me is more than prepared for that challenge.
I'm still actually somewhat shy, and at parties and stuff I'll often end up just kind of standing near the outside of a circle and listening without saying much.  But now I have the skills and experience to public speak, and I feel pretty solid about doing it.  Recently my 5+ year long girlfriend came to assist me for an hour long presentation (complete with activities) at a video game conference with a crowd of around 100 people and despite being in an intimate relationship with me for years and seeing how I interact with people in other situations, afterwards she told me she was shocked at how well I commanded the thing... detailed planning, speaking loud and clear, energetically running around the room, actively engaging the audience, making people laugh, etc.  Apparently I become a "different person" when I'm in control of a public presentation as opposed to being just another face in a crowd.
So yeah, not sure this totally answers your question, but you can definitely go from scared, not so great public speaker to feeling generally in control and able to take command of the situation and do a great job.  And though I doubt you want to start substitute teaching elementary kids, there are probably other paths too.  Just getting the practice helps.
This isn't to say I don't sometimes get nervous about it though.  I think some level of nerves is pretty normal.

Yes, that's so me. I'm kinda shy in social group settings especially if I don't know everybody well, but through TAing I've come to really like teaching and I'm told by my audience that I do a good job of it.

Thank you for sharing your exciting experience! It's good to know although at the beginning some might feel "forced"/uncomfortable in teaching but eventually become a great speaker. So I guess, "don't worry, just jump into the teaching job, it's scary but eventually things work out well.."

I don't know if it automatically works out that way!  Some teachers I know gave up fast because they just couldn't manage it.  I'd say that is more over the discipline than the public speaking but as I said above those two are very related.  Basically, at some point you need to step up and take control.  Not day one, it is a learned skill, but... eventually.  If you can do that, then you'll be alright.

Thank you for your encouragement. Your story is very admirable and inspiring.

What I've heard from elementary teacher relatives and acquaintances is that teaching elementary school is probably the hardest teaching jobs of them all. Congratulations on your success.

@vonbrand Probably true but I teach computers which I find a bit easier than classroom teaching in a lot of ways (and tougher in a few ways I didn't anticipate.)  Still, it has challenges.  For instance apparently my 5th grade class managed to pick up the bad habit over break of nearly the entire class yelling OHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH REKT! whenever anyone slightly disagrees with each other now.  That's going to have to end ASAP.

Yes, I have known several.  They may be a better "lecturer" because they will use other teaching techniques than lecturing which are more effective because they lead to active learning.

Effective things than lecturing. Thanks for that idea!


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Number of months a year that faculty get paid in UK and Australia?
I've heard that faculty usually gets paid for 9 months in the US and you need to use your own funding to pay for the missing 3 months.
Is this situation different in the UK and Australia?

It is sad that this question has to be asked, for several reasons.

The US system isn't that simple. You get paid an annual salary (typically paid out over either 9 or 12 months) with 3 months of paid vacation. If you have funding, then universities allow you to work and earn additional money while you are on vacation.

In the UK, you get paid 12 months a year. I'm not actually aware of any other country that uses the US 9-month system.

As long as you are a full time permenant member of academic staff. My university employs a number of 9 month, temporary teaching staff (that just happen to get a new contract each september).

@IanSudbery That's pretty skeevy, though I guess it means the correct statement is "You get paid every month for as long as you're employed" and the people you're talking about are only actually employed for nine months each year.

There are at least two Russell Group UK universities which hire temporary staff on recurring 9 month contracts.

@MatthewTowers I've never come across a Russel Group uni that doesn't, at least somewhere, do this. Even Oxbridge do it. More common in the humanities than science, although our 2 full time teaching lab assistants are hired this way.

In Australia, if you have a permanent position as an academic at a University, you would typically earn an annual salary. This would typically be paid fortnightly, every fortnight of the year. This assumes you are working for the entire year (except of course for annual leave, public holidays, etc.).
Of course, there are plenty of causal academic roles such as research assistants, teachers and so on. These are often linked to the completion of specific roles. For example, if you tutor a unit, then you'll typically be paid for the amount of teaching you do and only for the weeks that teaching is occurring.
While we don't use the term "faculty" as much in Australia, I imagine when we do, it would typically apply to those academic staff on salary.
As a side note, Australian academics are typically allowed to earn additional income doing external work if their supervisor provides approval.

I don't know of anywhere other than the US that the 9 month contract system is used.
Under the US system you can (and many faculty do) typically arrange to have your nine month salary paid out in equal installments over the whole year.  If you do this then any summer salary you can arrange (e.g. from research grants, teaching summer school classes, or administrative work) is "extra" money.  Most faculty that I know budget to live off of their nine month salaries and then use the summer salary to invest into their retirement funds or to pay down their home mortgage or whatever.
There are some advantages to the faculty member in having a nine month contract.  For example, you're free to use the summer to go on vacation or work for some other employer (lots of consulting work gets done over the summer.)  Working on research contracts and summer school teaching are optional.  The down side to this system from the point of view of faculty members is that there is no guarantee that you'll be able to get a full three months of summer salary.
From the point of view of university administrators, the advantage of the 9 month contract is that it helps to keep salaries down in comparison with 12 month salaries in industry.  Universities don't need faculty to teach much during the summer, so why pay unneeded employees?
Note that fringe benefits (like health insurance, life insurance, etc.)  cover the entire year including the summer when the faculty member is not on contract.

This doesn't answer the question, which is about whether this system is used in the UK/Australia.

Please use the answer space only to answer the question. This doesn't.

I've edited my answer to be explicit on that point.

@BrianBorchers It still doesn't answer the question. The four paragraphs about how people cope with only being paid for three quarters of the work they do is nice but irrelevant. Saying that you don't know of any other country that uses that system doesn't say whether the UK or Australia uses it.

+1: This answers the implicit misunderstanding that US academics get paid nothing during the 3 summer months. The question has a rumor-mill/hearsay quality to it that leaves the US system deserving some explanation.

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How to greet the audience at the beginning of a PhD defense talk/presentation?
I'll be giving a 30-min public talk as a part of my PhD defense next month. It would be attended by the examination committee (consisting of my advisor and two examiners). I reckon that some professors/lecturers from the university might also join it apart from my colleagues and friends.
What would be a suitable - neither too short or seemingly-snappy nor too long and boring - way to address the audience at the very beginning of my talk? For instance, starting with

Hello everyone

sounds a bit too informal to me. Personally, I am inclined to starting with

Respected members of the examination committee...

but I am not sure if that, because of the "Respected ", may be considered too traditional (unfortunately, I don't recall how my colleagues who graduated in the last years did it - you never focus on such aspects until it is your turn :-$).
Should I refer to the examination committee using names, as in:

Respected members of the examination committee, Prof. X, Prof. Y, and Prof. Z

or better not?
For peers and friends, addressing could simply continue as

... and dear colleagues and friends.

Should I also try to sandwich another category specifically for the other professors and lecturers? If so, what could be a suitable way to address them?

Most PhD talks around here start with something like "Good morning. My name is jayann, and I am today defending my dissertation on XYZ". No need to overthink this.

It depends on your institution. In Holland, you actually have to say (in Dutch) something to the effect of "Very esteemed and highly learned Professor Doctor X, I would like to give you my most sincere thanks for the very insightful comments that blah blah blah" (seriously). I've been to defences in California where the candidate just went "hi". Short answer: ask you advisor, he/she knows what the norm of your institution is.

In my graduate (US mathematics) department, the custom was for the thesis advisor to introduce the speaker as we usually do for invited speakers at seminars/colloquia (something like 'I am pleased/delighted to introduce Harry Potter who will be defending his thesis "Horcruxes and how to find them"'), following which the speaker usually thanks the advisor for the introduction, possibly thanks the audience for being there, and then gets on with it.

Ask your advisor. You can have a Acknowledgements slide at the end of your presentation, if you want to acknowledge everyone and it is not a local custom. At the end, you can thank each one of the people that supported you along the way, including the audience.

I would go with "Hello, and welcome to the presentation of my Ph.D. thesis".

In the US to me, "Hello everyone" sounds formal and appropriate, whereas "Respected members of the examination committee" sounds downright ridiculous. Just wish everyone a "good morning", or a "hello", or a "let's get started", and then get on with your talk.

I have attended around fifteen such defenses in India. Most of them began with "OK, Should I start? Alright!.."

I would like to second both xLeitix and Koldito's comments and convert them into an answer:

In most cases, there is no requirement, and you can just say, "Good [morning/afternoon], my name is [name], and welcome to my thesis defense."
A very few institutions have a much more formal set of requirements.  For example, when I was an examiner for a defense at TU Delft, I had to learn a few words of Dutch in order to ask my questions with the required formality.  Also, I had to come a day early to get fitted for a special archaic form of suit. Don't worry about this, though: if this is the case for your institution, then somebody will make sure that you are instructed in what to do.

Indeed, these formalities are (nearly) the same at all Dutch universities and if you're a PhD student, the precise rules will most surely be pointed out to you well before the day of the defense. Still, when the time is there, candidates make mistakes, but nobody cares that much: it's mostly fun to spot them when you're in the audience ;-)

The answer lie in the comments to your question.

Check your local customs. Have you not attended a single PhD talk during your time as a PhD student? What have students done so far? And ... talk to your advisor.
Do not overdo it. If you try to work in lots of complex thanks and courteous comments, you are very likely to stumble and forget and the impression becomes unprofessional or insecure at best. Thanks area also easily managed by adding a slide with thanks to advisers, funding and whatever you feel is necessary. You can use that as the last slide of your presentation since the audience will then know the presentation is over.

Ideally, you would already have attended similar defenses of your advisor's earlier Ph.D. students before and picked up the prevailing social norms there - also concerning other "soft factors", like whether to feed everyone afterwards, with what etc.
I gather this didn't happen, so I'll second Koldito's comment-answer: just ask your advisor. And/or talk to other people in your institution, even if they work in other areas. Such things will likely be more specific to your regional culture than to your specific subfield.

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How should I choose the name of my past degree in application when the options do not not exactly match my degree?
I am applying for PhD for a certain university (Canadian), and in the form there is a question about the academic background. In the options I see things like Bachelor of engineering, bachelor of engineering with honours, bachelor's degree general, bachelor's degree 4 year, and bachelor of science. There are similar options for the Master's degree: Master of engineering, Master's degree, and master's of science.
I completed my undergraduate study in 4 years and my degree is "Bachelor of science in engineering".There was a project in the final year. I am doing a "Master's of science in engineering". This is thesis based degree.
Which of the above options should I choose? In my country we only have Bachelor of science and Master's of science so I don't know what these things mean.

I am applying to phd programs in the US, and, after contacting the schools, the responses are: Choose the closest one. Lest there be any unnecessary error, just contact the school! I believe the staff member will reply in a timely fashion with etiquette.

In regards to your question about what a Master of Engineering is, this wiki entry covers it. For example, an MEng Degree from the United Kingdom would be considered an undergraduate degree as it is provided in lieu of a Bachelor's and has the same study length.

By "I see things like," I assume you mean "the options are," i.e., the list of options you have given is exhaustive. I shall also assume that you are an engineering student, with a degree at "Bachelor of science" level and you are currently studying at "Master's of science" level. The question about academic background is looking for your highest qualification, so I would list "master's of science."
You could call the university to confirm!
EDIT. I do not agree with compass's remark that a UK MEng degree is provided in lieu of a Bachelor's and has the same study length: UK BEng degrees are typically three years, whereas UK MEng degrees are typically four years. It is possible that compass is attempting to compare Bachelor's degrees between different countries.


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Does it look bad to have more letters of recommendation from undergrad than masters professors in PhD admissions?
I did my undergrad at university A, and my masters at university B. I am now applying to university C which requires 3 letters of recommendation. Naturally, my thesis advisor is one of them. I also contacted my undergrad advisor whom I did a 4th year project with.
Finding the right third referee is the problem. In my masters, I only took one course with each professor; 8 different courses with 8 different professor. So I don't think that they know my that well, although I did score A in all of the courses. I decided to contact another undergrad professor whom I took 2-3 courses with.
How will the admission committee look to an application where there are 2 referees from my undergrad and only one from grad study ? Will that affect my application in a negative way ?

Note to others: Don't do this. If you think you might apply for PhD programs later, start getting to know your potential references now. Note that "get to know" does not mean "take classes from".

Did you have a committee for your masters? Are there professors you routinely talked to after seminars? Think outside the classroom.

"All other things being equal," you'd rather have more references from graduate than undergraduate professors.
Your situation is such that "all other things aren't equal." Apparently, you didn't get to know any of your masters professors well, and only took one course from each. Whereas you had undergraduate professors that you took two to three courses from, and they know you better, and may be in a better position to assess your research potential.
Taking the inference a step further, you may have done your most interesting/significant research as an undergraduate, while your master's work "topped up" your academic knowledge. If that's the case, you probably ought to "go with what you've got," and get more referrals from the (undergraduate) professors that you did more work for, or at least got to know better.
I would rather have "glowing" recommendations from undergraduate professors than "lukewarm" recommendations from graduate professors.
If all else fails, try to take a second course with one of your graduate professors so the s/he can get to know you better, and give you a recommendation.


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Etiquette for a female PhD student to reject her male supervisor's invitation to meet outside of work
The role of supervisor is a key role. The relationship between the supervisor and the students should be healthy.
In this context, in India, there is a lot of difference between male and female students. If a male supervisor frequently holds meetings outside of the workplace,  male students can participate without any fear while female students cannot.
How does a female student reject the invitations of a male supervisor to meet outside of the workplace (such as in the supervisor's home)? The purpose of the invitation is to discuss the developments or updates in research.
Many incidents like 1,2,3 etc., have occurred and hence female students have to think about their safety but at the same time they still have to work around the supervisor's workload. (He may not get time during his working hours to review his scholar's progress.)

While I know India is not the US (or any other country I am familiar with), but some norms should be universal and a student should not have to subject themselves to things outside the norm. Something like

Dr. Smith, it is nothing against you, but I do not think it sets a good precedent for us to meet under those conditions. Is there a time we can have the meeting at the university?

Now, Dr Smith may get very mad and take it out on you, but if they are the type of person to do that, do you want them as a supervisor, and more importantly, do you want to meet them alone at their home.

At their home? The question doesn't suggest she was asked to come to his home.

@AzorAhai The original question mentioned their home as an example of an outside place to meet; edits to clean up and streamline the question removed that particular parenthetical. Maybe it should be added back because I think that adds a bit of context. I can't speak for India but for the US I'd see a professor's home and a coffee shop to be completely separate levels of concern.

@BryanKrause Oh, ok. Obviously that's entirely inappropriate.

But in many colleges, the student doesn't have a choice of selecting her supervisor. College assigns to the supervisor who has fewer scholars under him and research interests matching to the interests given by the student.

+1. I wouldn't feel bad to just say "for personal reasons, I like to keep my meetings on campus and during daylight hours" to any colleague without having to explain myself further.

@hanugm I am not sure how that is relevant. Your assigned supervisor will either handle it well,  in which case there is no issue, or handle it badly. If he handles it badly, then you have issues, but at least you found out about the issues early on.

My intention is to say that supervisors can be assigned by dean itself without any student consent and changing supervisor becomes hard after entering into the second year. In the first year, there will be coursework, at that time, mostly there are no such invitations

@hanugm my answer is that if you get an inappropriate invitation, you politely reject it. Then if there is fall out, you deal with it. If you have an ass for a supervisor, you have an ass for a supervisor, but I am not going to suggest you go to a supervisor's house because you know they are an ass and will make things difficult for you. In fact, my suggestion is the exact opposite.

Yep, I got it... Do you want them as a supervisor, and more importantly, do you want to meet them alone at their home. I had ambiguity in these lines previously... Now I got your intention clearly...

You can work with groups of students to have the university impose certain rules. You can then just use the rules as the "excuse".
You can, perhaps, attend such "gatherings" if you always go with a friend or relative. The friend may be bored, of course, but offers some "cover". In some cultures this is expected, actually.
You can fairly safely attend larger gatherings. Or gatherings in public places.
You can suggest another place to meet when invited. One that feels safe to you. It is probably fine to say that you would "be more comfortable" in the place you suggest.
If you need to work with someone you can't trust, do so electronically, using email and such.
But men aren't entirely safe from predators either, though it is normally a more common problem for women.
If you get "predator vibes" from a professor, work to find someone better and less selfish. Spread the word if you can do so safely. The grapevine can, of course, warn you of the bad actors.
If you do accept an invitation, be sure someone trusted knows where you will be and when you will return. Set a strict time limit on the duration of the meeting - say an hour.
But even if you get good vibes, be vigilant that the relationship doesn't change to one that is less professional.

Students imposing rules on professors has a super-long history... I heard in college that that's how "classes" (i.e. specific subject, specific lecturer, specific enrollment, specific time / place) were invented!  Before that, students had no guarantee that by being at a certain place at a certain time they would learn what they were hoping to learn.  I'll try to find the history of this... it was presented as somewhere in Europe, sometime between 1100 and 1600.  Sorry.

Ah, here it is: https://books.google.com/books?id=KJ_2yq7K2E0C&pg=PA16&dq=%22and+dominated+the+masters%22+students+bologna&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjXgYDmyaTeAhVIhOAKHbcFAtIQ6AEIKjAA#v=onepage&q=%22and%20dominated%20the%20masters%22%20students%20bologna&f=false

It occurs to me that this is a matter not merely for the faculty and administration, but also for the associated student body to address.  The associated student body has the authority (like a labor union) to make collective demands of the other parties in a university, under threat of collective action.

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Can I still submit my work to a journal if a very similar paper was just posted on arXiv?
I am from an engineering field (EE, specifically signal processing), and I have been working on a paper since March 2014.
Back then, I spent a significant amount of time reviewing the literature and didn't find any existing work that discussed my topic. I actually finished the bulk of the paper several months ago (Jan 2015), but since then I have been editing and reviewing it with my coauthors before we planned to submit to journals.
I recently, however, found a similar paper that was "published" or posted on arXiv in April 2015. I believe that it is extremely similar (~80% of the ideas). I am not sure how much of an issue this is, as I have heard that arXiv is not a "legitimate" domain (in my field, almost everyone just uses the IEEE searching engine).
My original plan was to submit my work to journals soon. Do you think I can still submit my paper to a journal? How should I acknowledge of otherwise handle the existence of this similar arXiv publication?

But I need to wait 5 more months until my reviewers finish the reviewing process before submiting to public journal. — Who are these reviewers you mentioned? Your co-authors?

This, right here, is a primary example of why using arXiv is highly encouraged, regardless of its "domain"

in my field, almost everyone justs the IEEE searching engine — Trust me, everyone in your field uses Google.

@MadJack, I think they are co-authors....

I don't understand - what is this "reviewing process", if it's not the review process for a journal/conference submission?  Why does it take 10 months?

Oooh, yeah, I'm going to use search tool X that requires a login and restricts my results to those from one publisher.  Way better than Google Scholar.

@Aragon: I think they are co-authors – You think they are? Shouldn’t you know?

@Wrzlprmft: Perhaps he means that they were coauthors of the paper that scooped his work? Perhaps they delayed so that their paper would be published first?

@jvriesem: Perhaps, but there is little point in speculating about this unless the asker clarifies what review process and what similarities we are talking about.

As the original author has not yet returned to clarify, I went ahead and made some changes to the question, which included a bit of a guess at the original asker's intent in order to create what I hope is an answerable question.

This kind of thing has happened a lot in mathematics over the years. Very similar ideas published within months of each other, even ideas which started new areas of math. Discuss the other work, how it relates to yours and how it differs from yours and you might be okay. Have you given a talk on this work that can show you definitely came up with the idea and explored it before the other work was put on arXiv?

nothing to prove my work is the earliest, but I did sent my work for peer revision in my email. Do you think email record counts?

Sure, you can go ahead and submit your paper. Of course you are obligated to discuss the arXiv paper, and its relation to your work -- but it sounds like you can honestly describe it as independent work. It would be a good idea to also make your paper public at this point (perhaps by posting a preprint on arXiv).


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How to avoid crossing my advisor if I write a paper as a sole author?
A bit of a controversial question here. I am a PhD student currently away from campus on an internship in another state (in the US). I left campus with my advisor-provided laptop and some dataset I collected while working in my advisor's lab. We had the mutual understanding that me taking the official lab's laptop to the place of my internship was in the spirit of me being able to do my research effectively while I am away from campus.
For the past four months, I have been working at my leisure hours at my place of internship and during weekends to investigate an algorithm with respect to the dataset I collected while working under my advisor -- in his lab. I should mention that since I am away on an internship, I am not his Research Assistant at least for now (until I return to campus).
Aside from using the dataset I collected from his lab, I have scraped publicly available datasets from other research labs online and used them to rigorously test my algorithm. My algorithms are starting to yield promising results which I think are about right for a publication. Because my advisor has made little or no contribution to my work so far, I am not sure how appropriate it is to put his name on the paper I am writing which reports my findings so far. I have tacitly brought this up with him in emails  so far but he has not expressed any enthusiasm about whatever work I am doing remotely (perhaps he doesn't trust what he hasn't seen?).
Since the deadline of the conference is coming up soon, how would you suggest I do not cross him if I write the paper as a sole author?

The question of supervisor authorship is already addressed in When should a supervisor be an author? so I'm going to edit this post to highlight the question posed at the end, which is not a duplicate. (Please refrain from using the comment section to discuss whether supervisors should be listed as authors - post an answer on the linked question if you have something new to add there.)

Do you have reason to believe your advisor would be upset if you wrote this as a single-author paper?

It's possible given that he submitted an NSF proposal based on what I was working on a month ago. But again, I cannot read minds unfortunately. So I don't know.

Is listing your advisor on any papers you write the default thing to do in your group? The algorithm you developed is related to your PhD topic, right? [Before you answer the second question, forget that you scraped publicly-available datasets; that is irrelevant.]

I have tacitly brought this up with him in emails so far but he has not expressed any enthusiasm about whatever work I am doing remotely  (perhaps he doesn't trust what he hasn't seen?) -- Or he's busy and neither massively excited nor disappointed in your work, reckoning that you'll give a full update when you get back.

How do you expect to fund your travels to the conference? Do you see this work forming an important part of your dissertation?

Basically, you are taking a dataset from the group, with an assignment to figure out how to analyze it based on the direction of the group, and having done so now think that this was all your idea and your advisor has nothing to do with it? Would you think differently if you had done the work sitting at your desk at the university, and if so, why?

@MadJack Yes, listing the advisor's name as the last author is the default in the group. The algorithm is definitely related to my PhD topic, yes!

@ff524 I do not know. I can't predict his reaction.

@dan1111 It doesn't really matter if I am the first author.

@mikeazo the work would form part of my dissertation, yes.

@JonCuster I would definitely think differently if the work was done at my desk at the university chiefly because I would be under my advisor's payroll as a research assistant. Right now, it seems to me that I am some sort of a free agent.

Who pays you is basically irrelevant here - if you were on an external fellowship your advisor would not be paying you directly either. Certainly your advisor was not there to have day-to-day oversight. But, clearly what you have done is part of your advisor's research group direction, with input from the advisor as to direction and goal.

If you don't know whether your advisor expects to be a co-author or not, just ask him.
If you feel that the advisor shouldn't be a co-author, you can present that as the "default":

I am planning to write up my work with X, to submit to conference Y. You haven't really been involved in this work so far, so I guess you won't co-author this paper with me. Is that right?

If based on the specifics of the situation you don't have any strong feelings against co-authoring this paper with him, but you just aren't sure what he wants, you can just ask him:

I am planning to write up my work with X, to submit to conference Y. Are you interested in co-authoring this paper with me?

As you have said, you can't read minds. The only way to know what's in his, is to communicate.
And it's really important that you have this discussion as soon as possible; authorship disputes are much trickier to resolve after publication (when they can potentially lead to retraction) than before submission.

Before answering, allow me to highlight some additional details OP posted in the comments below their post.
First, I asked OP if listing an advisor as a co-author is the default in his/her group, to which OP replied:

Yes, listing the advisor's name as the last author is the default in the group.

I also asked OP if the algorithm (s)he developed is related to his/her PhD topic, to which OP replied:

The algorithm is definitely related to my PhD topic, yes!

So, to summarize, your advisor's policy is that he/she expects to be an author on your papers by default, and the paper you are currently working on is relevant to your PhD topic.
Thus, in the absence of any additional information, the only logical conclusion is that it is not possible for OP to avoid crossing their advisor by excluding the advisor as a co-author on the paper.

Some additional things to consider ...
Several questions on this site have addressed automatic co-authorship for advisors, such as How to explain to a student that it is common to include a supervisor as a co-author and When should a supervisor be an author?
Now, in the second linked question above, user JeffE provided an answer, which to me is an interesting take on the advisor co-authorship problem. In his answer, relating to advisors being co-authors on papers that result from projects for which they obtained a grant, JeffE writes:

In practice, writing a good grant proposal requires at least as much intellectual novelty as writing a good paper. Most of the good ideas that PIs pour into their proposals also appear in papers; as long as those ideas constitute novel intellectual contributions, the PI merits co-authorship. But that only works once per idea; once an idea has been published, it's no longer novel, by definition.

Does your advisor subscribe to the above philosophy, some other philosophy not mentioned above, or does "by default" mean that your advisor is always listed as a co-author? The only way to find out is to ask.
Whether it is advisable to approach advisor with these types of questions will depend on your working relationship with them, how important it is for you to exclude your advisor as an author from the paper, etc.

I had passed through similar situations, and my conclusion is that if your advisor is a good scientist, he will understand that you need to work on some projects by yourself to develop your scientific skills. The only thing that I would advise you to do is to make him aware that you plan to submit the paper to a conference whose deadline is soon, or that you have already submitted it to conference. If your paper gets accepted without him knowing even that the paper was submitted, this could potentially leave him with the impression that you don't trust him. But even in this case, if he is a successful scientist, I bet he would only be happy for your accepted paper.
In your situation I would write the paper and send him the best draft you have explaining that you plan to submit the paper to conference X. Or if the deadline is really close, I would submit the paper to the conference and send a copy to him saying that you have submitted this paper to the conference. In the title page of the paper you should put only your name, since so far he doesn't even know about the existence of the paper anyway. This would in my opinion be a clear message that you want to write the paper by yourself.
Dear professor X,
during my internship here at place Y I started working at project Z. I have wrote a paper about this project (attached) with the intention to submit it to conference W whose deadline is really close. Would you mind making some comments, if you have some time? If you don't mind I would like to try to finish this paper as a sole co-author.
Best Regards,
Blabla
Asking him for comments does not turn him immediately into a co-author. In fact even the most senior scientists ask for the opinion of their colleagues.
The good think about this approach is that he can potentially suggest improvements, or correct errors. In this case, you could put him in the acknowledgements if the paper gets accepted. If the paper does not goes through, you could still ask him for more suggestions and if he contributes enough, you can submit it to another conference/journal as a co-author.
All in all, the only thing you should avoid is an atmosphere of mistrust.

Based on your comment

The algorithm is definitely related to my PhD topic, yes!

and that

the work would form part of my dissertation, yes.

I think you are thinking about this incorrectly. You want your advisor (and committee members) to have buy-in in your work. You want them excited about your work, contributing to your work, etc, as soon as possible. In other words, you should want your advisor (and maybe even committee members if time allows) to be co-authors.
The approach should be to schedule a phone call with your advisor (or if you aren't too far away, go visit him/her). Show them the results you are seeing with graphs, etc, and start strategizing how you two (or more if a committee member is involved) can best publish the work.
Based on things you have written, it sounds like you have not written the paper yet, but have a target conference in mind. Get your advisor's advice on if the conference is appropriate (maybe you should aim higher). Discuss with them the outline for the paper you have been considering. Get as much out of your advisor as possible so that there is no doubt in your mind that they should be a co-author. They may even be willing to let you charge some hours remotely, and you'll start getting paid for writing up your results and publishing them. Then your research paper would have a footnote about how it was supported in part by research grant XYZ.
All of this is a good thing and in no way diminishes the fact that you developed the algorithms that got the promising results on your own free time during summer employment.


text:
Writing Thesis: Copying from published papers
I'm aware that some institutions offer something that is called 'Thesis by Publication' (sandwich thesis) but that's not available to me. I'm trying to work out what pitfalls there may be to simply copying from papers that I have previously published in order to form large sections of my thesis.
The papers that I've published were largely designed to solve major problems encountered within the larger frame of research, so altogether they should follow a single coherent line of thought.
Must one's own work be cited in a thesis? This would be standard when submitting a paper for publication, but there is a stipulation when publishing papers that that work has not been already published elsewhere, and the same sort of thing does not really crop up with a thesis, does it?
Are there any other potentially pitfalls in this course of action?

Yo0u should definitely be talking to your advisor...

I did something like this --- I took my published (and submitted) papers and put them together to tell a story (well, a significantly expanded story, but still). Long parts of text were copied almost vanilla from the papers. I did make sure to point out what and where from I am borrowing in the introduction to the thesis and in the chapter introduction, and for each main result, I have added a citation to the paper where it first appeared (if at all). My field is math, and I imagine it would be okay in math anywhere, but you really should find out form colleagues/advisors in your dpt anyway.

Oh, one thing of note: in my department, it was customary for the coauthors (or at least the advisor) to write (confidential) short notes describing how much you contributed to each paper.

Some universities require that a thesis be new nonpublished results (silly, I know), some allow sandwich theses, some don't, ... The point is you really need to check your university/department guidelines.

"(sandwich thesis) but that's not available to me." Wherever this rule is written down, the answer to your question will also be written down.  It's a matter of your university's policy, not something decided by votes on academia.SE.

A general answer for this problem can not be given here with 100%. Here some hints:
The problem you might be running in is called self plagiarism and
   different institutions allow/forbid different approaches here.
If you are planning to write the thesis like this (which is absolutely your right) then:

It is essential for you to get the guidelines of your university before starting to write (and save them somewhere where you will still be able to find them even years later)
Check the policy of the journals that you have    published in - most    journals allow to re-use published material in    your
thesis but make    sure to also print out these guidelines and keep
them.

Checking with the university and the journals (and to have written proof of it!) might save you many troubles later. Because if someone later claims that you commited self plagiarism then you can always cite the official guidelines that were in place at the time when you wrote your thesis.
You should also check with your supervisor but just having his/her oral Ok might not be enough many years later.

Self-plagiarism would be a potential problem if (and only if) the university does not allow already published results to be counted for the thesis. What I've met so far is that material already used for other exams (e.g. Master thesis) is not allowed. Point 2 (which applies regardless of which material this particular university allows) is about copyright infringement.

I'd emphasize those documented school guidelines are the most important factor in this answer. They are probably in some kind of "thesis handbook" or "manual" the school provides, which every student needs to read carefully before writing their thesis. Otherwise it will probably not be accepted. My school required we meet with a librarian I believe, to go over in detail.

@cbeleites I haven't come across anywhere that wouldn't let you use results obtained during your studies for a degree in that degree's thesis, published or otherwise. Somewhat defeats the point of publishing during that time, which is something they tend to want to encourage. If the words are your own (i.e. not from another author), then I highly doubt you'll run into issues other than perhaps rarely copyright-related ones - though do check.

@Dan, It might be a problem even if the words are your own. Therefore get the university guidelines so that you can easily defend yourself in case someone makes accusation 10 years later. See also my answer here for what is plagiarism (that same applies for self-plagiarism): https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/127858/third-violation-of-academic-integrity-policy/127866#127866

@Dan: as I said in my answer, I'd consider it highly unusual (not to say flawed) to formulate the novelty requirements in a way that precludes publication. (And I'd recommend not to attend any such program) That being said, the only thing that counts are the rules of the univeristy in question. (To me it's similar to journals that consider a draft on arXiv a prior publication that makes any submission of that manuscript to them lacking novelty and thus unacceptable. Doesn't make sense, isn't good, but does exist)

I graduated exactly having with more than enough papers already published. Sandwich thesis wasn't an option so I also wrote a more bigger and unified story. The organization and flow makes rewriting all almost a natural consequence.  Of course is much more work, but it was more satisfactory to me, even if likely I could have done conspicuous copy and paste. Consider that in my thesis it was clear that everything was published, and I could hardly have been seriously accused of self plagiarism. But it was simply better. (Still universities should adopt sandwich thesis when possible, my opinion)

Others have already told you that a university can require novelty for a thesis in the sense that results published as papers do not count towards the thesis work.
However, the setting I've seen more often is that publication as paper (or conference presentation, poster, etc.) do not hurt the thesis novelty requirement but that no material that has been submitted for any other exam (e.g. Master thesis) can be used for the exam/thesis in question. I'll answer for this scenario.

Must one's own work be cited in a thesis?

In consequence of that novelty requirement, any material that was submitted for other exams has to be cited as such (i.e. like any other citation) - otherwise it would be self-plagiarism.
OTOH, having peer-reviewed publications of the thesis material would usually count in your favor, so it is in your best interest to cite them as such even if is your own thesis work ("The results of this section have been published as [publication]").
In my (long form, but other language) thesis I numbered my publications with a prefix to mark them, and put them also in a separate reference list (the thesis application anyways required a list of my publications).
Publications of the thesis work where you have co-authors must be cited unless you manage to leave out the contributions of your coauthors in the long-form thesis.

pitfalls there may be to simply copying from papers that I have previously published in order to form large sections of my thesis.

The remaining pitfall then is copyright of the paper.

If you retained copyright for the paper, you're fine with reusing from the publisher's point of view.
Many journals that require you to sign over copyright to them do allow thesis use in that license contract. Others require you to obtain a license (usually highly automated process). All this is pretty streamlined nowadays because it's neede for the boilerplate theses.
=> read the copyright agreements and act accordingly
Also your legislation may say that you retain certain rights (i.e. clauses in the copyright agreement that take those rights away are void).
Worst case (you don't have a license to reproduce the required parts of the paper), you'll have to reword the content of the paper and to re-format tables and figures.
I'd consider a publisher with such terms a legitimate reason to not publish there any thesis-relevant work.

For the second part of your answer: Nowadays it's pretty easy to get a reuse permission from many publishers, it's even free (which was not always the case earlier).

With regards to copyright, this also depends on the local copyright laws. For example under UK law, you have the right to submit copyrighted material for examinations without needing permission (although if the thesis is otherwise deposited or distributed you may need it)

What I have seen is:

to state in the first paragraph of a chapter / section, that this chapter / section was already published as a paper, your paper, and you properly cite it.
You don't make a verbatim copy, but you can lead closely to the paper. Often you want to give more details in a PhD thesis compared to a paper, so it is less difficult than it may sound.

This does only work, if you wrote the paper. Otherwise you are almost-copying someone's else work, which is wrong.
If you intend to follow this idea, ask your adviser whether it is ok.

'Thesis by Publication' ... is not available to me.

Perhaps not as such, but I very much doubt your institution wants your thesis to be on different research than what you've published. I would guess that the university expects you to do more than simple copy-paste-bind-together. However, the most important advice I have to give you is:

Read your university and your faculty/departments specific, detailed guidelines on what you're supposed to write and submit.
Talk to your advisor - s/he knows what is expected from the experience of previous advisees.
Skim through theses of previous advisees of your advisor or others in the department, whose research you're somewhat familiar with. See how their published papers relate to the thesis.

what pitfalls there may be to simply copying from papers that I have previously published

Don't "simply copy", but rather adapt: Use common preliminaries for different results; weave more of the context of the work in the other papers into the exposition of each result; mix up the section structure somewhat; etc.

Must one's own work be cited in a thesis?

Well, essentially yes, but even there are caveats here - never mind them. Just say explicitly that "this section/chapter is mostly based on [SelfRefHereToThePaper]" (or however it is customary to self-reference in theses in your university". That also means that if anybody has a unforeseen problem with this being the case, they'll complain upfront rather than accuse you of anything underhanded.

It is a positive that your work has already gone through peer review and is archived.
Yes, cite the previous articles (and retain the original citations from those articles).  I would also discuss it in your intro chapter.  You will probably have a subsection of the intro called "organization of the thesis".  You can have some structure like:
Para one (list and describe the chapters in content, organization.  Show a heirarchical structure and a reason for the ordering.)
Para two:  Chapters 4, 5 and 7 are original work from this thesis research which were successfully published during the study. (citations).  Chapters 6 and 8 are intended to be reworked and published in the future as stand-alone journal articles.  Chapters 1 and 2 include synthesized content from the published research reports as well as expanded detail for this thesis.  Chapter 3 is a synthesis of issue X of the  lab work from articles corresponding to chapters 4, 5, and 6.  It is intended to be published as a standalone article in a journal contentrating on issue X
I would go ahead and do some light editing to make the thing more integrated.  For example in experimental work, the methods sections for the lab work will have a fair amount of partial duplication.  Separating that out to a chapter 2 on "methods" can be useful.  Same issue for the intro sections, excise them and combine into a more integrated/expanded section within the Intro chapter that has lit review and motivation.
You may, may not have other reasons to reorganize some of the meat of the content.  I would not strain to do so, just do so if it makes editorial sense, not through some desire to change things for appearance.
This is also a good chance to add some expanded content that you feel is helpful but were unable to put into terse journal articles.  E.g. details/advice on methods, apparatus, safety.  Work that was non-notable for an article (e.g. a computer-based calculation that agrees with earlier direct methods, properties experiments that showed no change in output but may be useful in the future for example in comparison to systems with more interesting results, more detailed simulations, verification of terse proofs/derivations in supporting papers, etc.  You should have a little bit the attitude that this thesis may be looked at by follow-on students, postdocs, or even your PI when doing followon work.  It can be a helpful training document.  This is a bit of a different issue than the archived literature (which serves that function also, but tends to be more terse.)
Also, it is just a chance to record things that you don't want "lost".  I am an advocate of "publish everything", but still we have to live with the reality of terseness in normal science articles.  Best is to find some way to get every finding, idea into regular journal articles.  But the thesis is a sort of "half a loaf" versus just never getting the content recorded at all.  The rationale for getting content published is that it prevents rework (which happens too much, see the E Bright Wilson book on research.)
IANAL but I think it is extremely unlikely that journals will have an issue with the republication of content (even graphs and the like) within a student thesis. Or the converse, when the content was in the thesis first.
Nor are your actions unethical.  (I disagree with the surfeit of caution in the Buffy reply.)  It is very normal in the sciences for a thesis to be a collection of papers.  Not the European explicit sandwich.  But a lightly edited smorgasbord, sure.  Nobody is surprised, bewildered or aghast at this.  It is a positive that you already got papers done.

Actually, I will give a general answer. Don't do this. It is clearly self plagiarism and this is antithetical to the scholarly process.
Ordinary plagiarism is normally stated as attributing to yourself the work of others, but there is another aspect of it that becomes clearer when you consider self plagiarism.
When anyone reads a scholarly work, unless it is completely self contained, they will want to know where the various ideas in it originated. The way to do this is to cite the previous work. What this allows is that the reader is able to go to the prior work and read the arguments there, including further citations. S/he is then able to both understand and evaluate the complete development of the ideas in the paper that started the investigation.
If you self plagiarize, unless you copy the work as a whole, including the citations and references, you break this chain. It becomes more difficult for a serious researcher to put together the bigger picture.
It is easier now, but when I was a math grad student half a century ago, one spent hours in the library reading and trying to understand deep concepts. Usually they were too difficult for us beginners, so we went back to the referenced articles to get a bigger picture. Eventually our understanding emerged and we could then work forward back to the starting point. You, in this century, don't need to do it in consultation with the librarian any more, but the process remains the same. It is the citations that form the fundamental context of a work, not just the words in the work itself.
So, even if you advisor says it is fine, and even if local custom says it is fine, it is not fine. Your thesis will become a block if anyone stumbles across it. It will be a wall, when it should be a doorway.
However, if you still hold copyright to your original papers, it is permissible to quote from them extensively. But still necessary to cite the quotations, rather than giving the impression that the ideas originated in this work, rather than in prior works, each with their own full context.
That context is fundamentally important. Don't subvert the scholarly process.

Are theses actually published? Aren't theses just really for the examination of awarding a PhD (or Masters)? Maybe it depends on the discipline.

@Stumbler, it depends on field and place. Doctoral dissertations are more likely to be published and it is often a requirement, even when the publishing isn't reviewed other than by the faculty. They are fairly likely to be read by other grad students, anyway.

This is a baffling answer. It seems to me that a thesis is a perfect place to rewrite a connected series of papers that you have published, clarifying the ideas in them, making it is a self-contained work including all the logical arguments, so that the reader doesn't have to go find the original papers and read them. (Of course, you should say which parts came from previous papers.) Why make the readers look at the original papers if you don't have to? Is it good for their souls?

@PeterShor, the question was about copying, explicitly. So was the answer. You can have it both ways as long as you honor copyrights that may no longer be yours, and you present the complete record. The record might only require a bibliography in some cases. There is very little anymore that is completely self contained in scholarship. You build on earlier work, both yours and that of others.

Copying large sections is more or less inevitable even when you rewrite your papers to be more comprehensible. Assuming copyright is not an issue, there is absolutely no need to paraphrase the text from your earlier papers. It's much more work, and it will probably result in a decrease in  comprehensibility in some sections.

@PeterShor, as I said, you can quote large sections safely in the absence of other restrictions. But don't present the work as new when it is not. You don't need to paraphrase. You just need to be honest about origins. I'm surprised that isn't clear.

@PeterShor My reading of the question is that the asker intends writing their thesis as if the papers don't exist: using the material from them but not citing them. At  first, I thought "Don't do this" meant don't copy-paste stuff from your papers but I think it actually means don't do it without saying you've done it.

Buffy, I'm along with @PeterShor: all citations in the paper also need to appear in the thesis (by the same logic by which they made it into the paper) - so I don't see how the citation chain could be broken unless there's proper plagiarism. And I'd expect a thesis to be more detailed and elaborate than the paper, not the other way round - so for learning on the topic, a long-form thesis (or a technical report) is usually much better than the paper.

Wrt. self-plagiarism: over here long-form theses are not usually required to be totally novel work: work already submitted for another exam cannot count towards the thesis, but publications of parts of the thesis work do not hurt the novelty of the long form thesis. Here, the PhD student declares "None of the material presented for the thesis has been submitted for any other exam" - so for me self-plagiarism is violating the particular novelty requirements for the submission in question. BTW, a list of "publications produced during the thesis work" is usually part of the submission.


text:
How to make tutorials more interesting
As a student, and as a tutor, I have found that tutorials for liberal arts subjects (in university) can be a bore. As a student, in large courses you mightn't know anyone in your class, you mightn't want to answer questions in order to avoid looking like a know-all, or you mightn't answer questions because you haven't done the reading; and all-in-all it's a painful process of the tutor attempting to inveigle responses from a very quiet audience.
This also doesn't make tutorials very useful, and seeing that time is being put aside to this end (by both students and staff) it often feels a real waste.
For anyone unfamiliar with such tutorials, they tend to be for 1 hour each fortnight; designed to discuss subjects that have been lectured on with a view to informing students in relation to a continual assessment deliverable (e.g. an essay).
I'm now in the position where I can dictate tutorial structure of a subject (though I'm not actually a tutor). While I don't want to make any massive revolutionary changes in relation to tutorials, I'm curious what changes to the subject as a whole could produce an environment more conducive to interesting and productive tutorials. What alterations could help tutors and students make the most of these sessions?

@FedericoPoloni college, university, etc.: any institution above secondary school

Oh, I see, thanks. I have heard "tertiary education", but not this variant. Thanks for the clarification; I am going to self-destruct my comments.

Maybe have an introduction session during the first tutorial. You should open it yourself by giving your background, then ask a confident student to go second. You should stress that saying your name is minimal, but you'd like to hear more.

I don't understand "informing students in relation to a continual assessment deliverable (e.g. an essay)."  I think it would be a mistake to try to figure out an engaging way of doing something that you don't have clear in your own mind.  Well, you might have it clear in your own mind, but if you do, you didn't manage to convey your clear idea to me.  Maybe this is a UK-US English problem.

@aparente001 in layman's terms: teach people how to write an essay (for example)

Now that would make a good question here!  How to teach students how to write an essay -- in the context of an every-other-week hour-long discussion group made up of n students.

I think that it is a mistake and a waste to approach a tutorial like a lecture.
In my own experience both in leading tutorials (in a more STEM environment, but still one with some open-ended discussions) and in being a student in them (both STEM and liberal arts), the instructor needs to actively cultivate an culture of participation by the class.  Once such a culture is established, you can much better use the uniquely interactive format of a tutorial to really follow the students interests and needs in exploring the material.
Some tactics that can help in doing this:

Begin each tutorial by asking the students to set an agenda of things they would like to discuss.  Bring a few of your own that you can use to seed the list.
Along the same lines: be confident enough in your knowledge and the material to let the students see your process as you work through your thoughts on their harder questions. They will generally get more out of understanding how to engage with the material than out of the specific answer to a specific question.
Giving enough quiet space for students to feel comfortable to speak takes longer than you may think. You will often need to silence stretch long enough to be uncomfortable.
Avoid conversation being dominated by a couple of active students by occasionally saying things like, "I'd like to hear from somebody who hasn't spoken much today." This asks the active students to step back while avoiding the down-sides of calling on individuals to speak.
Set clear expectations about culture at the beginning of the class, and explicitly revisit your commitment to them from to time as necessary.

You could find and present examples of spectacular blunders and failures (and then try to analyze them together).
The lecture has to be concise and to communicate the general concept. It would be fun and educational if you could present examples from history when things went horribly wrong, while apparently obeying all the "state of the art"/"unwritten rules"... not to prove the gereral concept is "wrong", but to put to attention there's usually more in it than following the the simpler rules. Exceptions, side effects, surprises!
Was nice for STEM ("...and that's the algorithm they put into the autopilot. See this formula? - Now, imagine what happened at a later time, when the first F16 fighter jet crossed the equator... surprise, it automatically rolled to upside-down flight!"), should work for any field :)


text:
How to implement flipped classroom for 18 year olds?
I teach an introductory programming course at university where 99% of my students are 18-20 years old. They are used to the old and boring education system they know from high school, so they are not precisely "motivated" about learning. And since we have to have exams (I'm with a team of teachers where most of them tend to "keep things as they are and don't make me work extra") the kids' goal is usually to pass that exam with the least effort, regardless of whether they learn to code or not.
Our teaching materials are organized so that one teacher presents the theory to students and then I explain whatever they didn't understand and present them with exercises.
As they are just beginners, they don't know enough to create cool programs yet (I'm teaching the very basics of control flows, some data storage in memory and command line programming). So I'm trying to make them motivated and would like to try flipped classroom methodologies.
However, I'm not sure about how to implement it. Let's say I make videos explaining the topics so they can dedicate my whole class to practice their coding skills. I've tried making videos before (both short and longer ones) and about 5% of the students watch them, as they feel they don't have time to waste given that there are so many other exams they need to pass (other subjects). Also, since this is about programming, there isn't much to be discussed, it's like math: you sit down and get your hands onto code.
How can I best bring in any new motivational tools like flipping my classroom?

This question would be interesting at https://cseducators.stackexchange.com, probably more so than here.

18-20 year olds are adults, not kids. Not merely pedantic, the same would apply to a 45 year old returning to education having only experienced the old and boring education system they knew from high school

@Stumbler, exactly right.

It would, but usually 45 year-olds go to university only if they truly wish to learn. At least here, where university is free, lots of kids go just to see what it's like, or to avoid having to work, or because they think that computer science will turn them into "hackers" :P

The underlying idea of a flipped classroom is that you use face to face time for things that require it and nothing else. You don't "present" or "cover" material when face to face. This requires a number of things, but it will probably require buy-in from your colleagues as well.
I used to teach an entire degree program with these ideas. As you note, you need a way to keep the students engaged in the course when not face to face. There are a number of ideas for that, some of which require you to change work habits a bit.
It is possible to make the course "round the clock" so that a student can always get a question answered. One vehicle for this is a class wide email list to which everyone, teachers and students, is subscribed. People submit questions to the list and other people, including students, answer the questions. Teachers need to at least monitor to make sure that incorrect information isn't passed around. When I did it, no questions were off limits as long as they were course related. Code couldn't be submitted to the list under our rules, however. I've also used wiki software to the same end, with the advantage that wiki posts can be preserved for future offerings of the course.
To do the above, however, requires that you teach the students that their learning is a group and cooperative effort, not something done in isolation. The core of this idea is that the facts and skills don't flow from teacher to student, but all around the group.
For the content of the course, you can use readings (preferably short) and videos (also short). Don't rely on just video, however, as it has a down side that the audio quality can disadvantage certain students. And if the video is more than a couple of minutes it is easy to lose track an/or miss some things.
But you also need to assure, at least a bit, that students actually do what you expect when not face to face. For this you can include a few fairly easy questions that students must submit to you as their "admission ticket" to the next face to face. You don't need to have a "pop quiz" in the classroom for this, but just a hand in "homework."
You also need to run the course expecting that, at least at the beginning, students won't do the readings very faithfully. So expect a lot of questions, perhaps on the mailing list, to which the answer is "go watch video 83".
The face to face "classroom" sessions should also be cooperative. Teams are good. Pair programming is one of the best ways for beginners to learn to program, but you have to use it properly and faithfully. It isn't just one person programming and one watching. There are other questions on CSEducators that have resulted in detailed descriptions of Pairing. Two people participate in creating a program, but in slightly different ways, with roles switching frequently (minutes). Test first development also integrates well with pairing.
If you use a cooperative learning environment then grading is an issue that you can solve with peer assessment. There are ways to make this valid and non-threatening, largely by making it positive. Partners and team members detail both their own contributions and the positive contributions of peers. You can ask "who were the top contributors and why?" for example. You can ask for the main contribution of yourself and your partner to a pair project.
Note also that short quick questions can be answered on the mailing list. An advantage of this is that every student sees any student's question as well as the answer. During face to face sessions you can also have longer discussion, say about testing strategy or the difference between for and while if many are confused. But try to spend as little time as possible on such low level things, deferring them to the readings/videos and the mailing list. Use the face time for active, rather than passive endeavors.

Don't lose track of the fact that people learn by repetition and reinforcement. In a normal classroom that is usually provided via homework. With a flipped classroom that flips also. The little quizzes (tickets to play) are a minor part of the learning, though they should be a (small) part of grading. The repetition and reinforcement comes in the face session.

A great answer, by the way.

I'd also add a warning that instructor facilitation in the classroom is a skill all in itself.  Even (especially?) if you are an all-star lecturer on the material, you will need to develop the skills to facilitate a classroom full of learners.  For this reason, I tend not to conduct flipped classrooms for sections with more than about 20 students; I feel I am unable to facilitate in a meaningful way when there are more than 10 groups of two.

@HermitianCrustacean, I wouldn't try it with hundreds. But when students pair, the need for intervention goes down a lot. If you had 20 individuals at computers then, when you work with one, several others with questions normally just wait for you, doing nothing. A pair can work out most of its issues itself. Moreover, if you encourage pairs to ask adjacent pairs, not just yourself, you can further ease the burden. You then need to avoid chaos, of course. But 20 or so seems about right. But the individuals in a pair need to learn to engage with each other. But that is true anyway.

I took a flipped programming course in R last semester. We had only one class of three hours long per week. before the class, we were required to attend a certain DataCamp.com courses and finish an assignment based on the courses. During the class time, we were required to work in teams on solving much complicated projects.
Also using github to communicate between teams was really interning and engaging.
In summary, working in teams, having account on github and being able to see how much code you are producing everyday was really motivating.

Github I think would be a good tool when the instructor grades the code that is produced by the teams.

Note: answering this from your question of first-year students, but this also works for graduate courses (just add complexity).
From my own experience with this age/knowledge level (I'll focus on web here) the first thing I do is find out "What do my students want to do with their knowledge?"
I use a survey during the first class, so they are less influenced by their peers, then use their answer to determine the projects used in a flipped classroom. I learn best with templates and checklists, so:

Before class (lesson)
Require all students to watch a video, stream, or other presentation and/or complete a reading.

The reading can be a textbook or even the docs (Python docs are awesome so I try to introduce them early and often with this group).
For videos, make it short (if it is too long try and split the videos)
Make sure there is a formative assessment based on these lessons. I know one class I had used a weekly required, meaning graded, discussion board post and response (had to post code and review classmate) to assess so it doesn't have to be a quiz.

In class (application)
Structure these based on what students answered either by separating them into groups based on their goals (this can be some extra work coming up with separate project and unlikely with beginner programmers but has a great engagement payoff so keep it in mind for advance groups) or using projects which mimic what they will want to do. Some examples of possible projects:

Most students state they want to "break into web development, social media, or the cloud".

Since they're beginning students I would not recommend having them load up a JS framework, full Django, or a full ASP.Net website. The focus should be on introductory topics (with more advance students though...).

Move through steps like this with student's goal of having a personal website ready to deploy by the end of the year (your's of covering all major topics). Start them off with a template for creating the website so they can get right to coding (unless HTML is part of course):

Build profile page using variables to store information
Build social game using loops and conditionals
Build survey to teach console based input/output then have other students take and store data in data structures, classes, &/or files
Build quiz game from or complete and display basic analysis (averages, means, most seen, least seen, etc) of data structures/classes/files

Other ideas include:
"I want to be a data scientist", have them work on challenges from Project Euler or ones you've developed from them (many of the older ones have answers/code online but still great way to learn and easy to set goal, like finish first 200) or build projects around "biodata" or "sound" (something where it is easy to generate data which requires text process & mathematical analysis). I've used both of these when tutoring math majors and peers who are just learning quantitative research methods and found they work well.
"I want to get an internship", use github search or other open source projects focused on beginners to build challenges (trouble tickets) that students have to solve. Remind them that this is great for a resume and will likely be what they have to work on during 1st internship or job. For advance students you can actually have them solve bugs on github.

Final thoughts: Doing a project which builds on itself, gives students a chance to work on computational and algorithmic thinking as they are actually building something (completing design and engineering processes). Have students reflect on their own code or progress throughout the course (improving some code, changing a design based on new knowledge, or just state what they have learned helps the student understand what they've learned and lets you look for gaps). Repetition is what builds knowledge and skill so reflecting makes students look back at (repeat) old skills and then use (repeating again) their new skills.

My technique for getting students to watch the videos is to assign them to watch AND take notes on the videos. I then have a quick open-notes quiz on the video the next class period. I try to make quizzes be pretty close or sometimes identical to the video material so that the students who do watch and take notes get a good benefit.


text:
Should I argue why my model is relevant when it is presented, or in a later discussion section?
I'm writing my master thesis on simulation of active matter. The Chapters of my thesis are currently: Introduction, Theory, Simulations, Discussion, and Conclusion.
In my simulation chapter I introduce a model and I don't think it is immediately obvious why this model is relevant. Should I explain my thinking and argue it's importance right there in the section describing the model? An alternative could be to save such arguments for the discussion chapter where I currently mainly discuss the results from the simulations.

Can you explain the strength of "argue" here? Is there not a huge difference between giving a broad explanation, which might be expected on initial presentation, and a detailed exposition or "argument" which might well be reserved for later discussion?

@RobbieGoodwin I think in this case an explanation might be a better description. A motivation as to why I am doing things this way and why it makes sense.

Thanks and don't you think the initial presentation might be an appropriate place for a brief outline of why the model is relevant, and a later discussion more suitable for details? Otherwise, why are there separate presentation and discussion sections?

If it is not obvious why the model is relevant, then yes, explaining why/how it is relevant should be in your methods section (or when you introduce the model). This is because model selection is part of your methods, and what your considerations were in selecting it is an important part when replicating your results. However, you would keep the importance of your model (or more detailed explanations) for the discussion.
You have a little more freedom with the structure of theses, unlike papers, too. But even in papers which are to be as concise as possible, briefly explaining/stating why certain materials and methods are used is required. And, it is more helpful to the reader to understand why as soon as possible (i.e. when it is first introduced).


text:
Pursuing the second PhD in a better grad school?
My university, from which I received my PhD degree, is not well recognized in the global arena. So, I feel that having PhD does not open any doors for me in an academic field globally, or even in a non-academic field (I mean that I am not getting more (job) opportunities after completing my PhD, and this I attribute to a non-recognized PhD degree that I have). However, currently I am doing well in academia - I have an adjunct position at the same university and publishing papers in top-tier journals in the field. My current goal is to get an international exposure and mobility, and find better environments for conducting research. Therefore I believe I need to pursue my second PhD in a top university. I was wondering whether I am eligible to do the second PhD in a similar filed, but in a top PhD program? If not, this means that the wrong decision that I made a couple of years ago to pursue a PhD in a "bad program" forces me to stuck in my "non-competitive place" ... not fair, I think.

see also: https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/188914/i-am-going-to-complete-my-phd-in-latin-america-soon-should-i-enroll-for-a-secon, https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/75817/second-phd-or-postdoc-and-their-effects-on-tenure-track-position

On one hand, you should focus on what you learned, not on the names present in your PhD title. Focus on that, you completed your PhD, no matter where.
On the other hand, if you succesfully completed a PhD, your decision was not the wrong one.
"not fair, I think." Unfortunately life is not fair.  Disclaimer: by this I do not endorse being unfair or being unempathic.

@EarlGrey Thank you for your comment. Indeed, As I mentioned, I successfully completed PhD and now doing well in research. Personally, I don't pay attention to PhD title .. but what I learned from my experience, international academic field pays. Even if I am doing well in my research, in order to find a good postdoc position in the US, I need to have graduated from a top program and/or have great publications, connections. I have great publications, but it is not possible for me to find a better research environment because of "non-reputable" PhD title.

If you are publishing papers in the top-tier journals of your field, lack of recognition does not seem to be the problem. There are plenty of excellent scientists who chose  non-top tier universities for a variety of reasons. Your problem may be more your lack of interaction and collaboration with other researchers. Focus on that: visit conferences, other departments and give talks. w.r.t. non-academic job offers: EarlGrey answer says it all.

I have an adjunct position at the same university and publishing
papers in top-tier journals in the field

This means that doing a second PhD will not help you. Try to get fundings and contacts to visit a department abroad.

I am not getting more (job) opportunities after completing my PhD

People in the private world are smart enough to understand that your focus is on the academia, not on getting a job, so they do not see you as an interesting candidate.
If you were sending 10s of applications per week, you would see a marked difference in your approach as well as in the response from potential employers. Are you sending 10s of applications per week?


text:
Things to do when applying for a PhD without a full bachelor's degree
I have just finished my third year at a very prestigious US university and I have been looking at Biology PhD programs (Neurooncology/cancer biology in particular). All of the programs that I have looked into explicitly require that students have a bachelor’s degree before matriculating. I am really eager to start PhD work and I understand that some applicants to PhD programs are admitted without a full four-year bachelor’s degree. With the exception of a full bachelor’s degree, I think I otherwise have a very strong application (in terms of prior research, letters of recommendation, and past academic history). Are there universities that do no explicitly require a bachelor's degree for students who want to pursue a PhD? Given that I do not have a full bachelor’s degree, if I were to apply for PhDs now, what things should I first do?

https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/97259/starting-phd-without-bachelors https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/147393/would-i-be-able-to-do-a-phd-without-having-a-bachelor-or-master-degree https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/183180/can-i-do-a-phd-in-management-with-an-mba-and-without-a-bachelors-degree

Does this answer your question? Starting PhD without Bachelors

Make sure you are aware of the information here: https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/176908/how-does-the-admissions-process-work-for-ph-d-programs-in-country-x#176908

If you just finished your third year at a US institution, is it safe to assume that you will receive your "full bachelor's degree" one year from now? If so, since the next application season is in the fall (most apps due Dec 2022, to start August 2023), you are completely fine; it is completely standard to apply in the fall before your graduation (Dec-Jan), then be accepted into a PhD program (Jan-April), then graduate after your acceptance (May-June), and finally matriculate after you have your bachelor's (August-Sept).
In some fields---including biology, from what I gather---applying right out of undergrad will put you at a disadvantage in some ways as many students do research for a while after undergrad, but this  is by no means a requirement.
If I have incorrectly assessed your situation and you're planning on enrolling in this PhD program before you even finish your bachelor's, the answer is simple: don't. Just wait. No university will accept you for a PhD when you don't even plan on finish your undergraduate degree.

Maybe biology is different, but in my field (mathematics), it's too late to apply for admission to a Ph.D. program starting this September. You'd have to do what this answer assumes: apply this fall for a program starting in September 2023.

@AndreasBlass Yes, in the US, PhD applications in biology are typically due around December for admission the following fall.

Also, in any case, I don't think there is any mandate to spend four years completing a B.S. degree in the U.S.  Fulfill all requirements and graduate, if you want!?! That might not be optimal for grad school applications (not to mention the timing issue), but I suspect it is possible, if you insist.