education
mikethemadbiologist | November 17, 2006Actually, the post title is unfair: Romney is quite capable of screwing over thousands of people at once. In order to further his Republican presidential bonafides by cutting spending, any spending, MA Governor Mitt Romney playing bookkeeping games so he could declare a fiscal state of emergency and unilaterally cut budget items.
During the 2006 election, what with all the fuss about Republican Sen. George "Macacawitz" Allen, I never got around to describing what first tipped me off to his being a complete asshole. When Allen was governor of VA, he vetoed all spending for Meals on Wheels…
clock | November 14, 2006The 93rd Carnival of Education is up on What It's Like on the Inside.
The 46th Carnival of Homeschooling is up on Sprittibee.
mikethemadbiologist | November 13, 2006A while ago, I wrote about the effect that the rise of certain forms of Christianity was having on the military. To summarize: certain ideological or religious views mean that you might not be able to do your job very well. Bob Broughton carries the analysis over to the White House staff. His surprising finding?
The number one academic recruiting ground for the White House interns is Patrick Henry College (italics mine):
At about 35 minutes into this program, Harris said that the main source of White House interns is not Harvard, MIT, Stanford, or Bush's alma mater Yale. Instead, they…
clock | November 8, 200692nd edition of the Carnival of Education is up on NYC Educator
Carnival of Homeschooling - Library Edition is up on SpunkyHomeSchool.
apalazzo | November 6, 2006One thing I never understood about US colleges is the amount of money pumped into their sports teams. It's an open invitation to wasted resources and (in worse case scenarios) corruption.
From today's NY Times:
College Sports Get a Warning
The National Collegiate Athletic Association's enthusiasm for fighting corruption in college sports is partly driven by the fear of federal intervention. That fear came a step closer to being realized last month, when the House Ways and Means Committee fired off a tough-minded letter demanding that the N.C.A.A. explain how profit-seeking, win-at-all-cost…
grrlscientist | November 3, 2006
I loved this one .. perhaps this also is how I was introduced to jazz and blues, which are passions of mine?
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tags: schoolhouse rock, education, teaching, streaming video
clock | November 1, 2006The 91st Edition of the Carnival of Education is up on The Median Sib.
The 44th edition of Carnival of Homeschooling is up on Why Homeschool.
drorzel | October 28, 2006There's been a lot of discussion of single-sex education in blogdom recently, in the wake of new rules allowing more single-sex schools. Matt Yglesias offers links, and Kevin Drum expresses concern:
It turns out, though, that my real fear is just the opposite: what if we try it and Becks turns out to be right? What if it works? Does that mean we just give up on the whole idea of figuring out how to make co-ed education work? I can't be the only one who thinks that would be a bad idea, can I?
There are all sorts of problems of race, gender, class, religion, and so forth that can seemingly be…
drorzel | October 27, 2006I've had a tab open for a while containing an Inside Higher Ed article on a new approach to introducing science at Emory University:
David Lynn, who chairs the department of chemistry at Emory University, spoke about Emory's seminar program for entering freshmen. All Emory freshmen must take a seminar the first semester and the one for math and science teaches students how to think like a scientist.
The course consists of five modules. Each module is taught by a grad student who presents his own research, guiding students through the research process, from designing studies to defending…
grrlscientist | October 27, 2006
As a professor who (sometimes) teaches Anatomy and Physiology to nursing students, I think this is a great video.
Bones are heard of, but seldom seen,
'Cept each year 'round Hallowe'en.
But I've got a shockeroo
Right now there's a skeleton locked up inside of you! (Ha-ha-ha)
Minus bones you're just a blob,
Being framework's their main job.
All your organs, muscles, too,
They need your bones to hold them safe and sound inside for you.
Your heart and lungs are tucked away,
In there behind your ribs.
Those bones have been protecting them
Since we were little kids.
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tags: schoolhouse rock…
clock | October 26, 2006A short but good article by my schools' President (April 25, 2006, also here).
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James Oblinger, the new President of North Carolina State University (promoted from within after many years as the Dean of the School Of Agriculture And Life Sciences), has a good editorial in today's News and Observer:
Nurturing success in the sciences:
We've all heard the line from President Bush: We need more students to join the "nerd patrol." It's an overly simple solution for a complex problem that imperils the traditions of invention and innovation that…
drorzel | October 20, 2006The New York Times today has a story about Web-based classes offering virtual labs, and whether they should count for AP credit:
As part of a broader audit of the thousands of high school courses that display its Advanced Placement trademark, the [College Board] has recruited panels of university professors and experts in Internet-based learning to scrutinize the quality of online laboratories used in Web-based A.P. science courses.
"Professors are saying that simulations can be really good, that they use them to supplement their own lab work, but that they'd be concerned about giving…
grrlscientist | October 20, 2006
This isn't the prettiest streaming video, but I think it will bring back some fun memories.
Lolly, Lolly, Lolly, get your adverbs here
Quickly, quickly, quickly, get your adverbs here
Slowly, surely, really, learn your adverbs here
You're going need 'em if you read 'em
if you write or talk or think about it
Lolly ... Lolly ... Lolly ...
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tags: schoolhouse rock, education, teaching, streaming video
clock | October 19, 2006I just got the teaching schedule for Spring, so I decided to follow up on last week's post by putting, under the fold, a series of short posts I wrote when I taught the last time, musing about teaching in general and teaching biology to adults in particular. These are really a running commentary on the course. The actual lecture notes are here:
Biology and the Scientific Method
Lab 1
Cell Structure
Protein Synthesis: Transcription and Translation
Cell-Cell Interactions
Cell Division and DNA Replication
Lab 2
From Two Cells To Many: Cell Differentiation and Embryonic Development
From Genes…
grrlscientist | October 19, 2006A friend emailed this link and even though I have only begun to poke around on it, but already I find it fascinating. Darwin OnLine is a searchable webbed database that contains more than 50,000 text pages and 40,000 images of publications and handwritten manuscripts. It also has the most comprehensive Darwin bibliography ever published and the largest manuscript catalogue ever assembled. More than 150 ancillary texts are also included, ranging from secondary reference works to contemporary reviews, obituaries, published descriptions of Darwin's Beagle specimens and important related works…
drorzel | October 18, 2006Over at Learning Curves, Rudbeckia Hirta takes a look at the myth of the "real world". A colleague tried to defend a zero-tolerance attendance policy by saying, "If she had a job and missed a meeting, she'd be fired." That's not really how it works, though:
We have people who don't show up to class, people who cancel class for no good reason, and people who don't show up for mandatory meetings, and they (all without tenure!) still work here.
My friends with Real Jobs have griped about enough incompetent fools that they've worked with, that I don't think that zero-tolerance firing is in wide…
clock | October 18, 2006Mark Pruett wrote something I heartily agree with:
Raise children with a wild streak:
A new report from the American Academy of Pediatrics stresses the importance of childhood playtime. It reinforces my own belief that many young adults have been cheated by years of excessive schoolwork and teamwork, too many extracurricular activities, and a straitjacketed "just say no to anything risky" upbringing. I am convinced that modern childhood generally does not build enough independence and thirst for knowledge.
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Is this someone that I'd be excited to have in my…
drorzel | October 17, 2006Sean Carroll is offering more unsolicted advice (though it is in response to a comment, which makes it borderline solicited...), this time about choosing an undergraduate school. He breaks the options down into four categories, with two small errors that I'll correct in copying the list over here:
Liberal-Arts College (LAC), such as Williams or Union.
Specialized Technical School (STS), such as MIT or Caltech.
Elite Private University (EPU), such as Harvard or Stanford.
Large State School (LSS), such as UCLA or Michigan.
There. That's much better.
I should note two things up front: the…
clock | October 16, 2006Read these two one after another:
This is a new angle and thinking outside the box: Sara's Sunday Rant: The Culture of Planning, Part I
Lance has a nice rant on politics and education: Yahoo culture