Adventures in Ethics and Science

Question for the commentariat about the goal of science education.

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

Scientific literacy: a comment on Revere's rant.

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 it's so hard to get that course you need.

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

Two scientists ('we're not ethicists') step up to teach research ethics, and have fun doing it.

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

Is the NCAA encouraging academic fraud?

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

Freedom in the classroom.

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

Why a Luddite like myself likes teaching an online course.

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

Brief remarks on 'physics first' and high school science.

Chad and Rob have already noted this piece of news about soon-to-be-published research indicating that the order in which high school students are taught physics, chemistry, and biology makes very little difference to their performance in science classes at the...

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Posted by Janet D. Stemwedel at 6:23 PM • 10 Comments • 0 TrackBacks

Extra benefit of the growing 'green chemistry' movement.

Making chemistry experiments less hazardous might also make them better pedagogically.

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Posted by Janet D. Stemwedel at 2:13 PM • 2 Comments • 0 TrackBacks

Where do you want scientists to learn ethics?

Because I am engaged in a struggle with mass quantities of grading, I'm reviving a post from the vault to tide you over. I have added some new details in square brackets, and as always, I welcome your insight here....

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Posted by Janet D. Stemwedel at 9:45 PM • 13 Comments • 0 TrackBacks