Education
Category archives for Education
Academic Poll: Day One
Posted by Chad Orzel on January 4, 2012 It’s the first day of class today (for me, anyway– classes technically started yesterday, but I don’t teach on Tuesdays this term). This, of course, means that something will go horribly wrong. The question is, what? What will go wrong on the first day of class today? This is a class for first-year students, so…
The Innumeracy of Educators, or Mark Twain Was Right
Posted by Chad Orzel on December 7, 2011 “In the first place God made idiots. This was for practice. Then He made School Boards.” – Mark Twain In last night’s post about a school board member failing 10th grade standardized tests, I may have unfairly slighted our students. In response to a comment in which Rick Roach, the school board member who couldn’t…
Test Taking Takes Practice
Posted by Chad Orzel on December 6, 2011 A blog run by the Washington Post featured a post on Monday about an adult taking and failing a standardized test, who was later revealed as school board member Rick Roach: Roach, the father of five children and grandfather of two, was a teacher, counselor and coach in Orange County for 14 years. He was…
The Problem With Lectures
Posted by Chad Orzel on November 30, 2011 Yesterday’s physics education post kicked off a bit of discussion in a place I can’t link to about the usefulness of lectures. Something in that reminded me of an anecdote from my grad school days, that I think is useful, so I’ll post it here. When we were working on the spin-polarized collision experiment, we…
Active Learning Experiment: The Aftermath
Posted by Chad Orzel on November 29, 2011 As I said last week, I recently wrapped up a term experimenting with “active learning” techniques in the two intro courses I was teaching. The diagnostic test results were a mixed bag– one section showed really good improvement in their scores, the other was no better than the same class with traditional methods– and the…
Not All Attrition Is Bad
Posted by Chad Orzel on November 28, 2011 One of the many things I wish I had had time to blog about during the just-completed term was the big New York Times article on attrition in science majors. This generated enough commentary at the time that people are probably sick of it, but I haven’t seen anything that exactly matches my take, so…
Active Learning Experiment: Nearly the End
Posted by Chad Orzel on November 21, 2011 As noted in previous posts, I’ve been trying something radically different with this term’s classes, working to minimize the time I spend lecturing, and replace it with in-class discussion and “clicker questions.” I’m typing this while proctoring the final exam for the second of the two classes I’m teaching, so it’s not exactly the end,…
Donors Choose Fundraiser: Double Your Impact
Posted by Chad Orzel on October 20, 2011 I’ve been too busy to really work on the DonorsChoose fundraiser this year, but it’s worth taking a little time to mention this opportunity: Starting today and running through Saturday midnight, the DonorsChoose board will match donations to the Science Bloggers for Students fundraiser. thus, a $5 donation becomes $10, $10 becomes $20, and, well,…
Active Learning Experiment: The Halfway Point
Posted by Chad Orzel on October 12, 2011 Tuesday was the last day of the fifth week of classes (out of ten; for reasons that passeth all understanding, we started on Wednesday, so all the week-based deadlines fall on Tuesday). Accordingly, it seems like a decent time for an update on the active learning stuff I’ve been doing in my classes. Each class…
Physicists Are Cheap
Posted by Chad Orzel on October 11, 2011 Alternate title: I Have an Overdeveloped Sense of Responsibility, Which Is Going to Get Me in Trouble Someday. So, it’s October, which means the annual DonorsChoose fundraising challenge is upon us. I really don’t have time to do a good job of this, but having raised a whole bunch of money for them in the…
