Education
drorzel | January 9, 2010
The Atlantic Online | January/February 2010 | What Makes a Great Teacher? | Amanda Ripley
"Until now, Teach for America has kept its investigation largely to itself. But for this story, the organization allowed me access to 20 years of experimentation, studded by trial and error. The results are specific and surprising. Things that you might think would help a new teacher achieve success in a poor school--like prior experience working in a low-income neighborhood--don't seem to matter. Other things that may sound trifling--like a teacher's extracurricular accomplishments in college--tend to…
sporte | January 8, 2010Next Saturday afternoon, at ScienceOnline2010, the science goddess, the chemspider, and I will be presenting a workshop on getting students involved in citizen science.
In preparation, I'm compiling a set of links to projects that involve students in citizen science. If you know of any good citizen science efforts, please share them in the comments.
Here we go!
Before I start listing links, I am limiting this list to projects that allow both students and citizen scientists to participate. I know of plenty of student projects, where students can isolate phage and annotate their genomes or…
aardvarchaeology | January 8, 2010I support labour unions. Worker solidarity is the only way to keep wages above the barest subsistence level when you're working for an employer who wishes to maximise profit. I haven't been a union member myself for many years, though. The reason is that there is nothing a union can do for me. On an over-saturated labour market there is no way to organise a large enough percentage of the work-force to get any traction in negotiations with the employers. For each archaeologist who makes demands, there are always ten newly graduated young ones eager to work for peanuts. No union can improve our…
catdynamics | January 5, 2010NASA Administrator Charles Bolden addressed a packed room filled with anxious astronomers at lunch today.
It was interesting, both in what he said and in what was omitted.
I'll get to actual science at the AAS Real Soon Now , so more politics in the meantime.
Bolden's talk was primarily a scripted speech, and he acknowledged as much.
There were no announcements of new initiatives, mission commitments or statements on funding - evidently the White House has not yet settled on a plan for NASA, in particular how to handle "Exploration" - ie human spaceflight.
The preamble anecdote on HST…
sastyk | January 5, 2010Today is the first day of Aaron's and my new "Finding Your Place" Course (for anyone who would still like to join, we've got two remaining spots and since the class is asynchronously online, you won't miss anything by starting today or tomorrow - email me at Jewishfarmer@gmail.com). I've been teaching Adapting-in-Place, for people who intend to stay where they are and want to lower their resource consumption and build greater resilience for several years now, but this is the first time Aaron and I have taught a similar class for people who are either considering relocation or definitely…
grrlscientist | January 4, 2010tags: researchblogging.org, new species, insects, American cockroach, Periplaneta americana, DNA barcoding, Brenda Tan, Matt Cost, Mark Stoeckle, Rockefeller University, American Museum of Natural History, AMNH
Mystery cockroach found in NYC apartment.
Image: Brenda Tan and Matt Cost.
Moving overseas has been a challenge, but worst of all for me has been the fact that my writing has suffered. I still read scientific papers and science news stories, but have been unable to find the time necessary to write these stories for you. Hopefully, my life is returning to some semblance of…
terrasig | January 3, 2010In today's Los Angeles Times Dr. Irving Epstein, Brandeis University chemistry prof and HHMI investigator, writes in "The science of science education":
In 2005, more than two-thirds of the American scientific workforce was composed of white males. But by 2050, white males will make up less than one-fourth of the population. If the pipeline fails to produce qualified nonwhite scientists, we will, in effect, be competing against the rest of the world with one hand tied behind our backs.
Let me repeat: By 2050, white males will make up less than one-fourth of the [U.S] population.
There are…
bioephemera | January 2, 2010
"the whole point of the Exploratorium is for people to feel they have the capacity to understand things." --Frank Oppenheimer
I admit it: I'd never heard of Frank Oppenheimer until I received my review copy of K.C. Cole's Something Incredibly Wonderful Happens: Frank Oppenheimer and the world he made up. I thought for a day or two that it was a book about Robert Oppenheimer, the so-called "Father of the Atomic Bomb," and was thus completely befuddled by the book's cheery title and its cover - a fanciful cloud of iridescent bubbles.
Of course, I was off by a sibling. Frank Oppenheimer was…
mikethemadbiologist | December 30, 2009Ever since I was a wee Mad Biologist, I've been told by Very Senior People that 'in five years, there's going to be a massive wave a retirement of older faculty.' This, in my mind, ranks up there with the Friedman Unit (in the next six months, we'll know if we have to leave Iraq, and six months later, we need another six months to know this), and the Samuelson Unit (the length of time to the ULTIMATE DOOOMMM!!! of Social Security is always 30-38 years from the time of prediction). Consequently, we will have a 'science gap' since not enough U.S. students know TEH SCIENTISMZ!!, even though…
terrasig | December 28, 2009
In discussing the Christmas birth of a son to ScienceBlogs launcher and science journalist Christopher Mims and his wife, I neglected to note another addition to our tribe of science, from a science blogger specifically.
ChemicalBiLOLogy blogger, Arlenna, gave birth on Christmas Eve to a beautiful girl, pictured here with Mr. Arlenna. In her brief post, "I had a baby!," Arlenna posited:
. . .whoever invented epidurals and started using them in childbirth should win the Nobel Prize.
Despite my lack of training in anesthesiology or obstetrics, I thought I might look into this a bit. I had…
sa smith | December 21, 2009I dont purposefully watch Bravos 'Real Housewives' series.
I mean, if its on, I leave it on as background noise, I dont actively turn it off, umm...
*looks shadily back and forth*
Anyway, theyve got the series in Orange County, New Jersey, New York City, Atlanta-- I think they should do a version in OKC.
You might think, "What the hell? There is a rich-people-party-scene in OKC? 'Make it rain' steaks and corn husks?"
Dont be so judgmental. Apparently there are a lot of exclusive, swanky things bored, rich, privileged, uneducated housewives can do in OKC every day, like interfering with…
jstemwedel | December 20, 2009Via Kate Clancy on Twitter, a news story about how one Illinois legislator wants to save his state some money. As reported in The News-Gazette
State law allows employees who have worked for one of the Illinois' public universities for seven or more years to receive a 50 percent waiver of their children's tuition costs.
Employees would lose that benefit if legislation (HB 4706) introduced earlier this month by state Rep. Dave Winters, R-Rockford, is eventually signed into law.
"I think a lot of the universities have been using this as part of their compensation package," said state Rep.…
clock | December 19, 2009
Continuing with the introductions to the sessions on the Program, here is what will happen on Sunday, January 17 at 9:00-10:05am:
A. Earth Science, Web 2.0+, and Geospatial Applications - Jacqueline Floyd and Chris Rowan
Description: We will discuss online and mobile applications for earth science research, including solid earth, ocean, and atmosphere subtopics. Current topics planned for discussion are Google Earth for geospatial applications, iPhone and other mobile applications, collaboration tools such as Google Wave, and cloud computing platforms such as Amazon's EC2 for…
sastyk | December 18, 2009When I decided to switch over to science blogs, I told Eric that he had to go with me. We've talked for years about doing a project together, but have always worried that a book or something would kill our extremely happy marriage, that we'd end up fighting over grammar (he's much more of a stickler on this than I am, which is sort of strange given our respective backgrounds). But blog posts, well, we could presumably do this together with minimal risk of homicide. So next week (this week is grading hell week for the honey) we'll start our "Apocalyptica and the Astrophysicst" series with…
jdupuis | December 17, 2009Thinking about the future is very hard.
You'd think I'd know just how hard it is, having engaged in it on numerous occasions during my blogging career and even writing a book about it. But the more I think about the future -- of the climate, of society, of the economy, of information, of publishing, of libraries and, ultimately, of librarians like me -- the harder it is to pin down what I really think is going to happen. The future has a nasty way of sneaking up on you and actually happening in the past. Some things happen faster than you thought, some slower. Some things you thought were…
sastyk | December 15, 2009I made myself swear that I would not argue with any of my fellow Science bloggers for one full week after my arrival here, no matter what. Fortunately, my first week wound up yesterday, and with the arrival of Greg Laden's essay on the political and intellectual dangers of relocalization, I've got good fodder for my first donnybrook ;-).
Actually, I agree with Laden's concern about relocalization of political power on a number of points - my issue is more with how he frames the discussion, as one in which local policies are inevitably more subject to, well, stupidity. That said, I agree…
terrasig | December 11, 2009In an article by Wayne Heilman of the Colorado Springs Gazette, I learned of a US FDA action against contract drug manufacturer Provident Pharmaceuticals. The company has been cited for good manufacturing practices (GMP) violations as well as the manufacture of unapproved drugs. The GMP violations are of a magnitude that FDA requested that Provident hire a GMP training consultant to bring the facility up to snuff.
However, Heilman seized upon an interesting side light in the warning: the names of the unapproved drugs apparently made by the company are missing from the detailed warning letter…
mikethemadbiologist | December 10, 2009Cold, gray, cruddy season. Time for some links! Science:
He Must Be Joking
A Visit to the Pratt University Steam Plant
Ashkenazi Jews are Middle Eastern & European hybrids
To really save the planet, stop going green
Other:
Volcker: Little Evidence Financial Innovation Has Helped Economy
Knowingly False
Does Terrorism Work?
Joe Fitzgerald's token Christmas-loving Jew
Even in Education, The House Always Wins
Why homes aren't investments, cont.
Schools that beat the odds.
Homes as Investments
drorzel | December 10, 2009Months ago, during the DonorsChoose fundraiser, I offered to answer questions from people who donated to the Challenge. I then promptly forgot to respond to the questions sent in. Mea maxima culpa. Here's a way-too-late response to a good question from "tcmJOE":
I've spent the past few years trying to explore physics and figure out what I would be interested in doing--I've settled more towards energy research, somewhere between CM and MatSci, but I've tried at a variety of different things in the along the way. So my question for you is: How did you end up in AMO? Were there any other fields…
jstemwedel | December 7, 2009In comments on my earlier post about what happens to a college course in progress when the professor teaching it dies, a lot of folks raised interesting questions about what would be the fair policy to adopt with respect to student grades. I think actually implementing whatever we might agree was a fair grading policy could be complicated by practical considerations, like whether the professor had left behind updated grade records that were accessible to his or her department, whether he or she had already written a final exam (and a guide to grading that final exam), etc.
It's an…