teaching
jane | December 3, 2008
Prioritizing is good. Prioritizing is absolutely necessary in this job. But what do you do if you have time this month to do X projects, but X+1 projects are "high priority"? Is cloning legal yet?
Number of high priority projects = X+1 because a journal article I sent out for review before its time, which I thought would be a sure reject, just came back as a strong revise&resubmit. So that clearly needs to be fast-tracked. So yes, at least my plate is full for a totally awesome reason.
This is the first set of journal reviews that I've gotten back where there were no insulting/mean-…
sporte | November 25, 2008It's funny but even though I work with data on a regular basis, I can't always predict the best way to manage data until I have my own data to manage.
My classroom wiki site is no exception.
Now, that I've been seriously using a wiki with my class, I've found that I should have set a few things up a bit differently.
Technorati Tags: teaching, teaching technology, wikis, wiki, science education"
The biggest challenge has been making sure that the right people can do the right things - or who gets to see what and upload what where.
Not knowing what methods would turn out to be useful, I…
jane | November 23, 2008In the past week, I've had to have some uncomfortable conversations with students. In each case, the student is failing my class. (And we're not talking barely failing....we're talking obviously failing.) In each case, the student had no idea that s/he is failing my class.
The student had no idea! Even though:
1. I post grades for each student on our course management system.
2. I post how many points each assignment is worth, so the students can calculate points percentages.
3. I post the grade breakdown for the course, so the students can also, at any time, calculate their overall grade…
sporte | November 21, 2008There's no question that the ability to work with information is one that will be required and valued for a long time to come. I think it's imperative for teachers to have students practice this skill whenever an opportunity comes about. The problem for many teachers is finding the time to identify good data sets.
MRSA stands for Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), a serious problem for hospital patients. Six of out seven people who become infected with MRSA, get it from some kind of health-care facility. In 2007, the CDC issued a report claiming that 18,000 people die every…
sporte | November 18, 2008In our last episode, I wrote about embedding Google forms in my classroom wiki pages.
Recently, we've been working on a project where students enter results into a Google Docs spreadsheet, via our classroom wiki. All the students were able to enter their results.
Except for one.
When other students went to the spreadsheet page, they saw this:
When this student went to the same page, he saw this:
We tried all kinds of things to see if we could remedy this situation. I checked and rechecked permissions, both in my Google account and in the wiki. We closed and reopened pages, we…
grrlscientist | November 17, 2008... and what I did to make it a success..
NOTE: this is reposted here from my original blogger site at the urging of my friend and colleague, Bora. Thanks Bora for noticing and remembering this piece!
When I hosted the 23rd issue of the Tangled Bank (TB23) on 9 March 2005, I didn't know what to expect because I had never hosted a blog carnival before and in fact, I had only recently figured out what a blog carnival actually is. Nevertheless, my primary goals were to have fun and to avoid the pitfalls experienced by previous hosts. One of the worst problems that recent issues of TB…
grrlscientist | November 11, 2008tags: DonorsChoose2008, education, public school education, fund raising, evolution education, nature education, human evolution
As of yesterday, an impoverished pre-kindergarten through 3rd grade classroom from PS111 in the Bronx, NYC, learned that they will be able to learn about birds and other local wildlife because you, Seed Media Group and Random House Publishers donated enough for them to fulfill their funding request to purchase binoculars for the kids to use. Thank you!
Of course, I will be sharing all updates with you that they and all "our classrooms" send during the upcoming…
grrlscientist | November 6, 2008tags: DonorsChoose2008, education, public school education, fund raising, evolution education, nature education, human evolution
As of yesterday, an impoverished 9th grade classroom in Massachusetts learned that they will be able to learn about the evolution of hominids because you donated enough for them to fulfill their funding request. Thank you!
Of course, I will be sharing all updates with you that they and all "our classrooms" send during the upcoming school year.
9th Graders Study Evolution: Did We Really Evolve From Apes?
Dear GrrlScientist,
Thank you so much for your support! I…
sporte | November 4, 2008This quarter, I'm using a wiki with my bioinformatics class and posting sometimes about the things that I learn.
Two things I've been experimenting with are:
Setting up pages for individual students so they can take notes while they're working.
Embedding a Google form into one of my wiki pages for student assessment.
Here's a diagram showing some of the pages in my bioinformatics class wiki site.
Syllabus: I suppose this reflects on my own lack of organization, but I use the syllabus as a dynamic document, making changes and adding information throughout the course. There are…
sporte | November 3, 2008Want to learn more about Parkinson's disease? See why a single nucleotide mutation messes up the function of a protein?
I have a short activity that uses Cn3D (a molecular viewing program from the NCBI) to look at a protein that seems to be involved in a rare form of Parkinson's disease and I could sure use beta testers.
If you'd like to do this, I need you to follow the directions below and afterwards, go to a web form and answer a few questions. Don't worry about getting the wrong answers. I won't know who you are, so I won't know if you answered anything wrong.
If you have any concerns…
sporte | November 2, 2008I heard some intriguing presentations this week about education in Second Life, but I happen know that there is an open-source, free (?) alternative called "Croquet."
Do any of you have experience with Croquet vs. Second Life? I'd love to hear about it in the comments.
I attended two talks, hoping that someone would compare different platforms, or at least give the audience a chance to ask questions, but no such luck.
I think these multi-user virtual environments are really interesting, but I have some reservations about educational institutions making substantial investments in building…
grrlscientist | November 2, 2008tags: Irene Pepperberg, Alex, Alex the African grey parrot, talking parrot, cognition, behavior, streaming video
Tonight, I will attend Irene Pepperberg's reading where she will read from her new book about her friend and colleague, Alex the African grey parrot. Below is an interesting video showing some of what Alex was capable of doing, and it also provides a small glimpse into the relationship between Alex and Irene [2:06]
grrlscientist | October 31, 2008tags: DonorsChoose2008, education, public school education, fund raising, evolution education, nature education, bird education
Already, dear readers, you are making a difference. For example, today, an impoverished classroom in American's capital city learned that they will be able to learn how to identify wild birds in Washington DC because you donated enough for them to fulfill their funding request. Thank you!
Of course, I will be sharing all updates with you that they and all "our classrooms" send during the upcoming school year.
Birding in Washington, DC
Dear GrrlScientist,
Birds…
grrlscientist | October 29, 2008tags: DonorsChoose2008, education, public school education, fund raising, evolution education, nature education, bird education
The end of the month approaches, and with it, Hallowe'en and -- even more important -- the end of ScienceBlogs' DonorsChoose Challenges! I am truly impressed with your generosity towards impoverished kids throughout America as their teachers struggle to improve their science education -- afterall, these kids are going to be voting soon, and if they have a crappy science education, they too will join the ranks of Sarah Palin and John McCain by berating important…
grrlscientist | October 28, 2008tags: DonorsChoose2008, education, public school education, fund raising, evolution education, nature education, bird education
Start your day off right by helping America's poor children to get a good basic education in science. This is a project that focuses on human evolution in a high-poverty Massachusetts classroom -- they need another $771 to complete their funding request. Won't you help?
9th Graders Study Evolution: Did We Really Evolve From Apes?
I am the high school biology teacher at my school. Our school is severely lacking materials in the Science Department. We have the…
grrlscientist | October 27, 2008tags: DonorsChoose2008, education, public school education, fund raising, evolution education, nature education, bird education
Already, dear readers, you are making a difference. For example, today, a classroom in Tennessee learned that they will be able to learn how to see microscopic life because you donated enough for them to fulfill their funding request. Thank you!
Of course, I will be sharing all updates with you that they send during the upcoming school year.
Dear Grrl,
Hooray! I can't believe my students will soon have a microscope! We are all so excited and looking forward to…
sporte | October 26, 2008Experimenting with on-line worksheets
I know some people who always teach their classes the same way, semester after semester, year after year.. Not me. I always want to experiment and try new things.
This fall, I'm experimenting with using a wiki in the classroom, in addition to my blog. This wont be my first wiki experience. We've long used wikis where I work, and I've used them to collaborate with people in different locations, but this is the first time that I'll try one in a teaching situation.
The wikis in my past
My earlier experiences with wikis had convinced me that they would…
sporte | October 25, 2008Why should professional scientists have all the fun?
Researchers have been engineering glowing cats, and selling glowing fish at pet stores. High school kids can do genetic engineering too, if they have the right equipment. And you can help them get the equipment by contributing to our DonorsChoose fund drive.
If you're willing to help students, they'll be able to do biotechnology in the class room and learn about DNA. They'll put genes for green fluorescent protein into bacteria and see how that bit of invisible liquid in a test tube gets used to make a glowing protein.
Even better,…
grrlscientist | October 24, 2008tags: DonorsChoose2008, education, public school education, fund raising, evolution education, nature education, bird education
Excellent news, my peeps! Seed Media Group has stepped up to donate matching funds of up to $15,000 to our DonorsChoose! This money will be divided evenly between all 21 of us ScienceBloggers who have set up a DonorsChoose Challenge.
Collectively, and thanks to our wonderful readers, all of the ScienceBloggers have raised more than $18,000 for our DonorsChoose Challenge classrooms. Best of all, the average reader donation has been slightly more than $75 each, so we…
grrlscientist | October 17, 2008tags: DonorsChoose2008, education, public school education, fund raising, evolution education, nature education, bird education
This proposal has only 15 days left to be funded, and I am hoping that all of you can donate -- even one dollar -- to fund this project. You are strongly encouraged to set up a matching funds challenge for this or any other DonorsChoose proposal, either through your employer or among your co-workers or friends.
This teacher, Mrs. R., teaches grades 3-5 in a high poverty school in Tennessee. She seeks funds to purchase a microscope and two sets of prepared slides…