Teaching and Learning
jstemwedel | March 28, 2007Steve Gimbel has a provocative post that suggests the costs of undergraduate lab classes may outweigh the benefits. Quoth Steve:
[E]verything I know about physics, I learned from my theory classes. You see, science classes come in two flavors. There are theory classes where a prof stands in front of the room and lectures and then there are lab classes where for many hours, students walk in ill-prepared and tried to figure out which one of these things we've never seen before is a potentiometer, fumble their way through procedures that yield results that are not even close to what they were…
jstemwedel | March 10, 2007As promised at the end of my post on polar and non-polar molecules, here's a basic concepts post on intermolecular forces. Intermolecular forces are the forces between molecules, whereas intramolecular forces are those within molecules. (The bonds that hold the atoms in a molecule together are intramolecular forces.)
A quick note before we jump in: When chemical educators are explaining intermolecular forces, they almost always use examples of intermolecular attractions. You could just as easily talk about intermolecular repulsions (which are forces too, after all), but it's the…
jstemwedel | March 9, 2007What list of basic concepts would be complete without a primer on polar and non-polar molecules?
You'll recall that chemists live in a world made up of atoms and various assemblies and modifications thereof, which are, in turn, made up of protons, neutrons, and electrons. Protons (which have positive charge and some mass) and neutrons (which are just a squosh more massive than protons) hang out together in the nucleus of your atom, while electrons can be thought of as zipping around the nucleus.
When multiple atoms are part of an assembly in which they are bonded to each other, you have a…
jstemwedel | February 20, 2007Score another point for my mother.
My mother is a really good cook. She is also an unrepentant violator of recipes. My earliest cookbook related memory involves noticing that, while Mom had a recipe in front of her, she was flagrantly measuring different amounts of ingredients than those called for, and combining them in a way that clearly contravened the method described on the page.
It turns out that this manifestation of her issues with authority may also explain why she has such a good understanding of what she's doing in the kitchen.
At least, that's a conclusion I'm inclined to draw…
jstemwedel | February 11, 2007I figured it was time I weighed in on a basic concept from chemistry, so let's talk about what defines an element.
As far as chemists are concerned, the world is made up of atoms and various assemblies and modifications thereof. Those atoms and modifications of atoms are, in turn, made up of protons, neutrons, and electrons. Protons have a +1 charge and a mass of 1.0073 amu [1]. Neutrons have zero charge and a mass of 1.0087 amu. And electrons have a -1 charge and a mass of 5.49 x 10-4 amu. Various combinations of these three will give you atoms, radicals, and ions. Protons and neutrons…
jstemwedel | February 10, 2007In my basic concepts post on theory testing, I set out what I take to be a fairly standard understanding of "theory" in philosophy of science discussions:
... a theory is a group of hypotheses that make claims about what kind of entities there are and how those entities change over time and interact with each other. If you like, the theory contains claims about ontology and laws. If you prefer, the theory tells you what kind of stuff there is and how that stuff behaves.
In a comment, Lab Lemming opined:
That's a really odd way to think of theories. I reckon a theory is something that is…
jstemwedel | February 8, 2007As part of my graduate coursework in chemistry, I took a biophysical chemistry course from Professor Wray Huestis -- not because my research was in biophysical chemistry, but because I was curious. Possibly my best move ever in choosing my classes, since she gave us one of the smartest and most useful writing assignments I've ever encountered.
The task was to write a proposal for a novel piece of research in biophysical chemistry.
To start, you had to read around to figure out what the outstanding problems were. You also had to read around to get a sense of what kinds of experimental…
jstemwedel | February 7, 2007I'm following up on yesterday's post on where scientists learn how to write (and please, keep those comments coming).
First, Chad Orzel has a nice post about how he learned to write like a scientist. It involves torturing drafts on the rack, and you owe it to yourself to read it.
Second, I'll be putting up a post tonight about the best scientific writing assignment ever, at least in my graduate school experience. It's one more professors teaching graduate students might consider adapting.
In the meantime, I want to throw out a set of factors that probably make a difference in the process of…
jstemwedel | February 6, 2007During my office hours today, a student asked me whether, when I was a chemistry student, the people teaching me chemistry also took steps to teach me how to write. (The student's experience, in an undergraduate major in a scientific field I won't name here, was that the writing intesive course did nothing significant to teach good writing, and the assignments did very little to improve students' writing.)
It's such a good question, I'm going to repackage it as a set of questions to the scientists, scientists-in-training, and educators of scientists:
Do scientists need to write well? If so…
jstemwedel | February 5, 2007I'm a little cautious about adding this to the basic concepts list, given that my main point here is going to be that things are not as simple as you might guess. You've been warned.
We've already taken a look at what it means for a claim to be falsifiable. Often (but not always), when scientists talk about testability, they have something like falsifiability in mind. But testing a theory against the world turns out to be more complicated than testing a single, isolated hypothesis.
First, we need to set out what counts as a theory. For the purposes of this discussion, a theory is a group…
jstemwedel | February 3, 2007During the discussion after my talk at the Science Blogging Conference, the question came up (and was reported here) of whether and when tenure and promotion committees at universities will come to view the blogging activities of their faculty members with anything more positive than suspicion.
SteveG and helmut both offer some interesting thoughts on the issue.
SteveG takes up the idea that academic blogging can often be a productive way to communicate the knowledge produced in the Ivory Tower to the broader public. Arguably, public outreach is part of the larger mission of institutions…
jstemwedel | February 1, 2007The faculty where I teach is at a bargaining impasse with the administration of our university system over our contracts. We are hoping that the administration will come back to the table for a real negotiation*, but in the event that that doesn't happen, there are plans for a system-wide "rolling strike", with staggered two-day walkouts at each of the 23 universities in the system.
This prompted some opinion pieces in the school newspaper, including this one. There's a lot I could say about the claims in this piece (the university is going to hire replacement teachers or drop courses from…
jstemwedel | January 31, 2007Here's another basic concept for the list: what does it mean for a claim to be falsifiable, and why does falsifiability matter so much to scientists and philosophers of science?
Actually, it's not just falsifiable claims that the science crowd cares about, but also falsifiable theories. Let's start with claims because they're easier.
Claims make assertions about how things are (or were, or will be, or could be under different circumstances). Here's a claim from my post on arguments:
Britney Spears is from Mars.
A falsifiable claim is one for which there is some observation (or set of…
jstemwedel | January 29, 2007As my first contribution to the growing list of basic terms and concepts, I'm going to explain a few things no one asked about when I opened the request line. But, these are ideas that are crucial building blocks for things people actually did ask about, like falsifiability and critical thinking, so there will be a payoff here.
Philosophers talk a lot about arguments. What do they mean?
An argument is a set of claims. One of those claims is the conclusion which the other claims are supposed to support. While logicians, geometers, and that crowd customarily give you the conclusion as the…
jstemwedel | January 24, 2007Larry Moran posts a response to my response to his earlier post on the advisability of putting ethical discussions into science classes. Careful fellow that he is, he's decided to stick to a single issue per posting, so he starts with "the relationship between science and technology and where 'ethics' fits in". Larry opines:
Part of what we need to do as science teachers is to make sure our students understand the difference between science and technology -- between the uses of science and the accumulation of scientific knowledge. ...
The goal, as far as I am concerned, is to convince…
jstemwedel | January 22, 2007In a post about curricular issues in genetics and biochemistry courses, Larry Moran raises some good questions:
It's almost a requirement these days that introductory genetics courses include a section on genetically modified crops. This invariably leads to tutorials, or labs, or essays, about whether GM-foods are a good thing or not. These discussions are usually lots of fun and the students enjoy this part of the course. Professors are convinced they are teaching ethics and that it's a good thing to show students that ethics is an important part of science.
In introductory biochemistry…
jstemwedel | December 15, 2006I'm sure I'm not the only academic who receives final exams with doodles (as well as "thank you for the class" and "please don't fail me!" messages). But I need to share a piece of exam artwork that transcends the bounds of doodling.
Indeed, it is a cartoon illustration that demonstrates good mastery of the concept about which the student was asked on that exam page. (In addition to the drawing, the student presented a perfectly correct and crystal clear written answer to the question. The drawing was an added bonus.)
Let me set up the cartoon with a brief explanation of the question so…
jstemwedel | December 15, 2006Dr. Free-Ride's better half taught the younger Free-Ride offspring's kindergarten class about matter this week. It was a lesson that included a working definition, some hands-on explorations of the properties of different sorts of matter, and a little magic.
Working definition of matter (for kindergarteners): Something that has mass, takes up space, and that interacts with our senses. ("But what of electrons?" asked Dr. Free-Ride when hearing about the lesson. "Too soon!" replied Dr. Free-Ride's better half.)
Hands-on exploration:
Air is matter. The kids inflated balloons (some with…
jstemwedel | December 13, 2006On my last post, Kristine commented:
My favorite "finals week activity" was defending to two students why they couldn't take the lab exams three weeks after all of their classmates took it, just because they realized now that they never showed up for class that week. Whew. Ten minutes each, and as emotionally draining as grading 100 exams.
I feel Kristine's pain. And, I think this raises the larger question of what the problem is that keeps these students from understanding that "course requirements" are things that are required for them to do.
Seriously, given all the time we academics…
jstemwedel | December 7, 2006I'd like to take a moment to consider a recent comment on a fairly old post about a class meeting wherein my students and I considered some of the inconsistent views about animals with which people seem to walk around. Here's what the commenter said:
"But, as one of my students put it, 'Some of these people who want to shut down the animal research facilities should put a sock in it while they're still eating meat.'"
This suggests that your classroom discussion created a false impression in your students, perhaps due to your own false assumptions.
I've campaigned for ten years to end harmful…