education
drorzel | September 19, 2007Wednesday was a Day of Meetings for me, starting at 8am, which means I didn't have time to type up a bunch of blog posts and schedule them as usual. Having just clawed my way out of Meetingville, though, let me take a few minutes to throw up another Academia post, before the topic gets too stale.
Steinn has been thinking about the differences between the European and US educational systems (first post, second post), and he brought up an idea that I hadn't encountered before: "Looping". The idea, as described by Steinn::
When I were a lad, in elementary school you had teacher - call it a "…
clock | September 18, 2007From the Independent:
The head has identified research which says that teenagers would be more likely to take in what they are learning if they started school two hours later. He is considering changing the school timetable for sixth-formers as a result.
"We have always assumed that learning early in the morning is best, probably because it is best for young children and adults," he writes. " Unfortunately, it is not true for teenagers. When teenagers are woken up at our morning time, their brain tells them they should be asleep. So they use stimulants such as coffee and cigarettes to get…
clock | September 17, 2007There have been a couple of recent posts about textbooks lately. Jim Fiore started it all with a look at the textbook business from the perspective of the authors and students, looking primarily at the problem of money. One sentence really hit me, though:
The problem with a large, institutionalized used book market is that it completely cuts out the publisher and the author.
In a larger economy, it is called 'stock market'. When you buy stocks, most often you will be buying them from a broker, not directly from the company. In other words, you are entering the used-stocks market. You…
mikethemadbiologist | September 17, 2007This is why elections have consequences: the Democrats have decided to increase the funding for college schloarships...by decreasing the tax subsidies to college loan sharkslenders. From the NY Times:
Congress gave final approval to a broad overhaul of federal student loan programs Friday, sharply cutting subsidies to lenders and increasing grants to needy students.
In quick succession, the Senate and the House approved the changes, allowing Democrats to say they had made good on one of their campaign promises last year, to ease the strain of rising college costs. In the Senate, the bill…
clock | September 15, 2007It will be on October 9-11, 2007 in Indianapolis:
The Open Minds Conference is the first national K-12 gathering for teachers, technicians and educational leaders to share and explore the benefits of open source in education. Virtual Learning Environments that provide 24X7 access to teaching and learning resources, cutting-edge and easy-to-use desktop applications, coupled with powerful management tools and low-cost computer strategies make the classroom of tomorrow available today!
(Via via)
drorzel | September 15, 2007In a comment to my Worldcon wrap-up, "fvngvs" asks a question following up on the science in SF panel:
So Chad, now that you've had some time to think about it, can you think of a list of books/stories with a really good treatment of science concepts?
It's a good question, and deserves a full post in response. It also probably deserves better than to be posted on a Saturday morning, when nobody's reading, but oh, well.
Anyway, the question stems from a question posed during the panel, asking for books or stories that do a particularly good job presenting some science concept or another. I…
clock | September 14, 2007A few days ago I wrote about the Zoo School in Asheboro, NC. It is even better than I thought - I got in touch with their lead teacher and she told me that all of their students have laptops in the classroom with wireless access. Their classrooms also have Smartboards and other cool technology. And they are very interested in their students utilizing the Web in a variety of ways, including blogging.
And obviously, some of them already are, as one of the students discovered the post on her own and posted this comment that I want to promote to the front page:
I am a Senior at the North…
clock | September 14, 2007A few days ago PZ Myers announced he will have some special guest bloggers on Pharyngula soon. While the first commenters were guessing Big Names, like Dawkins, my comment was: "I am hoping for your students....". A little later, PZ Myers updated his post to announce that yes, indeed, it will be his Neuroscience students who will be guest-blogging this semester.
And today, they started. They were thrown into a lions' den, but they are doing great, holding their own against the famously ruthless Pharynguloids who call them 'kids' and then slam them anyway in many, many comments (they are…
clock | September 14, 2007In the news today, I received a link to this press release:
Open education resource site HippoCampus launches:
The Monterey Institute for Technology and Education has launched an interactive homework help Web site funded by the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation. The Monterey-based institution said late Thursday that open education resource site HippoCampus provides comprehensive high school, advanced placement, and college general education course content.
You can now go to the HippoCampus site and test it out and start using it.
clock | September 14, 2007Unfortunately, due to the Murphy's Law of conference dates, I will have to miss this fantastic meeting, because I will at the time be at another fantastic meeting, but if you can come, please do - registration will be open online in a few days.
Autonomy, Singularity, Creativity
The conference theme is about bringing scientists and humanities scholars to talk about ways that science is changing human life.
November 8th, 9th, and 10th, the National Humanities Center will host the second ASC conference.
And the program features a Who's Who list:
Thursday, November 8th
Frans de Waal
Martha…
clock | September 8, 2007If you were here last June, you'll remember the scienceblogs.com-wide action to fund science and math teaching projects in underfunded schools through DonorsChoose.
This year, we'll do it again. There is twice as much of us, and we will also challenge bloggers outside of scienceblogs.com to join us in this. And we'll try to do even more than that, but you will have to wait a few days and keep monitoring Janet's blog and other blogs for more information. Stay tuned.
clock | September 8, 2007I rarely wish to be 14 again, but I certainly did when I read this news today, that N.C. Zoo and the Asheboro City Schools have just started something called AHS Zoo School. As Russ Williams explains:
"Students have unprecedented access to a 1500-acre, world-class facility ideal for environmental and biological exploration. Beyond routine science, the zoo offers relevant experiences in zoology, horticulture, marketing, retail, hospitality and art as well as wildlife and plant conservation and research. The AHS program is only the fourth zoo school in the country with similar schools located…
neurophilosophy | September 5, 2007From a comic book called What are Cosmic Rays, by researchers at the Solar-Terrestrial Evironment Laboratory at Nagoya University in Japan.
There are 5 others in English, and more in Japanese.
denialism | August 27, 2007Jason Rosenhouse links this excellent feature from Radar entitled America's Worst Colleges.
My favorite? The review of Liberty university.
Notable Course: Christian Womanhood IV. Because keeping your mouth shut is too rich a subject for just three levels of study.
Raw Data: Ranked in the lowest "fourth tier" by U.S. News & World Report and awarded ho-hum grades for academics, social life, and campus attractiveness by its students, Liberty proudly accepts 94 percent of applicants. Low SAT scores do not appear to be an obstacle. On the plus side, the debate team won the national…
mikethemadbiologist | August 20, 2007...to me. Or at least, to the residents of my congressional district. MoveOn.org has a district-by-district list of what your congressional district's contribution to the Iraqi War and Occupation could have bought instead. For me, a resident of Massachusetts' Eight District:
*The cost to Massachusetts taxpayers alone is $12.89 billion.
*Taxpayers in the 8th congressional district are paying $998 million for the Iraq war.
What Citizens of Massachusetts's 8th District Could Have Gotten Instead:
· Health care coverage for 290,837 people--or 363,877 kids, or
· Head Start for 118,751…
mikethemadbiologist | August 17, 2007Maha responds to my previous post about pseudoconservatives. I don't really have much to add to what she said, but I want to make several additional points and clarifications:
1) I agree with maha that it's difficult to figure out what conservatism is, even for conservatives. In large part, this stems from what she correctly describes as antagonism. Being opposed to something is not the same as philosophical coherency--a point I've made about the 'progressive' movement.
2) I think we also agree that the modern conservatives are running the U.S. into the ground. Increasing income…
clock | August 15, 2007Key findings of a new study by the National School Boards Association and Grunwald Associates LLC exploring the online behaviors of U.S. teens and 'tweens show:
* 96 percent of students with online access use social networking technologies, such as chatting, text messaging, blogging, and visiting online communities such as Facebook, MySpace, and Webkinz. Further, students report that one of the most common topics of conversation on the social networking scene is education.
* Nearly 60 percent of online students report discussing education-related topics such as college or college…
denialism | August 13, 2007The Wall Street Journal comments on some select results from the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) testing which this year included some questions on economics.
Pop quiz. Which has been most important in reducing poverty over time: a) taxes, b) economic growth, c) international trade, or d) government regulation?
Now this is an interesting question, does it have a simple answer? Here's what the WSJ says.
We know what our readers would say. But lest you think American young people are slouching toward serfdom, you'll be pleased to know that 53% of U.S. high school seniors…
neurophilosophy | August 11, 2007Catherine Watt, of the Koestler Parapsychology Unit at the University of Edinburgh, claims that teaching students how to study paranormal phenomena is "great...for stimulating critical thinking."
mikethemadbiologist | August 3, 2007Last week, Joe Nocera had an excellent piece in the NY Times about how college loans became so exorbitant. Nocera first relates his own college loan experience--in 1974:
...I was constantly falling behind on my payments. The bank that administered my federally guaranteed loans would send a stern notice whenever I got too far behind, which would prompt me to cobble together a few payments by skipping some other bill. Then I would start falling behind again.
Though I found the situation onerous at the time, what strikes me now is how benign it actually was. My bank probably didn't make a dime…