Month: August 2011

Of Education Bubbles and Bad Graphs

The new school year is upon us, so there’s been a lot of talk about academia and how it works recently. This has included a lot of talk about the cost of higher education, as has been the case more or less since I’ve been aware of the cost of higher education. A lot of… Continue reading Of Education Bubbles and Bad Graphs

Links for 2011-08-24

To my ultra-rich readers (in the unlikely event I have any) | slacktivist "Those seem to be the options. You can either risk losing a big pile of money for the slim chance of a decent return or you can give up on the idea of a decent return just to avoid losing a big… Continue reading Links for 2011-08-24

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Do You Really Need a Graph for That?

As long as I’m picking on education research papers in Science, I might as well call out the one immediately after the paper I wrote up in the previous post. This one, titled Graduate Students’ Teaching Experiences Improve Their Methodological Research Skills, is another paper whose basic premise I generally agree with– they found that… Continue reading Do You Really Need a Graph for That?

The Dubious Science of Teacher Coaching: “An Interaction-Based Approach to Enhancing Secondary School Instruction and Student Achievement”

A while back, I Links Dumped Josh Rosenau’s Post Firing Bad Teachers Doesn’t Create good Teachers, arguing that rather than just firing teachers who need some improvement, schools should look at, well, helping them improve. This produced a bunch of scoffing in a place I can’t link to, basically taking the view that people are… Continue reading The Dubious Science of Teacher Coaching: “An Interaction-Based Approach to Enhancing Secondary School Instruction and Student Achievement”

Links for 2011-08-23

‘Infinite Jest’ Imbues Decemberists Video by Michael Schur – NYTimes.com "It is a project that so fully combines Mr. Schur’s favorite book — the first he ever read that he felt was written the way he thought and spoke — and favorite band, he says he would have been crushed if anyone else had gotten… Continue reading Links for 2011-08-23

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On Nymity

The whole issue of pseudonymity has come up again, both on Google+ and on ScienceBlogs. While I’ve been on the Internet for nigh on 20 years, my initial point of entry was through a Usenet group that strongly preferred real names (or something real-name-ish). As a result, I’ve never tried to maintain a separate Internet… Continue reading On Nymity

Links for 2011-08-22

hwrnmnbsol: Michele Bachmann: EXPLAINED "[I]t seems that a great many statements made by Michele Bachmann have the effect of generating bewilderment among a certain class of the population, a class that for brevity’s sake I shall label ‘people who know things’. I have a new theory to help explain some of Michele Bachmann’s statements in… Continue reading Links for 2011-08-22

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Frickin’ Lasers: “Laser Advances in Nuclear Fuel Stir Terror Fear”

A physics story makes the front page of the New York Times today. Sadly, it’s with the headline Laser Advances in Nuclear Fuel Stir Terror Fear. Sigh. The key technological development, here, is that General Electric has been playing around with a laser-based isotope separation technique. This is an idea that’s been around for a… Continue reading Frickin’ Lasers: “Laser Advances in Nuclear Fuel Stir Terror Fear”