education
drorzel | July 27, 2007That's the conclusion of a new study from Harvard and the University of Virginia, anyway:
Researchers at Harvard University and the University of Virginia have found that high school coursework in one of the sciences generally does not predict better college performance in other scientific disciplines. But there's one notable exception: Students with the most rigorous high school preparation in mathematics perform significantly better in college courses in biology, chemistry, and physics.
This is not terribly surprising to me, as the biggest weakness I see in entering students is usually in…
clock | July 25, 2007SPARC just announced the Mind Mashup: A Video Contest:
SPARC (the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition) today announced the launch of the first annual SPARC Discovery Awards, a contest to promote the open exchange of information. Mind Mashup, the theme of the 2007 contest, calls on entrants to illustrate in a short video the importance of sharing ideas and information of all kinds. Mashup is an expression referring to a song, video, Web site or software application that combines content from more than one source.
Consistent with SPARC's mission as an international alliance of…
drorzel | July 25, 2007I can't resist the snarky title, but this is a serious topic. Tara Smith has a review of a math book by Danica McKellar, titled Math Doesn't Suck: How to Survive Middle-School Math Without Losing Your Mind or Breaking a Nail. It's aimed at getting middle-school girls to have more positive feelings about math in general.
I am not now nor have I ever been in the target audience for this book, so I won't attempt to evaluate it. However, I think everybody this side of "Uncle Al" agrees that finding better ways to teach math to middle-school girls is a Good Thing, so I wanted to post a pointer to…
neurophilosophy | July 22, 2007 Since a number of other ScienceBloggers have posted lists of science websites for kids (Science sites for kids by Karmen; Online sources for hands-on chemistry for kids by Janet; Cool science sites for kids by Zuska; and Brain science is child's play by Sandra), I thought I'd share this cool practical activity for a lesson about microbes.
The activity is designed for schoolchildren at Key Stage 3 (11-year-olds); I gave it a go during my short time as a secondary school science teacher, and thought it was quite effective.
Aim
To demonstrate how colds can spread from person to person…
mikethemadbiologist | July 20, 2007By way of Brad Delong, I stumbled across this column by Washington Post editor Ruth Marcus calling for merit pay for teachers. Centrist Democrats, particularly those who suffer from a touch of Compulsive Centrist Disorder, have been pushing this since the early 80s. And it makes no sense to me.
When I think about science education, these are the areas that I think need dramatic improvement:
1) Fully equipped science laboratories. You actually have to do some science occasionally.
2) Funding for the occasional trip to a museum, nature preserve, or science lab.
3) Smaller class sizes.…
mikethemadbiologist | July 17, 2007...good for him. What struck me was this part of his goodbye post:
For the last two years, as anybody who's been reading my blog since its inception will now, I've been feeling increasingly miserable and increasingly desperate because of the funding and (thus) tenure situation. My research productivity has plummeted in the last two years because of the feeling of futility it all had-- it's difficult to get things done when I have the near-sure knowledge that my University is just waiting to kick me out for not being good enough. The serious depression that set in because of the constant…
drorzel | July 17, 2007The Paper of Record today features an interview with Eric Mazur of Harvard, a physicist who is probably best known for his pedagogical work. He talks aabout how typical science teaching sucks, and why we need to change it:
From what I've seen, students in science classrooms throughout the country depend on the rote memorization of facts. I want to change this. The students who score high do so because they've learned how to regurgitate information on tests. On the whole, they haven't understood the basic concepts behind the facts, which means they can't apply them in the laboratory. Or in…
clock | July 14, 2007Yesterday, a few of my friends from PLoS and I went to the Exploratiorium to see the Iron Science Teacher show. Lots of pictures (and a little bit of running commentary) under the fold:
First, the stuff outside:
Then we went inside. The place is huge - I'll have to come again when I have more time to explore (this was lunch-break only). Hands-on, hands-on, hands-on...and kids - gazillions of them - are having great fun. The show is (almost) every Friday during the summer and you can watch the video of each Iron Science Teacher show, including the one we saw yesterday (I have not see…
drorzel | July 10, 2007From EurekAlert, we learn that corporate executives are a bunch of cheaters, when the incentives are right:
According to the authors, "Our results demonstrate two factors substantially increase the likelihood of financial misrepresentation: extremely low performance relative to average performance in the firm's industry, and high percentages of CEO compensation in stock options."
The study also determined that approximately 1 in 10 of the financial restatements examined by the authors was linked to fraud and illegal practices. Over five years, there was a 9% likelihood that a company…
mikethemadbiologist | July 9, 2007The headline in today's Boston Globe: "Colleges fear debt puts damper on donations." Gee, do ya think?
When universities are touting college as a personal, economic investment--and not an investment in society, why on earth did they think loyalty would still exist? Most students have been told that to gain access to or remain in the middle class, they need a college degree. When they rack up massive debt, and at the same time, are forced to take jobs they really don't want to pay off that debt, did it ever occur to the universities that this might happen?
Rising tuition rates aren't like…
clock | July 9, 2007I had a great pleasure recently to be able to interview Senator - and now Democratic Presidential candidate - John Edwards for my blog. The interview was conducted by e-mail last week.
As I am at work and unable to moderate comments, the comment section is closed on this post, but will be open on the previous post (here) where I hope you will remain civil and stay on topic. You are also welcome to comment on this interview at several other places (e.g,. DailyKos, MyDD, TPMCafe, Science And Politics, Liberal Coalition, the Edwards campaign blog as well as, hopefully, your own blogs).
I…
clock | July 2, 2007Books: "Rainbows End" by Vernor Vinge.
It's 2025 - What happened to science, politics and journalism? Well, you know I'd be intrigued. After all, a person whose taste in science fiction I trust (my brother) told me to read this and particularly to read it just before my interview with PLoS. So, of course I did (I know, it's been two months, I am slow, but I get there in the end).
'Rainbows End' is a novel-length expansion of the short story "Fast Times at Fairmont High" which he finished in August 2001 and first published in "The Collected Stories of Vernor Vinge". The novel was written…
mikethemadbiologist | June 28, 2007...and the psychological brickwalls they run into. With all of the talk about the Creationist Museum, I thought it would be worth discussing a museum that is trying to teach evolution. In the June 2007 issue of Evolution*, Diamond and Evans describe some of the responses to a revamped evolution exhibit, "Explore Evolution", at the Nebraska State Museum.
The authors conducted a survey of visitors to the Nebraska State Museum, asking them seven questions about the exhibit, with the goal of determining what cognitive biases existed among museumgoers (note: I've snipped the references):…
mikethemadbiologist | June 27, 2007More ridiculous budget cuts in Massachusetts at the local level. This time it's schools, not libraries. According to the Boston Globe, Shoreham, MA has failed to approve a property tax override leading to the following educational budget cuts:
*shutting down the sixth-grade wing of the middle school and sending those students back to elementary school to save money.
*All athletic programs.
*Physical education classes.
*Elementary and middle school fine arts classes.
*Laying off an assistant high school principal.
And what's behind this? Homeowners, particularly retirees:
Override…
mikethemadbiologist | June 26, 2007Well, they're not my suggestions, they're David Hillis' But they are still pretty good.... In the June 2007 issue of Evolution, Hillis writes about how to make general biology textbooks discuss evolution better. He has a list of ten suggestions, and I thought it would be interesting to go through them (italics original; boldface mine; I cut a great deal of text*):
1) Demonstrate that evolutionary research is current and ongoing.... Post-Darwinian findings also present an excellent opportunity to teach about the process of science, and to show that the methods of evolutionary biology are…
drorzel | June 22, 2007The great media relations debate is starting to wind down, but there's still a bit of life in it. In particular, I want to comment on something that Bora said, that was amplified on by Melinda Barton. Here's Bora's comment:
Everyone is afraid to use the F word, but the underlying tension is, at its core, the same as in the discussion of Framing Science:
The scientists want to educate.
The journalists want to inform (if not outright entertain, or at least use entertaining hooks in order to inform).
There is a difference between the two goals. The former demands accuracy. The latter demands…
drorzel | June 18, 2007In response to a question about "Other aspects of the instructor's teaching," one student in my recently completed E&M class wrote:
Prof. Orzel gives the impression of an everyday guy who just happens to have a vast but hidden knowledge of physics and the course was taught in that slightly utilitarian approach.
I've been looking for something to replace "Ramblings about life as a physicist on the tenure track at a small liberal arts college" in the left sidebar (now that I have tenure), and "[A]n everyday guy who just happens to have a vast but hidden knowledge of physics" might be just…
drorzel | June 13, 2007Another itme from yesterday's Inside Higher Ed that's worth a mention is a report about a new call for improved science teacher in the public schools:
The report by the Business-Higher Education Forum (BHEF) is distinguished from the many other recent reports on the subject, the forum's leaders said, by the group's emphasis as much on increasing the number of undergraduate majors in scientific fields as on getting more scientifically adept people into teacher preparation programs. One of its major initiatives is to double the number of college graduates earning degrees in science, technology…
clock | June 13, 2007"Fine in practice, but how does it work in theory?"
This headline (in a French paper, of course), prompted Sally Green to pen a fine, fine post - an Obligatory Reading of the Day - about class, education, the psychology of class, the difference between academia and the real world, the difference between theory and practice, and the difference between the people who fight for the equality of opportunity and the people who oppose it (and their rhetoric).
denialism | June 7, 2007After yesterdays pathetic article from the WaPo suggesting that scores were "up" (whatever that means under the moronic patchwork that evolved under the law) it was nice to see the NYT get it right. Their article exposes the joke of state standardized testing in response to the law, and further demonstrates how meaningless standardized testing is as a way to reform schools.
The law requires that all students be brought to proficiency by 2014, but lets each state set its own proficiency standards and choose its own tests to measure achievement.
In essence, the report issued today creates a…