education
mikethemadbiologist | February 11, 2011Regular readers will know that one of the things I routinely flog is the errant belief that U.S. schools are failing, even though international comparisons seem to suggest that our educational system is DOOMMEEDD!!! Jennifer Ouellette, in an otherwise superb post about integrating art and science education, makes the same error:
By now the depressing statistics are all too familiar: the US ranks #25th worldwide in math, #21st in science (behind countries like Estonia and Slovenia), #27th in percentage of college graduates in science and technology, and a pathetic #48th in the quality of K-12…
bioephemera | February 10, 2011Okay, I knew that planets are big, intellectually, but a well-done graphic is worth a thousand words, and a pretty HD video is even better. Brad Goodspeed made this video to suggest what other planets would look like, if they orbited Earth at the same distance as the Moon does. I've embedded it, but you should seriously watch it in HD, full-screen for maximum effect.
Scale from Brad Goodspeed on Vimeo.
I have nightmares like that. Seriously. But is the video accurate?
In addition to being full-on creepy, Brad's video produced a fascinating discussion in the comments and on various sites…
jdupuis | February 10, 2011Stealth librarianship is a way of being.
This particular edition of the manifesto applies to academic libraries. The principles of stealth librarianship apply to all branches of the profession, each in particular ways. Other manifestos could exist for, say, public or corporate librarians.
However the core is the same: to thrive and survive in a challenging environment, we must subtly and not-so-subtly insinuate ourselves into the lives of our patrons. We must concentrate on becoming part of their world, part of their landscape.
Our two core patron communities as academic librarians are…
drorzel | February 10, 2011Barring a major disaster, I am scheduled to teach one of our Scholars Research Seminar classes next winter. I've been kicking the idea for this around for a while, with the semi-clever title "A Brief History of Timekeeping." The idea is to talk about the different technologies people have used to mark the passage of time, from Stonehenge down to modern atomic clocks. There's a lot of good science in there, from astronomy (sundials and the like) to basic mechanics (pendulums and so on) to quantum physics (atomic clocks) and even relativity. And there's plenty of room for side trips into other…
milhayser | February 7, 2011
We heard recently that 36% of university students "did not demonstrate any significant improvement in learning" upon graduation, although they may have bettered their Xbox skills, social lives, and tolerance to alcohol. Physics professor Chad Orzel isn't surprised by this number, saying it "seems consistent with my experiences both as a student and as a faculty member." According to Chad, laziness is just human nature, and there are other important (if not academic) lessons that college provides. The new statistics, drawn from a book called Academically Adrift: Limited Learning on College…
mikethemadbiologist | February 7, 2011When I read articles like this and this, it seems that educational 'reformers' are dwelling in a world utterly divorced from reality. If teachers unions and their 'sweetheart deals' are the problem, then why does Massachusetts excel? The teachers unions are very strong, and teachers are well compensated. For that matter, if teachers are so incredibly important, should we then conclude that Massachusetts' teachers are far 'better' than Alabama's?
It seems the reformers confuse bad teachers (which do exist in terms of motivation or personality) with poor teaching. The latter stems from poor…
mikethemadbiologist | February 5, 2011While there is a strong economic argument for tenure in higher education, let's not forget that the ability to speak freely is vital:
This attack on academic freedom -- an adjunct hired to teach a course was fired by Brooklyn College [part of the CUNY system] administration after a state assemblyman sent a letter arguing that the syllabus and instructor were too critical of Israel -- is depressing. First of all, there's assemblyman Hikind:
Hikind, who said he earned his master's degree in political science from Brooklyn College, told Inside Higher Ed that he reached these conclusions after…
mikethemadbiologist | February 4, 2011Over at New Economic Perspectives, William Black makes a good observation about the basic arithmetic skills of the educational reformers--specifically Obama's claim that we will add 100,000 new teachers:
Obama correctly identified a critical need and stated that we must make dramatic changes to meet the need. Are we acting to add 100,000 (net) new teachers in those fields? Obama emphasized in his address that we need to respect teachers. So let's ask the teachers what is happening. On May 27, 2010, the National Education Association warned.
Without $23 billion from Congress to keep public…
mikethemadbiologist | February 4, 2011Robert Scheer comments on Obama's State of the Union speech (italics mine):
His references to education provided a convenient scapegoat for the failure of the economy, rather than to blame the actions of the Wall Street hustlers to whom Obama is now sucking up. Yes, it is an obvious good to have better-educated students to compete with other economies, but that is hardly the issue of the moment when all of the world's economies are suffering grievous harm resulting from the irresponsible behavior of the best and the brightest here at home. It wasn't the students struggling at community…
sa smith | February 2, 2011Anti-food-technology movement is just like the anti-evolution movement.
Its got jack to do with the science.
Its got everything to do with politics and personal ignorance.
So lets all pretend to act shocked and surprised that an anti-GMO group has taken a page from anti-evolutionists on how to prevent children from learning science in schools:
Practical experiments in which students learn how to use plasmids to alter the DNA of the bacteria have been under way for 17 and 18-year-olds in the final year of the scientific baccalaureate at schools across France for the past decade. But this year…
mikethemadbiologist | February 2, 2011Does failing to teach evolution qualify as bad teaching? Because, then, I might get behind the idea that teacher tenure should fall by the wayside:
Now several Republican governors have concluded that removing ineffective teachers requires undoing the century-old protections of tenure.
Governors in Florida, Idaho, Indiana, Nevada and New Jersey have called for the elimination or dismantling of tenure. As state legislatures convene this winter, anti-tenure bills are being written in those states and others. Their chances of passing have risen because of crushing state budget deficits that…
mikethemadbiologist | February 2, 2011Oddly, curriculum--what is taught--is rarely discussed when the subject of educational 'reform' is broached. It's odd, since most reformers, when trying to push their agenda, spend a good deal of time figuring out what to communicate and how to communicate it (like most of us). Yet, how one teaches and what one teaches never seems to enter into the discussion, even though it's pretty critical to educational success. So maybe the reformers could actually do something useful and tackle this problem:
We can now say how many high school biology teachers do a good job, teaching the…
jdupuis | January 30, 2011I have a whole pile of science-y book reviews on two of my older blogs, here and here. Both of those blogs have now been largely superseded by or merged into this one. So I'm going to be slowly moving the relevant reviews over here. I'll mostly be doing the posts one or two per weekend and I'll occasionally be merging two or more shorter reviews into one post here.
This one, of Groundswell: Winning in a World Transformed by Social Technologies, is from January 23, 2009.
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The first wave of social media books, like Wikinomics or even Here Comes Everybody, were of the "what the heck is…
jtoney | January 29, 2011
For atmospheric carbon dioxide levels to stabilize, this chart clearly shows, the world's major emitters and smaller countries will have to reduce emissions.
If you've ever wondered about how each nation contributes to the global carbon "footprint," take a look at this compelling graphic.
The left "footprint" displays recent data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration. The size of each circle - in some cases a "heel" or a "toe," is proportional to the carbon emissions estimated for each nation.
The right "footprint" shows the same data, but expressed per capita so that you can…
jtoney | January 27, 2011
What do Biology teachers teach our children? This has been an ongoing subject of discussion by my Scibling PZ Meyers for years. I would like to add a comment, based on a paper in this week's Science.
A study just published in Science indicates that while creationism may have been defeated in the courtroom, it is still a matter of contention in the classroom. The authors refer to a portion of biology teachers as the "cautious 60%":
majority of teachers, the "cautious 60%," who are neither strong advocates for evolutionary biology nor explicit endorsers of nonscientific alternatives?…
jtoney | January 27, 2011
Education reform may be one of the most important initiatives of our generation. It is a complex and sensitive topic, with a wide range of views from families, teachers and their unions (if public), states, the federal government and from think tanks.
The Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce (RSA) has recently produced a series of videos that discuss education reform. Narrated by Sir Ken Robinson, the imperative for reform is laid out using a compelling graphic story line.
In case you are not already familiar, I highly recommend it as a resource to enhance…
mikethemadbiologist | January 27, 2011Over at Open Left, jeffbinnc pithily summarizes all of the metrics of which educational 'reformers' are fond:
Then, to illustrate just how the focus on more and better tests is going to be raised to the levels of panacea, the CAP rolled out a new report last week that based just about everything on the notion that test scores are the be-all and the end-all of education attainment in our country.
As I noted in a Quick Hit here on Open Left, CAP's analysis of school performance "relied on the results of 2008 state reading and math assessments in fourth grade, eighth grade, and high school"…
mikethemadbiologist | January 27, 2011It would be for the best.
First, some general thoughts. I had the distinct sense Obama was trying to run the clock out. He knew he had to say something, but has no room to maneuver. Thanks to his mediocre first two years and his enabling of conservative talking points (which one wonders if that's not strategic, but ideological), the Democrats lost control of the House and have been boxed into a corner rhetorically. Related to that, he set the stage over and over again to box Republicans in, but then he mostly chickened out and rarely offered concrete proposals that would put them in a…
jtoney | January 26, 2011
Doug Mills/The New York Times
President Obama focused attention on preparing the United States to thrive against global competition.
President Obama's 2011 State of the Union speech was broad, thematic and optimistic as expected. Each listener comes to such a speech with their own perspective and background. As a scientist, I was particularly encouraged to hear a theme of the importance of education in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) to drive innovation, a call for more respect for teachers as "nation builders" and, perhaps most poignant - the President's…
jdupuis | January 25, 2011I'm always very happy to see a librarian blogger embedded in a science blogging network. It's very important to get the library message out beyond just the library echo chamber and to the faculty, students and researchers who are out patron community.
So I was very pleased to see Elizabeth Brown's new blog, Social Disruption, on the Science 3.0 blog network.
From her inauguaral post:
I've been able to found contacts and establish connections to quite a few people through Twitter, friendfeed, Linkedin, and Mendeley. This is/was an important resource as I'm the only person in the library with…