education
esiegel | January 9, 2012"If you go through a lot of hammers each month, I don't think it necessarily means you're a hard worker. It may just mean that you have a lot to learn about proper hammer maintenance." -Jack Handey
The most common type of question I get asked by people genuinely wanting to know more about the Universe goes something like, "Hey, I saw such-and-such-a-story about some fanciful-sounding-theory, and that could be the explanation for this-weird-thing-that-we-see. What do you think about that?"
Well, here's the thing.
Image credit: Contemporary Physics Education Project.
We've got a set of laws…
drorzel | January 9, 2012In comments to Friday's snarky post, I was chided for not engaging with the critique of standardized testing offered by Washington Post education blogger Valerie Strauss. I had intended to say more about the general topic, as there have been a bunch of much-cited articles in a similar vein crossing my RSS reader recently, but I sprained my ankle playing basketball at lunch, which kind of blew a hole in my afternoon...
Looking at her posts, though, it's hard to really engage with her critique, because there's next to nothing there to engage with. In the most recent post, the closest thing to a…
jtoney | January 8, 2012
Building a résumé that gets an employer's attention is serious business. Most employers need to be convinced that the candidate can be flexible and is an effective communicator. I have reviewed many résumés over the years, and this one is likely the most unusual.
Dr. Michelle Noonan earned a Ph.D. in Neuroscience and was a postdoctoral fellow at CalTech. She oversees a website devoted to health awareness. The details of her CV is unusual, to say the least; without a doubt, Dr. Noonan represents someone with a flexible background and the ability to communicate well.
She reports:
*…
jtoney | January 7, 2012
Photo source.
Young ladies proudly displaying tattoos do not typically bring to mind a neuroscientist or a passionate advocate for science education, but that's the point.
Cara Santa Maria is a science correspondent for The Huffington Post, with the slyly named blog "Talk Nerdy To Me." I applaud her for her mission to sharing with the broader public about why science is so amazing and cool.
So who is she?
From her website:
Cara Santa Maria is not your typical neuroscientist. From cheerleader to jazz vocalist, model to tattoo enthusiast, she traveled many paths before pursuing her…
esiegel | January 6, 2012"Every year I teach dozens of students at the University of Birmingham. Most of the students on the gender and sexuality courses are women. I guess this is because the boys don't think that gender applies to them: that it's a subject for girls."
-Louise Brown
You know the stereotype, perpetrated throughout the United States (and well beyond) for generations: girls aren't as good at math as boys are. For a long time, people pointed towards the long list of (almost exclusively male) mathematicians and scientists as support for this idea.
Image credit: Image Source/Getty Images, retrieved from…
jtoney | January 6, 2012
Yes, I am well aware of skeptics of The Huffington Post, especially in coverage of science, medicine and technology. Skepticism is a healthy process in science. So let's look at the facts.
Below is a list of some of the first posts on the new Science section in The Huffington Post - and, in case you were not aware, writers at HuffPost are by invitation only.
I invite you to explore this site! While some may disagree with the writer's interpretations or conclusions, they would be hard pressed to challenge their credentials.
Bernie Bulkin: Can Science Save the Planet?
Former Chief Scientist…
jtoney | January 6, 2012
Photo source. By Tom Briglia. Dr. Eric Brown from IBM Research preps four members of congress - Jared Polis (D-Colo.), Bill Cassidy (R-La.), Jim Himes (D-Conn.), Rush Holt (D-N.J.) - for an exhibition game against IBM's Watson on Monday.
If you had a chance to sit down with Rep. Rush Holt (D-NJ), referred to as the "rocket scientist Congressman," what would you ask?
I will be doing exactly that in a few weeks and am looking forward to my discussion with him on a range of topics, including science education.
Rep. Holt is not a typical Congressman. He earned academic degrees in Physics,…
drorzel | January 6, 2012On last month's post about the public innumeracy of a Florida school board member, Tom Singer posts an update, which includes a link to a follow-up at the Washington Post blog that started the whole thing. In the course of rounding up reactions to the original, the author, Valerie Strauss, writes:
In fact, there were a lot of readers who responded to the posts saying exactly what Roach suggested: He's been out of school too long. Others questioned why a successful businessman couldn't pass 10th-grade math. (I looked at FCAT 10th-grade questions and couldn't do them myself, but math has always…
drorzel | January 5, 2012Anybody who has taught introductory physics has noticed the tendency, particuarly among weaker students, to plug numbers into equations at the first opportunity, and spend the rest of the problem manipulating nine-digit decimal numbers (because, of course, you want to copy down all the digits the calculator gives you. Many faculty, myself included, find this kind of maddening, as it's pretty much the opposite of what professional physicists do-- we tend to work primarily with equations in abstract, symbolic form, and plug numbers in only at the very end of the problem.
Thus, very few people…
drorzel | January 4, 2012As mentioned a few times previously, the class I'm teaching this term is a "Scholars Research Seminar" on time and timekeeping. As this is an entirely new course, and will be consuming a lot of my mental energy, I plan to post occasional reports on what I'm doing to the blog.
Today was the first day of class, so a good chunk of the time was spent on introducing the basics of the course (my PowerPoint slides, for those who care), and going through one slightly silly example.
The stated learning goals for SRS courses (students should learn how to formulate a research question, find and evaluate…
drorzel | January 4, 2012It's the first day of class today (for me, anyway-- classes technically started yesterday, but I don't teach on Tuesdays this term). This, of course, means that something will go horribly wrong. The question is, what?
What will go wrong on the first day of class today?
This is a class for first-year students, so quantum superpositions of multiple answers are not allowed.
gregladen | December 29, 2011I mention the New Hampshire anti-evolution bills at The X Blog. Here's an update from the NCSE:
The two antievolution bills in the New Hampshire legislature attracted the attention of the Concord Monitor (December 29, 2011). As NCSE previously reported, House Bill 1148, introduced by Jerry Bergevin (R-District 17), would charge the state board of education to "[r]equire evolution to be taught in the public schools of this state as a theory, including the theorists' political and ideological viewpoints and their position on the concept of atheism," while House Bill 1457, introduced by Gary…
jtoney | December 22, 2011
When I was an undergraduate student in Chemistry, I was treated to an unforgettable lecture by Prof. Carl Trindel on symmetry in nature. Vi Hart's example takes this concept in a mathematical direction with depth, insight and beauty. Enjoy!
jtoney | December 19, 2011
Yes, earning a degree from MIT can be costly. Believe it or not, MIT has been offering free course materials for ten years now. If you're an educator, and you're not familiar with their extraordinary OpenCourseWare, you're missing out. One hundred million people so far have learned from this free open source.
OpenCourseWare, a free online publication of nearly all of MIT's undergraduate and graduate course materials. Now in its 10th year, OpenCourseWare includes nearly 2,100 MIT courses and has been used by more than 100 million people.
MIT announced today that OpenCourseWare was just…
kcollins | December 16, 2011The second annual USA Science and Engineering Festival is fast approaching and people are starting to take notice of what a great resource the Festival organization has become. The mission of the Festival is to re-invigorate the interest of our nation's youth in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) by producing and presenting the most compelling, exciting, educational and entertaining science gatherings in the United States. We are absolutely thrilled to have ranked as one of the 50 Essential Twitter Feeds for STEM Educators by Best Colleges Online!
Throughout the year, we at…
jhalper | December 12, 2011If you followed this year's chemistry Nobel, you know about the quasicrystal design on the ties made for Prof. Dan Schechtman's 70th birthday. Even the prime minister was seen sporting one last week. But did you know there is also a quasicrystal scarf?
While Prof. Schechtman was getting his white tie and tails ready for the formal ceremony, this scarf was on display in fashionable Tel Aviv around the shoulders of Prof. Gitti Frey, a nanoscientist at the Technion.
Despite the photo op, fashion took a back seat to science last Thursday evening. Frey was the guest speaker at a Science on Tap…
jtoney | December 9, 2011
VPAA Corner
Communication between academic administrators, faculty and students has never been easy. Should administrators embrace new media? Should they blog, tweet, post videos on YouTube? Or is it somehow undignified, too familiar?
Not only do I recommend it for Department Chairs, Deans, Provosts and University Presidents, I am beginning to view it as an imperative. To be effective educators, we must understand how our students learn, the sources of their information and how they communicate with each other. It is insufficient to try to keep up with the latest - if we really want to…
jtoney | December 8, 2011Math is boring, you say? Does your mind drift in math class, leading you to unpredictable paths layed out by doodles? Try some triangular beauty, pretending to do math.
That's the beauty of it. It's not pretending. It's real math. Trust me. Enjoy.
Why more mathematics teachers aren't using this approach is a question worth careful thought.
Thank you, Vi.
drorzel | December 7, 2011"In the first place God made idiots. This was for practice. Then He made School Boards."
-- Mark Twain
In last night's post about a school board member failing 10th grade standardized tests, I may have unfairly slighted our students. In response to a comment in which Rick Roach, the school board member who couldn't pass 10th grade math, implied that nothing on the test would be of any practical use, I wrote:
As someone who quite regularly has to teach introductory physics to students who struggle with it because they have a shaky grasp of tenth-grade math, I'm really not any happier with the…
drorzel | December 6, 2011A blog run by the Washington Post featured a post on Monday about an adult taking and failing a standardized test, who was later revealed as school board member Rick Roach:
Roach, the father of five children and grandfather of two, was a teacher, counselor and coach in Orange County for 14 years. He was first elected to the board in 1998 and has been reelected three times. A resident of Orange County for three decades, he has a bachelor of science degree in education and two masters degrees: in education and educational psychology. He has trained over 18,000 educators in classroom management…