Teaching and Learning
jstemwedel | July 10, 2006The problem with having eyes and ears everywhere is that sometimes they deliver sensory data that make you want to rip them out of your head or stuff them with cotton, respectively.
An eagle-eyed reader pointed me toward some eyebrow-raising comments on another blog, which would not be of much interest except they purport to transmit information obtained from one of the fine science departments at my university. So, to uphold the honor of my university, I have to wade into this.
First, a representative sampling of the comments from the poster in question. He writes:
I will leave this site…
jstemwedel | June 29, 2006Interesting news from Japan: Tohoku University has decided to launch an outreach effort to encourage more girls to pursue science. Rather than relying on secondary school science classes to whip up enthusiam for science, the university is recruiting its own women graduate students in the sciences to serve as role models and mentors.
From the Yomiuri Shimbun:
Tohoku University is to dispatch "Science Angels"--female volunteer students from its graduate school--to primary, middle and high schools in Sendai to attract more females into science. ...
The volunteers will visits schools in the…
jstemwedel | June 25, 2006I was thinking some more about the Paul Root Wolpe commentary on how scientists avoid thinking about ethics, partly because Benjamin Cohen at The World's Fair wonders why ethics makes scientists more protective of their individuality than, say, the peer-review system or other bits of institutional scientific furniture do.
My sense is that at least part of what's going on here is that scientists feel like ethics are being imposed on them from without. Worse, the people exhorting scientists to take ethics seriously often seem to take a finger-wagging approach. And this, I suspect, makes it…
jstemwedel | June 22, 2006There's a nice commentary in the most recent issue of Cell about scientists' apparent aversion to thinking about ethics, and the reasons they give for thinking about other things instead. You may not be able to get to the full article via the link (unless, say, you're hooked up to a library with an institutional subscription to Cell), but BrightSurf has a brief description of it.
And, of course, I'm going to say a bit about it here.
The author of the commentary, University of Pennsylvania bioethicist Paul Root Wolpe, identifies seven main reasons scientists give for not thinking about ethics…
jstemwedel | June 17, 2006It's not just a science thing, it's also an ethics thing. The truth is good. Departures from it, more often than not, get you into trouble.
A couple examples:
The Guarantee of Medical Accuracy in Sex Education Act was recently introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives. Wouldn't you think that education would be premised on accurate information? What have we come to when it takes a law "to prohibit the federal government from providing assistance to any entity whose materials on human sexuality contain medically inaccurate information"?
Memo to the folks who are spinning this as an…
jstemwedel | June 7, 2006Near the end of the "Ethics in Science" course I teach, we read the novel Cantor's Dilemma by Carl Djerassi. It does a nice job of tying together a lot of different issues we talk about earlier in the term. Plus, it's a novel.
While it's more enjoyable reading than the slew of journal articles that precede it, Cantor's Dilemma is a little jarring for the students at first, because it contains whole passages that aren't directly relevant to the question of how to be a responsible scientist. As one of my students synopsized: "Science. Sex. Science. Sex. Science. Sex."
Upon reflection,…
jstemwedel | June 7, 2006One of the first things that happens when you get a faculty mailbox in a philosophy department is that unsolicited items start appearing in it. There are the late student papers, the book catalogs, the religious tracts -- and occasionally, actual books that, it is hoped, you will like well enough that you will exhort all your students to buy them (perhaps by requiring them for your classes).
Today, I'm going to give you my review of two little books that appeared in my faculty mailbox, both from The Foundation for Critical Thinking. The first is The Miniature Guide to Critical Thinking…
jstemwedel | June 2, 2006Months ago, I wrote about the Department of Homeland Security's concerns about chemistry sets. (You know, for kids.) Well, it seems the push to make the world child-safe (or perhaps not legally actionable?) continues.
Reader Donn Young points me to this story from Wired about government crackdowns on companies catering to garage chemistry enthusiasts. Donn also shares a story of his own:
Growing up, two friends and I had a chemistry 'club' centered around our chemistry sets and 'labs' in our basements. My friend's mother, who was a chemist at Battelle Memorial Institute, would give us…
jstemwedel | May 24, 2006I'm marking another stack of papers (because it's May, and the sun is shining, and apparently I was a real bastard in some previous life).
In these papers, the students were supposed to examine an instance where the interests of scientists and the interests of non-scientists (perhaps various subgroups of non-scientists) might be at odds. The idea is to explain the source of the conflict, connect this to the various values of the different players, and to set out possible strategies for resolving the conflict. It was stressed that giving a fair presentation of each side's view is key.…
jstemwedel | May 23, 2006Dear inventors,
My personal experience (and what I have heard from the many other academics with whom I communicate) suggests a number of inventions that would sell a bazillion units at colleges and universities world-wide. For your convenience, I list the items that would have the biggest demand first. However, it's worth noting that even the items at the bottom of the list would make professorial lives significantly better, and that we would gladly dip into the funds currently allocated for recreational reading and hooch to purchase them.
Self-grading exams. (No, not those scantron…
jstemwedel | May 12, 2006Welcome to Teaching Carnival #9. I realize that you, gentle reader, may be affiliated with a school whose term has already ended. You may be easing into those first intoxicating weeks of the summer break, where your "to do" list seems more theoretical and less urgent.
Academic calendars are somewhat arbitrary, so I know it's not your fault, but I'll thank you not to gloat. Some of us are in the End Times right now, hoping that our post-apocalyptic world resembles a summer break.
It may be too soon to call it.
In any event, this Teaching Carnival is dedicated to the teachers and learners…
jstemwedel | May 2, 2006Next Friday (May 12), I will be hosting Teaching Carnival #9, right here. The Teaching Carnival encompasses the many aspects of teaching, learning, and figuring out why it all matters, in the realm of higher education.
I especially encourage submissions about teaching or learning science in higher education. Also, since for may the term will be over (or drawing to a close) by mid-May, I'd be interested to see posts about how well pedagogical innovations worked (or didn't), or what you would do differently if you could live the term over.
Undoubtedly, there will also be posts about the…
jstemwedel | May 2, 2006Hey, it's May already! Could that explain why things are crazy-busy here?
There will be new content soon, once I've plowed through some more grading and exam-writing and curricular trouble-shooting. In the meantime, since I copped to enjoying reality TV more than I should (in that ABC meme, under "Not going to cop to"), I thought I'd share a May post from the earlier incarnation of this blog, a post in which I muse on what "The Apprentice" (a show, as of this season, I no longer watch ... we've grown apart) might teach us about how to improve the scientific community.
Yes, it's utterly daft…
jstemwedel | April 25, 2006Over at Evolgen, RPM links to an article that lists ten "basic questions" to which ten different scientists think high school graduates should know the answers. (It was one question from each scientist, so it's unclear whether all ten would agree that they are the ten most important questions, or even that all ten of these scientists could answer all ten to the others' satisfaction.) RPM opines that the list seems heavy on trivia (or at least seemingly random facts) and light on really helpful scientific knowledge. He writes:
Let's focus on two things: the hypothetical deductive method and…
jstemwedel | April 19, 2006You may recall that a couple months ago the New York Times ran this piece on the habits of students who email their professors. Today, there's something of a follow-up at Inside Higher Ed. The upshot seems to be that being polite, and especially not assuming an overly-familiar tone towards one's professor simply because one is using email, is a good idea.
Given that, frequently, emails to one's professor are intended to get something (information about an assignment, an extension, etc.), I would have thought this was kind of obvious. Is rudeness a good strategy for getting someone to give…
jstemwedel | April 7, 2006Lately, I've been blogging a bit about science teaching. Most of my focus has been on teaching at the secondary level, but it turns out that there are issues to be tackled with science teaching at all levels, including the college level. You'd think, then, that when a scientist who has proven himself in the research arena (and even picked up a Nobel Prize) wants to direct his formidable talents toward improving undergraduate science instruction, he'd be in a good position to get things done.
Sadly, you'd be mistaken.
From Inside Higher Ed comes the story of Carl Wieman, a physicist at the…
jstemwedel | April 6, 2006I'm sure there's a thoughtful post that could be written logically connecting these points and shedding light on a "big picture" issue or two that needs to be tackled. However, I'm heading to class (to talk about the Strong Program in the sociology of science and return midterms), so I can't crank out that post just yet. (And, rather than helping me out by writing the post, the elves just take my notes and make shoes. Selfish elves!)
Mike Dunford notes that, at least in the U.S., most of us are in the situation of spending our pre-college years learning science from people with extensive…
jstemwedel | April 5, 2006You might think, from the title of this post, that I have a completely worked out answer to the question of how to improve science education in the U.S.
I don't.
But, I have some observations that bear on the question, and I think looking at them might help us move in the right direction.
This is a follow-up to my earlier post about a study looking at how U.S. science instruction (in 8th grade) differs from science instruction in Japan, Australia, the Netherlands, and the Czech Republic. You'll remember that the U.S. Department of Education press release noted:
In the United States,…
jstemwedel | April 5, 2006The U.S. Department of Education has just announced the results of a study comparing what's going on in 8th grade science classrooms in the U.S. , the Netherlands, the Czech Republic, Japan, and Australia.
You will be shocked -- shocked! -- to learn that U.S. science students did not do as well as their counterparts in the other four countries in the study when it came to learning science content.
The Dept. of Ed. press release, and a wee bit of commentary, below the fold.
U.S. Science Lessons Focus More on Activities, Less on Content, Study Shows
FOR RELEASE:
April 4, 2006
Contact: Mike…
jstemwedel | March 26, 2006Hey, guess what? A California school district has adopted a new science policy aimed at getting students to think more critically ... about evolutionary theory. It is not entirely clear whether members of the Lancaster School District board of trustees recognize that the policy effectively singles out evolution for scrutiny, or whether they were duped. But I'm pretty sure I've heard this song before.
Here's the coverage from the Antelope Valley Press:
LANCASTER - The Lancaster School District board of trustees voted to implement a "philosophy" of science instruction that encourages…