Category: Links Dump

Self-enhancement and imposter syndrome: neither is good for your teaching | Science Edventures McCrickerd points out it is only through dissatisfaction that we change our behavior. An instructor with an overly-enhanced self sees no reason to change when something bad happens in class. “Not my fault they didn’t learn…” And who else does a lot… Continue reading Links for 2012-05-02

McSweeney’s Internet Tendency: The Only Thing That Can Stop This Asteroid is Your Liberal Arts Degree. Don’t think I don’t have my misgivings about sending some hotshot Asian Studies minor into space for the first time. This is NASA, not Grinnell. I don’t have the time or patience for your renegade attitude and macho bravado.… Continue reading Links for 2012-05-01

Confessions of a Community College Dean: Class Dismissed In my darker moments, I sometimes wonder if the root of the problem with public higher education in America is that it was designed to create and support a massive middle class. And we’ve tacitly decided as a society that a massive middle class is not a… Continue reading Links for 2012-04-30

Learning about science education from the experts: Kids « Boundary Vision By far the best panel on science education I’ve seen recently was given by a few of the most important people in the field: kids.

Animals Disappointed in your College Performance This ostrich begs to differ with you. Grammar does matter. Boston Review — Claude S. Fischer: The Loneliness Scare Social scientists have more precisely tracked Americans’ isolation and reports of loneliness over the last several decades. The real news, they have discovered, is that there is no such epidemic;… Continue reading Links for 2012-04-27

What Particle Are You? | Cosmic Variance | Discover Magazine I am not a particle! I am a HUMAN BEING!! Studies in Everyday Life: Exponential Economist Meets Finite Physicist: My Comments on the Limits to Growth This is my response to the recent post by UCSD physicist Tom Murphy, in which he questions an economist… Continue reading Links for 2012-04-26

Taking in a concert doubleheader with Creed and Nickelback, the world’s most hated bands – Grantland The moment you tell people you’re seeing Creed and Nickelback in concert — on the same night, at roughly the same time, in two different venues — it suddenly becomes a stunt. Just describing the premise seems schlocky; it’s… Continue reading Links for 2012-04-25

Fire – Flint & Steel – Some Clarifications “I started a fire with flint and steel.” Often heard, at least in some circles. But, what does this really mean? Well, there are two very different processes that might be being talked about: Traditional Flint and Steel: Striking a hardened piece of carbon steel with a… Continue reading Links for 2012-04-24

How do I get my students to prepare before coming to a flipped class? – Turn to Your Neighbor: The Official Peer Instruction Blog A whole lot of words about the virtues of Peer Instruction and Just-in-Time Teaching, followed by a one-paragraph response to the question in the title. Don’t blink or you might miss… Continue reading Links for 2012-04-23

Dark Matter: Now You See It, Now You Don’t | Of Particular Significance Both claims that I’m about to describe use novel techniques, and their analyses have not been repeated by anyone else. At this point you should understand that both are tentative, and (based on the history of radical claims) the odds are against… Continue reading Links for 2012-04-21