(Because nothing brings in readers like a physics pedagogy post…) Out in Minnesota, Arjendu is expressing high-level confusion about the business of lecturing: As I’ve said a few times before in this blog, I prefer to let students read the text to get a preliminary take on physics content on their own, generate questions and… Continue reading Stability and Pedagogy
Category: Academia
On the Asking of Hard Questions
Janet posted a few days ago about asking questions of grad students in seminars and journal clubs and so on. This is part of a larger conversation that I’m too lazy to collect links to– Janet has them– about whether grad students should show solidarity with their fellows and refrain from asking tough questions of… Continue reading On the Asking of Hard Questions
Moment of Silence
Framing Stem Cells
With the “Vox Day” business winding down (one way or another), it’s time to unwind with something less contentious and controversial: Framing! No– seriously. Most of the really loud opponents have publically washed their hands of the whole topic, so I expect this will be relatively non-controversial. What could possibly go wrong? Anyway, Janet is… Continue reading Framing Stem Cells
Non-Dorky Poll: Drinking Songs
I’m feeling pretty harried this week, because I’m teaching using a new curriculum, which requires all-new lecture slides and notes and homework assignments. I’m also going away this weekend, to Williamstown for the celebration marking the 50th anniversary of the founding of my college rugby club. As a result, I’ve been losing more mental processor… Continue reading Non-Dorky Poll: Drinking Songs
Humorless Scold Smackdown
Inside Higher Ed notes in passing that several NCAA Presidents are complaining about alcohol advertising during the NCAA Tournament. The source for this is a study by the Center for Science in the Public Interest: According to CSPI’s analysis of broadcasts of the semifinal and championship basketball games, the NCAA is exceeding the limits on… Continue reading Humorless Scold Smackdown
Dorky Poll: Calculators
Over at Cosmic Variance, Julianne waxes rhapsodic about her calculator, a HP-15C. This is such an obvious Dorky Poll topic that I can’t believe I didn’t think of it earlier: What sort of calculator do you use? My students, particularly the future engineers, are always shocked by my answer:
Neil Lewis of the New York Times
The much-promised peer-reviewed research post is going to slip by another day, becuase I had forgotten about a talk by Neil Lewis last night on campus. Lewis is an alumnus of Union, and a writer for the Times best known for writing about the prison camps at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and he was speaking as… Continue reading Neil Lewis of the New York Times
Political Indoctrination by Faculty
An ad-lib from yesterday’s lecture about interactions between electric fields and neutral matter, paraphrased: So, we can divide macroscopic objects into two categories, based on what happens when you bring large numbers of atoms together. In materials that are insulators, the electrons aren’t free to move. The atoms hold onto their electrons very tightly. They’re… Continue reading Political Indoctrination by Faculty
The Sticky Tape Lab
I had the first lab of the term yesterday in my introductory E&M class. This is the first time I’ve taught out of this book (Matter & Interactions by Chabay and Sherwood), which actually includes the basic elements of this lab as suggested activities in the second chapter of the text. The lab was more… Continue reading The Sticky Tape Lab