No, I’m not talking about students bribing faculty for good grades, but the reverse: faculty bribing students to attend events outside of class. For example, I offered the students in my class five bonus points on tomorrow’s mid-term exam if they attended last night’s Alan Lightman lecture. I’m fairly certain that 12 of the 16… Continue reading Academic Poll: Bribery
Category: Education
Strunk and White Is Not for You
I tagged Geoffrey Pullum’s rant against The Elements of Style for del.icio.us a few days back, because it struck me as interesting, but I didn’t have time to say more. In the subsequent days, I’ve seen a bunch of “Preach it, Brother Pullum!” responses, most recently from revere. I’ve also received the copyedited manuscript of… Continue reading Strunk and White Is Not for You
Matter and Interactions and Dark Matter for Kids
New ScienceBlogger and American Gladiator Ethan Siegel of Starts With a Bang has a couple of nice posts about dark matter and how we know it’s there (one, two). These posts reminded me that I never did follow up on the discussion following my post about Magic World Media, who are looking to publish kids’… Continue reading Matter and Interactions and Dark Matter for Kids
The Process Is as Important as the Answer
Over at the First Excited State, the quasi-anonymous proprietor laments the tendency of basketball replays to focus on the shot rather than the play that set up the shot, and compares this to a maddening student habit: Students in introductory physics classes inevitably place too much focus on the final numerical answer of the problem,… Continue reading The Process Is as Important as the Answer
Physics Communication Strategies
Physics World this month has a nice article by Robert Crease on the strategies used in popular physics books, drawing on a study of popular books by Elizabeth Leane (Reading Popular Physics, much of which is available via Google Books). He talks about three different strategies that she identifies, and how they’re employed in different… Continue reading Physics Communication Strategies
Up for Adoption
The spring round of the Adopt-a-Physicist outreach program will begin soon. I did this in the Fall, and it was a good experience, so I’ve registered myself again. The program pairs volunteer physicists with high school classes, and provides a web forum in which students can ask questions about physics and careers in physics. Back… Continue reading Up for Adoption
Course Report: Nuclei and Particles in 3+1 Classes
This is the final report on my modern physics class from last term, covering the last week of classes, which generally deal with nuclear and particle physics. This was actually three-and-a-bit classes, because I lost one class to a nasty cold a few weeks earlier, and used part of the lab period to make up… Continue reading Course Report: Nuclei and Particles in 3+1 Classes
Course Report: Solid State Physics in Three Classes
In the last course report post, we dispensed of atomic and molecular physics in just three classes. The next three classes do the same for solid state physics. Class 25 picks up on the idea of basic molecular potentials from the end of the previous class, and uses that to introduce energy bands in a… Continue reading Course Report: Solid State Physics in Three Classes
Course Report: Atoms and Molecules in Three Classes
I got way behind on my reports from my Modern Physics class– the last one was over month ago, and the class has since ended. There’s enough material left to be really awkward as a single post, though, so I’m going to take my cue from Brandon Sanderson and split it into three parts. The… Continue reading Course Report: Atoms and Molecules in Three Classes
Physics Video Quiz
OK, “quiz” isn’t really the right word, because I don’t know the right answer. But here’s something weird that I noticed a while ago, and since I needed an excuse to fool around with video a bit, I thought I’d shoot some pictures of it: Here’s the deal: My cell phone is gently curved on… Continue reading Physics Video Quiz