education
drorzel | June 29, 2011Out in Minnesota, Melissa expresses some high-level confusion over the preference for people with a small-college background:
In the past few months, I have been involved in several conversations where someone mentioned that a particular faculty member or administrator was or was not an alum of a small liberal arts college (SLAC) in a manner that seemed to suggest their status as a former student of a SLAC (or not) clearly explained why the individual took the particular action or made the particular decision being discussed. (Generally the tone of the discussions has been that "good"…
peconomy | June 24, 2011I am just now recovering from last week's Art of Science Learning conference in San Diego. For something that lasted just one-and-a-half days, there was an almost overwhelming amount of great presentations, great information sharing and exchange, and -- above all -- great people dedicated to moving the idea of the Art of Science Learning forward.
When I first made plans to attend, I did so as an observer. However, soon after the presentations began on the first morning of the conference, I became an active and engaged participant. Each presentation provided me with a deeper understanding of…
drorzel | June 23, 2011(This post is part of the new round of interviews of non-academic scientists, giving the responses of Carl Knutson, who works for a company making online learning systems. The goal is to provide some additional information for science students thinking about their fiuture careers, describing options beyond the assumed default Ph.D.--post-doc--academic-job track.)
1) What is your non-academic job?
am the physics content project manager for an online homework and
learning environment provider, Sapling Learning, located in Austin,
TX. We offer online homework and tutorials for undergraduate…
jdupuis | June 21, 2011A couple of odd ones from last week's Inside Higher Ed, both related to the way scholarship, higher education and the intelligent design/creationism movement intersect.
First up, Blasphemy of a Different Kind, involving people possibly being fired for teaching evolution at an Adventist school. Although the university involved claims that the firings weren't related to the teaching of evolution, it's hard to imagine that there wasn't some connection.
The president of La Sierra's board of trustees on Friday asked for the resignations of Jeff Kaatz, the vice president for university…
jdupuis | June 21, 2011Following on from yesterday, here are my answers for today's TEDxLibrariansTO Coundown Questions:
Question 1: What should we expect/demand of our thought leaders?
I'm not sure I like the way this question is phrased, preferring something like, "What do thought leaders actually do?" We certainly shouldn't demand anything of our thought leaders, it's not like we're paying them to do their jobs. Even "expectations" seems like a strong word.
To a large extent, thought leaders just are. I'm not sure we can speak of "followers" having "expectations" of leaders in the same way we could in a…
jdupuis | June 20, 2011The very fine TEDxLibrariansTO team is counting down to this Saturday's big event with some daily questions for us all to consider.
The topic, of course, is Librarians as Thought Leaders!
These are the questions for Day 5. I'll attempt to answer them and every day's questions very briefly. I figure if I go for extremely brief answers, there's actually a chance I'll get to them every day!
Question 1: Name one thing we could do right now in order to be perceived as thought leaders outside the profession.
My Answer: Predictably, perhaps, I'll answer that we should mostly (but not completely)…
mikethemadbiologist | June 20, 2011While physicist Michio Kaku is correct when he suggests that immigration has been an incredible boon for U.S. science, he's dead wrong when he claims that U.S. students are bad at science:
The information revolution has a weakness, and the weakness is precisely the educational system. The United States has the worst educational system known to science. Our graduates compete regularly at the level of third world countries. So how come the scientific establishment of the United States doesn't collapse?
When I first came across Kaku's statement, I said to myself, "Crap. Am I going to have to…
jhalper | June 13, 2011The service tower attached to the iconic floating egg atop the Institute's Koffler accelerator (the "spaceship" in the photo, left) has recently been graced with a charming, shiny silver skullcap - an observatory dome. Formally known as the Martin Kraar Observatory, it houses two telescopes, and it figured in two of our recent press items. We spoke with observatory director Ilan Manulis of the Davidson Institute of Science Education:
WSW: Tell us about the telescopes.
IM: The larger one is a 41 cm. (16 in.) telescope. Due to special optical properties, it has the power of a much longer…
drorzel | June 13, 2011Right around the time I sent in the manuscript for my own book explaining relativity to Emmy, I got an email offering me a review copy of The Manga Guide to Relativity, part of a series of English translations of Japanese comic books explaining complicated concepts in a friendly way. That was clearly too good a wind-down read to pass up.
Like other books in the series, this sets up a manga-type plot that just happens to require introducing relativity. In this case, on the last day of school at Taigai Academy, headmaster Rase Iyaga makes a surprise announcement: that he will throw a dart at…
esiegel | June 10, 2011"The mediocre teacher tells. The good teacher explains. The superior teacher demonstrates. The great teacher inspires." -William Arthur Ward
Every so often, people get up-in-arms about teaching and education in college. New studies come out, new methods are touted and tried, curricula get revised, and pretty much everyone gets criticized. Anyone familiar with the undergraduate experience knows that -- nationwide, at least -- physics departments are often at the bottom of the barrel when it comes to how poorly their students rate them. (There are, of course, some very notable exceptions.)…
mikethemadbiologist | June 10, 2011Erstwhile progressive and fan of educational reform, Matthew Yglesias, sets up this strawman:
It's useful to have these two points juxtaposed together, because it helps isolate what the controversy is actually about. When people look at the idea that for-profit colleges shouldn't get taxpayer subsidies unless they can deliver demonstrable quality, a lot of folks on the right see that as an argument that's "really" about undue suspicion of the private sector. And when people look at the idea that K-12 schools shouldn't get taxpayer subsidies unless they can deliver demonstrable quality, a lot…
jdupuis | June 9, 2011Yes, the TEDx whirlwind is coming to libraryland!
Later this month on Saturday, June 25th, TEDxLibrariansTO is coming to Toronto.
About TEDxLibrariansTO
Who inspires you?
We live in a time that is in need of inspiration. The aspirations of both individuals and society have always had a home within libraries and have traditionally found a voice through librarians.
The theme for TEDx LibrariansTO is Librarians as Thought Leaders. Come to the event and experience this incredible opportunity to hear librarians speak to the differences we make in the world and how we have, can and do lead and…
jtoney | June 9, 2011
Have you ever bought something that contained "no chemicals"? If you have, please let me know and share with Mary Carmichael, a Knight Science Journalism Fellow at MIT.
Here's one example of a product that is "lab-proven to kill the toughest of germs & viruses without the need for soap or water.":
You'll find no chemicals in Quash. Except these. Elsewhere on the website is this gem, titled "Know the Facts:"
"Why we don't use chemicals. Up to 70% of the chemicals we put on our skin are absorbed into our body. By the age of 30 we have up to 70 foreign chemicals in our system, many of…
mikethemadbiologist | June 8, 2011Mike Petrilli makes an excellent point about reasonable expectations when educating poor children:
This fall, about 1 million poor children will enroll in Kindergarten in the U.S. The vast majority of them live in single-parent families headed by women in the late teens or early twenties. Most of their mothers dropped out of high school; most of their fathers are nowhere to be seen. Most live in urban or rural communities hit hard by the recession where unemployment, addiction, and violence are commonplace....
You acknowledge-privately at least-that it's unrealistic to expect all kids growing…
drorzel | June 8, 2011A few years ago, we switched to the Matter & Interactions curriculum for our introductory classes. This has not been without its hiccups, among them the fact that there has been a small decline in the conceptual learning gains measured by the Force Concept Inventory, the oldest and most widely used of the conceptual tests favored by the Physics Education Research community. We've spent some time discussing whether this is a temporary glitch, due to the transition, or something inherent in the curriculum. (Our numbers are small enough that these results remain at the level of plural…
drorzel | June 7, 2011Over at Dynamics of Cats, chief herding theorist Steinn has a post on what we know about how to teach physics:
To teach physics well, you provide an intensive, mathematically rigorous in-sequence series of classes.
You need at least two different parallel classes per term, each class a prerequisite for the succeeding class and coordinated syllabii for parallel and successive classes, providing an initial short review of the previous material.
You also need a parallel sequence of coordinated mathematics classes, such that the mathematics needed for a physics class are taught before it is…
jdupuis | June 7, 2011I'm doing a short presentation later today on using social media as a researcher. It's part of the York University Faculty of Graduate Studies' Scholarly Communications Series. This one is titled Scholarship in the Public Eye:
The Faculties of Graduate Studies and Liberal Arts and Professional Studies, along with the York University Libraries, are collaboratively facilitating a series of information sessions focused on scholarly communications intended for all graduate students and faculty members. The series will address issues related to research skills and research dissemination,…
jtoney | June 6, 2011British teenage students have re-discovered a classical physical phenomenon, the Leidenfrost effect that could someday help ships glide through oceans more efficiently.
I'll let these 16 year old students explain it:
One day in Physics class we accidentally discovered you could get beautiful standing wave patterns on a drop of water on a very hot plate. This film gives an introduction to the wonderful Leidenfrost Effect.
The film was made by 16 students (aged around 16) - only three appear in the film, but everyone helped, as did their physics teacher. You can watch the video here.
Below I…
mikethemadbiologist | June 6, 2011It would be nice if educational 'reformers' took a break from busting teachers unions to deal with the infiltration of pseudo-scientific falsehoods into the science curriculum:
...the most brazen example is buried in the middle of the story: a coal-industry produced propaganda film for kids selling the lie that the atmosphere needs more greenhouse gas:
...the Coal Education Development and Resources foundation, known as CEDAR, offers small grants to teachers whose lessons dovetail with its industry-driven mission...
...CEDAR also offers a video to teachers called "The Greening of Planet Earth…
mikethemadbiologist | June 5, 2011Last week, James Q. Wilson, writing in The Wall Street Journal, described several of the factors that have led to a sustained decrease in crime. One reason is increased incarceration:
One obvious answer is that many more people are in prison than in the past. Experts differ on the size of the effect, but I think that William Spelman and Steven Levitt have it about right in believing that greater incarceration can explain about one-quarter or more of the crime decline. Yes, many thoughtful observers think that we put too many offenders in prison for too long. For some criminals, such as low-…