Curricular issues:
Category: Biology
I don't usually go looking for a fight, but there are some cases where I'll make an exception. You know, of course that I'm a big fan of DonorsChoose. And you'll recall that PETA's tactics make them a problematic organization...
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Posted by Janet D. Stemwedel at 9:40 PM • 30 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Curricular issues
Dr. Free-Ride's better half went to the Free-Ride offspring's school for Back to School Night earlier this week. (I stayed at home with the sprogs to oversee dinner and baths.) Dr. Free-Ride's better half reported back that the younger Free-Ride...
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Posted by Janet D. Stemwedel at 8:30 PM • 8 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Curricular issues
In my philosophy of science class yesterday, we talked about Semmelweis and his efforts to figure out how to cut the rates of childbed fever in Vienna General Hospital in the 1840s. Before we dug into the details, I mentioned...
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Posted by Janet D. Stemwedel at 11:11 AM • 42 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Curricular issues
This just came up in a plenary session I'm attending, looking at how best to convey the nature of science in K-12 science education (roughly ages 5-18). It's not really a question about the content of the instruction, which people...
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Posted by Janet D. Stemwedel at 3:53 PM • 17 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Over at Effect Measure, Revere takes issue with a science educator's hand-wringing over what science students (and scientists) don't know. In a piece at The Scientist, James Williams (the science educator in question) writes: Graduates, from a range of science...
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Posted by Janet D. Stemwedel at 11:55 AM • 5 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Why the heck doesn't the school offer the courses you need more frequently?
Here's some insight from the faculty end of course scheduling.
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Posted by Janet D. Stemwedel at 2:05 PM • 15 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
In the latest issue of The Scientist, there's an article (free registration required) by C. Neal Stewart, Jr., and J. Lannett Edwards, two biologists at the University of Tennessee, about how they came to teach a graduate course on research...
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Posted by Janet D. Stemwedel at 2:16 PM • 2 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
I'm pretty sure the National Collegiate Athletic Association doesn't want college athletes -- or the athletics programs supporting them -- to cheat their way through college. However, this article at Inside Higher Ed raises the question of whether some kind...
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Posted by Janet D. Stemwedel at 2:24 PM • 6 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Perhaps you've already seen the new(ish) AAUP report Freedom in the Classroom, or Michael Bérubé's commentary on it at Inside Higher Ed yesterday. The report is such a clear statement of what a professor's freedom in the classroom amounts to...
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Posted by Janet D. Stemwedel at 2:57 PM • 8 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Regular readers of this blog know that I'm a Luddite who composes her posts on wax tablets before uploading them.* So it may seem curious that nearly every semester I teach at least one section of my Philosophy of Science...
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Posted by Janet D. Stemwedel at 1:46 PM • 6 Comments • 0 TrackBacks