education
clock | December 13, 2006The Carnival Of Education: Week 97 is up on Education Wonks.
Carnival of Homeschooling - Week 50 is up on Apollo's Academy.
clock | December 12, 2006Ms. SuperScience loves to include anecdotes in her science classes. Now she wonders, how much personal information may be over the line. An interesting ethical (and pedagogical) question. And some creepy comments - go add some more of those!
clock | December 11, 2006David Warlick and Sicheii Yazhi comment on the next week's TIME cover story,
How to Bring Our Schools Out of the 20th Century:
This week the conversation will burst onto the front page, when the New Commission on the Skills of the American Workforce, a high-powered, bipartisan assembly of Education Secretaries and business, government and other education leaders releases a blueprint for rethinking American education from pre-K to 12 and beyond to better prepare students to thrive in the global economy. While that report includes some controversial proposals, there is nonetheless a remarkable…
grrlscientist | December 8, 2006
I unpacked "frustrating" first.
Reached in and found the word "worst".
Then I picked "soggy" and
Next I picked "foggy" and
Then I was ready to tell them my tale.
'Cause I'd unpacked my adjectives.
Adjectives are words you use to really describe things,
Handy words to carry around.
Days are sunny or they're rainy
Boys are dumb or else they're brainy
Adjectives can show you which way.
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tags: schoolhouse rock, education, teaching, streaming video
mikethemadbiologist | December 7, 2006A colleague looking to buy Christmas gifts went to the Discovery Channel store page and noticed that boys and girls had two different pages. It's nice to see that a company supposedly dedicated to scientific inquiry has decided that girls don't like or want science.
What do I mean? Well, here's the first five gifts for the boys:
Discovery Whodunit? Forensics Lab
Discovery Fingerprint Lab
Discovery Speed Detector
Radio Control Equalizer Stunt Car
Discovery Remote Control Chromashift Roboreptile
Here's what the first item looks like:
Very sciency. Now for the girls:
Discovery Ultimate…
mikethemadbiologist | December 5, 2006By way of Majikthise, I found this excellent post by Abbas Raza about the problem of mathematical illiteracy. But to step back a bit, this trail of links began with the release of new teaching guidelines by the National Council of Mathematics Teachers:
The report urges teachers to focus on three broad concepts in each grade and on a few key subjects -- including the base-10 number system, fractions, decimals, geometry and algebra -- that form the core of math education in higher-achieving nations.
I think this is exactly the right approach. It's more important for students to develop…
clock | December 5, 2006David has some great ideas:
I suggested that the best thing we might do with video games is to figure out what it is about video games that makes them such a compelling learning engine, and try to integrate those elements into the classroom, rather than trying to integrate the games into the classroom. One of the elements that I suggested was identity building -- that players typically develop an identity in their games. They choose and sometimes make their own clothing, their house, select the powers they value, and become a recognizable identity in the game. It's how the games are designed…
grrlscientist | December 3, 2006
Darwin's Evolution of Man.
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Richard Leakey, the famous paleoanthropologist, is battling with powerful evangelical church leaders in Kenya. These fundamentalist wingnuts are pressuring Kenya's national museum to hide its world-famous collection of hominid fossils that detail the evolution of humans' early ancestors.
Leakey stated that the wingnuts' statements are "the most outrageous comments I have ever heard."
"The National Museums of Kenya should be extremely strong in presenting a very forceful case for the evolutionary theory of the origins of mankind,"continued Leakey. "The…
grrlscientist | December 2, 2006Because I like to read about First Amendment Law and wish to write about this issue on my blog with a little more authority, I have fervently wished to take a class on First Amendment Law at Columbia University, where one of the foremost scholars of First Amendment Law teaches. But, as you might have guessed, this class is very expensive -- and who knows if they would even allow a scientist to take it (which I think they ought to do).
However, if the Democrats have their way, it looks as though my wish -- and much more importantly, the dreams of thousands of kids nation-wide to simply…
drorzel | December 1, 2006The Times last weekend had a big article on the "achievement gap" in education, where poor and minority students are found to lag behind upper- and middle-class white students in many subjects. The author looks at a number of innovative shools that are producing good results with students from the at-risk groups, and considers a number of factors that might cause the gap.
If you're a regular blog reader, you've probably already run across this, as it's been commented on locally by Jonah, Dave, and Jake, and on the wider Internet by a cast of thousands (see, for example, Matt Yglesias). It's…
grrlscientist | December 1, 2006
I wonder how many takes it took for singer to complete this song. My tongue would get a charlie horse.
And my name's Albert Andreas Armadillo.
(No relation to the Sarsaparillas.)
Because of pronouns, I can say:
"I wish SHE would find a rhinoceros for ME, and WE'd be happy."
You see, a pronoun was made to take the place of a noun,
'Cause saying all those nouns over and over
Can really wear you down!
Now I could tell you Rafaella Gabriela and Rufus Xavier Sarsaparilla and Albert Andreas Armadillo found an aardvark, a kangaroo, and a rhinoceros. And now that aardvark and that kangaroo and…
grrlscientist | November 30, 2006
Three NYC High School Students were invited to attend the 2006 Nobel Prize Ceremony Honoring Six American Nobel Prize Winners. The students, known as The Laureates of Tomorrow, were chosen on the basis of an essay contest.
Three New York City high school juniors will join the six American Nobel Prize winners in Stockholm, Sweden, during the Nobel Week Festivities from December 5 - 12, 2006.
Natasha Plotkin, Avishai Don, and Gena Rozenberg are the 2006 winners of The Laureates of Tomorrow - Nobel Essay Contest (tm), which is a partnership between the Consulate General of Sweden in New…
purepedantry | November 29, 2006Paul Tough, writing in the NYTimes, has an excellent long article about the challenges in teaching underprivileged and minority children.
I was talking to my parents about this issue over break. I am from Denver -- though I went to school in a relatively affluent suburb. In the Denver schools, the majority of students are not doing particularly well. Denver schools have an unenviable drop out rate of about 53%. The people responsible for these sorry numbers suggest that this is because they have been presented with an insoluble situation. Most of the students are minority (a great many…
grrlscientist | November 27, 2006
This is a really interesting video that I found more than a month ago but never published it here because I could not view it on the hospital's crappy Dell computer. However, I can't resist the suspense any longer since I have shared it with other people, all of whom tell me to post it anyway! So you, amigos bonitos, will have to be my eyes and ears on this one, just until I get out of here (fingers crossed) and back to my own computer.
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tags: streaming video, Nobel Prize, RNAi
grrlscientist | November 25, 2006This is an amazing video that would work incredibly well in a biology classroom -- it shows the life cycle of an individual cell. It is accompanied by some fabulous music, too!
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tags: streaming video, cell biology
clock | November 22, 2006Brian says that College Leaders should blog, commenting on this NYT article.
Sure, there are pros and cons, a steep learning curve and the potentially huge benefits along with the risk. But in the 21st century, it just has to be done. A leader who does not embrace online technology to foster a two-way communication is irrelevant and will go the way of the dinosaurs. A leader who does will evolve wings and learn to fly, adapted to the new environment.
Brian offers to help any University President set up a blog and get started, gratis. Take him up on his offer if you are a Top Dog at your…
clock | November 21, 2006Two years ago, there was quite a brouhaha in the media when Serbian minister for education decided to kick Darwin out of schools. The whole affair lasted only a few days - the public outrage was swift and loud and the minister was forced to resign immediately. I blogged about it profusely back then and below the fold are those old posts:
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I Take This Personally (September 09, 2004)
Serbia takes a bold step back into the Middle Ages
Serbia strikes blow against evolution Creationism put on equal footing with Darwinism
Serbia vs…
drorzel | November 20, 2006Inside Higher Ed has a short piece today on a lecture given to the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching by Carl Wieman on how to teach science. Though, from the sound of it, it was mostly about how not to teach science.
During the talk on Friday, Wieman said that traditional science instruction involves lectures, textbooks, homework and exams. Wieman said that this process simply doesn't work. He cited a number of studies to make his point. At the University of Maryland, an instructor found that students interviewed immediately after a science lecture had only a vague…