November 20, 2009
Category: Academia • Passing thoughts • Teaching and learning
Let's say you're a college student.
You have a class meeting today at which a short essay (about 400 words) is due. The essay counts for about 5% of your grade for the course.
At that class meeting, your instructor will be lecturing on the reading assignment upon which that short essay is focused. The material from the reading assignment will likely appear on the final exam, which is only a few weeks away.
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Posted by Janet D. Stemwedel at 3:37 PM • 15 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Biology • Chemistry • Kids and science
Dr. Free-Ride: Any ideas for tomorrow's sprog blog?
Younger offspring: I wanted to do how photosynthesis works.
Dr. Free-Ride: Did you do any research on that since last week?
Younger offspring: I don't do research.
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Posted by Janet D. Stemwedel at 1:27 PM • 4 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
November 17, 2009
Category: Current events • Disciplinary boundaries • Methodology • Passing thoughts
As I was driving home from work today, I was listening to Marketplace on public radio. In the middle of a story, reported by Nancy Marshall Genzer, about opponents of health care reform, there was an interesting comment that bears on the nature of economics as a scientific discipline. From the transcript of the story:
The Chamber of Commerce is taking a bulldozer to the [health care reform] bill. Yesterday, the Washington Post reported the Chamber is hiring an economist to study the legislation. The goal: more ammunition to sink the bill.
Ewe Reinhardt teaches economics at Princeton. He says, if the Chamber does its study, it will probably get the result it wants.
EWE REINHARDT: You can always get an economist with a PhD from a reputable university to give a scientific report that makes your case. So, yes, there will be such a study.
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Posted by Janet D. Stemwedel at 8:43 PM • 16 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
November 13, 2009
Category: Kids and science • Medicine
Dr. Free-Ride: Do you know what a placebo is?
Elder offspring: A placebo is something that you think works but doesn't really work.
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Posted by Janet D. Stemwedel at 11:35 AM • 10 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
November 12, 2009
Category: Current events • Ethics 101 • Teaching and learning
Steinn apparently knows how to get me riled about wrong-headed middle school fundraising initiatives, since he nearly derailed my efforts to push through my stack of grading with his recent post about one such initiative. He quotes from a Raleigh News & Observer story:
Rosewood Middle School in Goldsboro... will sell 20 test points to students in exchange for a $20-dollar donation.
Students can add 10 extra points to each of two tests of their choosing. The extra points could take a student from a "B" to an "A" on a test or from a failing grade to a passing grade.
Rosewood's principal Susie Shepherd rejected the idea that extra points on two tests could make a difference in a final grade.
Shepherd said she approved the idea when a parent advisory council presented it. "Last year they did chocolates and it didn't generate anything," Shepherd said.
However, this cash-for-points fundraiser didn't last long:
Wayne County school administrators stopped the fundraiser, issuing a statement this morning.
"Yesterday afternoon, the district administration met with [Rosewood Middle School principal] Mrs. Shepherd and directed the the following actions be taken: (1) the fundraiser will be immediately stopped; (2) no extra grade credit will be issued that may have resulted from donations; and (3) beginning Novermber 12, all donations will be returned."
Steinn despairs at this whole situation. I'm not liking it so much either.
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Posted by Janet D. Stemwedel at 9:53 PM • 8 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Passing thoughts • Personal
Chalk dust thigh:
Indeed, this was the state of my pants after I walked partway across campus from my classroom to my office, so the level of chalk dust had decreased from its maximum level when I snapped this picture.
Posted by Janet D. Stemwedel at 6:31 PM • 8 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Current events • Medicine • Professional ethics • Reader participation • Research with human subjects • Scientist/layperson relations
There is a story posted at ProPublica (and co-published with the Chicago Tribune) that examines a particular psychiatrist who was paid by a pharmaceutical company to travel around the U.S. to promote one of that company's antipsychotic drugs. Meanwhile, the psychiatrist was writing thousands of prescriptions for that same antipsychotic drug for his patients on Medicaid.
You might think that there would be at least the appearance of a conflict of interest here. However, the psychiatrist in question seems certain that there is not:
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Posted by Janet D. Stemwedel at 12:47 PM • 11 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
November 11, 2009
Category: Passing thoughts • Personal
It's been a long day, between teaching and attending to committee work, giving a colloquium talk, dealing with an emergency drill, and coming home to make a later-than-planned dinner for the kids (since my better half had to help a sprog with an arithmetic emergency during the anticipated dinner hour).
Tomorrow is a day off from school ... but for the sprogs, too, and me with piles of papers that must be graded and returned by Thursday.
What I need right now is to see Stephen Colbert dance:
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Posted by Janet D. Stemwedel at 12:40 AM • 1 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
November 9, 2009
Category: Passing thoughts • Personal • Philosophy • Teaching and learning
Because, as it happens, I tend to notice patterns in student papers, then end up musing on them rather than, you know, buckling down and just working through the stack of papers that needs grading.
In my philosophy of science class, I have my students write short essays (approximately 400 words) about central ideas in some of the readings I've assigned. Basically, it's a mechanism to ensure that they grapple with an author's view (and its consequences) before they hear me lecture about it. (It's also a way to get students writing as many words as they are required to write in an upper division general education course; sometimes assignments need to serve two masters.)
Anyhow, because these papers are focused on the task of explaining in plain English what some philosopher seems to be saying in the reading assignment, there are plenty of sentences in these essays that contain phrases like "AuthorLastName {claims, thinks, argues that, writes} ..."
And, in at least 5-10% of the papers turned in to me, the author's last name is spelled incorrectly.
Among other things, I've noticed:
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Posted by Janet D. Stemwedel at 4:35 PM • 22 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Janet D. Stemwedel (whose nom de blog is Dr. Free-Ride) is an associate professor of philosophy at San Jose State University. Before becoming a philosopher, she earned a Ph.D. in physical chemistry. Email her at dr.freeride@gmail.com.
