we have a summer student seminar series, in which students who are doing summer research give 15-minute talks about their research. These are generally pretty good– our students are, by and large, very good public speakers. One thing that I always find interesting about this is how many of the students end up sounding just… Continue reading Presentation Style: Indoctrination or Selection?
Category: Education
Kids These Days: Is Our Learning Measure Valid?
Kevin Drum has done a couple of education-related posts recently, first noting a story claiming that college kids study less than they used to, and following that up with an anecdotal report on kids these days, from an email correspondent who teaches physics. Kevin’s emailer writes of his recent experiences with two different groups of… Continue reading Kids These Days: Is Our Learning Measure Valid?
Bad and Good Presentation Graphs
I gave a short introduction to how to give a presentation today to the students who will be presenting their research in our twice-weekly Summer Student Seminar Series. This included examples of a data slide that is bad in the ways that students’ first attempts at data slides tend to be bad, and the same… Continue reading Bad and Good Presentation Graphs
Uncomfortable Question: Worth the Tuition?
Continuing with the uncomfortable questions, H asks a good one: Union is one of the most expensive colleges in the country. What are students getting for their money? How does Union justify the increase in price over other schools with comparable academics and facilities? See, now that’s an uncomfortable question, especially on an institutional level.… Continue reading Uncomfortable Question: Worth the Tuition?
Relatively Comfortable Question: Physics First?
Starting at the beginning of the uncomfortable questions left by readers, we have Tex asking: If physics is the basic science that underlies almost every other science, why do American high schools usually teach it in the 3rd or 4th year, after biology and chemistry? Shouldn’t it be the other way around? Physics first, then… Continue reading Relatively Comfortable Question: Physics First?
The Problem of Broader Impacts
Over at the Cocktail Party, Diandra Leslie-Pelecky has a post about the image of scientists that spins off this Nature article on the NSF’s “broader impact” requirement (which I think is freely readable, but it’s hard to tell with Nature). Leslie-Pelecky’s post is well worth reading, and provides a good deal more detail on the… Continue reading The Problem of Broader Impacts
Faculty Evaluation Is Really Complicated
There’s a paper in the Journal of Political Economy that has sparked a bunch of discussion. The article, bearing the snappy title “Does Professor Quality Matter? Evidence from Random Assignment of Students to Professors,” looks at the scores of over 10,000 students at the US Air Force Academy over a period of several years, and… Continue reading Faculty Evaluation Is Really Complicated
The Elusive Digital Native
Inside Higher Ed featured one of those every-so-often articles about the awesomeness of the demographic subgroup of the moment, this time Athur Levine’s panegyric about “digital natives”, who “grew up in a world of computers, Internet, cell phones, MP3 players, and social networking,” and how they’re too cool and tech-savvy for current universities: They differ… Continue reading The Elusive Digital Native
Academic Poll: Methods of Evaulation
I’m back in Niskayuna, dealing with mountains of end-of-term paperwork. Which means you get a poll to pass the time: The best end-of-term evaluation method is:survey software This poll is brought to you by the number π, the letter q, and the two take-home exams I’m waiting for before I can finish my grading.
Neil deGrasse Tyson Agrees With Me About The Innumeracy of Intellectuals
A great clip from his World Science Festival appearance the other night, especially the bit toward the end: “One thing I think that as a nation we should be embarrassed by is that the scientists– you can do this experiment yourself, I’ve done the experiment– the scientists, by and large, know more liberal arts than… Continue reading Neil deGrasse Tyson Agrees With Me About The Innumeracy of Intellectuals