In the same basic vein as last week’s How to Read a Scientific Paper, here’s a kind of online draft of the class I’m going to give Friday on the appropriate ways to present scientific data. “Present” here meaning the more general “display in some form, be it a talk, a poster, a paper, or… Continue reading How to Present Scientific Data
Category: Education
Course Report: A Brief History of Timekeeping 02
I reported on the start of this class last week, and sinc ethen, we’ve had three more class meetings. Since this whole thing is an experiment, I’ll keep reporting on it from time to time (heh). First, though, a quick answer to a request from comments: I’d like to hear more about your class on… Continue reading Course Report: A Brief History of Timekeeping 02
How to Read a Scientific Paper
My course this term is on time and timekeeping, but is also intended as a general “research methods” class. This was conceived by people in the humanities, where the idea of generic research methods makes a lot more sense than in the sciences (where there’s a lot more specialization by subfield), but I’m going to… Continue reading How to Read a Scientific Paper
In Which I Am Grumpy About Education
In comments to Friday’s snarky post, I was chided for not engaging with the critique of standardized testing offered by Washington Post education blogger Valerie Strauss. I had intended to say more about the general topic, as there have been a bunch of much-cited articles in a similar vein crossing my RSS reader recently, but… Continue reading In Which I Am Grumpy About Education
Shameless Innumeracy
On last month’s post about the public innumeracy of a Florida school board member, Tom Singer posts an update, which includes a link to a follow-up at the Washington Post blog that started the whole thing. In the course of rounding up reactions to the original, the author, Valerie Strauss, writes: In fact, there were… Continue reading Shameless Innumeracy
On the Helpfulness of Numbers
Anybody who has taught introductory physics has noticed the tendency, particuarly among weaker students, to plug numbers into equations at the first opportunity, and spend the rest of the problem manipulating nine-digit decimal numbers (because, of course, you want to copy down all the digits the calculator gives you. Many faculty, myself included, find this… Continue reading On the Helpfulness of Numbers
Course Report: A Brief History of Timekeeping 01
As mentioned a few times previously, the class I’m teaching this term is a “Scholars Research Seminar” on time and timekeeping. As this is an entirely new course, and will be consuming a lot of my mental energy, I plan to post occasional reports on what I’m doing to the blog. Today was the first… Continue reading Course Report: A Brief History of Timekeeping 01
Academic Poll: Day One
It’s the first day of class today (for me, anyway– classes technically started yesterday, but I don’t teach on Tuesdays this term). This, of course, means that something will go horribly wrong. The question is, what? What will go wrong on the first day of class today? This is a class for first-year students, so… Continue reading Academic Poll: Day One
The Innumeracy of Educators, or Mark Twain Was Right
“In the first place God made idiots. This was for practice. Then He made School Boards.” — Mark Twain In last night’s post about a school board member failing 10th grade standardized tests, I may have unfairly slighted our students. In response to a comment in which Rick Roach, the school board member who couldn’t… Continue reading The Innumeracy of Educators, or Mark Twain Was Right
Test Taking Takes Practice
A blog run by the Washington Post featured a post on Monday about an adult taking and failing a standardized test, who was later revealed as school board member Rick Roach: Roach, the father of five children and grandfather of two, was a teacher, counselor and coach in Orange County for 14 years. He was… Continue reading Test Taking Takes Practice