November 2008

Thanksgiving resources for teaching…

November 26, 2008

Me, I’m madly packing to go canyoneering in Utah for Thanksgiving.  But I wanted to leave any erstwhile educators still trying to keep their kids’ attention over the holidays with this link to Thanksgiving science resources from the NSDL. Happy turkey day!

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Myth: Dang. Looks like Gingko doesn’t work.

November 25, 2008

Just got this from Bob Park’s What’s New column. Looks like Gingko has failed a double-blind study to see if it really improves memory. I’ve been taking it for a while, in hopes that it would defuzz my neuronal connections (I’m not that old, but my memory took a real hit ever since I was [...]

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Classrooms can connect with polar scientists

November 24, 2008

This is from the Exploratorium — several opportunities to connect your classrooms with polar science, including via live webcast three times a week! Ice Stories: Dispatches from Polar Scientists Webcasts at 1:00 p.m. PST December 7, 2008–January 4, 2009 Tuesdays, Thursdays, Fridays, and Sundays Connect Live with Antarctica! E-mail polar@exploratorium.edu or call (415) 561-0359 You’re [...]

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Mini Labs OR How to teach scientific reasoning without using a lot of class time

November 24, 2008

I just posted a new episode of my Science Teaching Tips podcast on Mini Labs. Give it a listen!  “Zeke” Kossover is a teacher in the bay area, and he’s always posting wonderful tips about teaching — from great organizational tips to the best places to find cheap electronic components to astute tips for teaching [...]

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Workshop: Chemistry of Water

November 24, 2008

A free workshop for educators on December 9th from the National Science Digital Library: This Web Seminar will focus on dynamic online resources you can use to teach your students about the chemistry of water through the NSDL Chemical Education Digital Library. Join presenters Dr. John Moore, W. T. Lippincott Professor and director of the [...]

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Why physics teachers should read blogs

November 21, 2008

I just had a short article published in The Physics Teacher (in Websights) on useful blogs for physics teachers.  (Woo hoo!)  That article was somewhat truncated from the original, so for any of you who have found my blog through that article, here is the full article as I wrote it. PDF-of-physics-blogs (with lots of [...]

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The Salty Science of the Saltwater Battery (published in The Physics Teacher)

November 20, 2008

Hey hey, I’ve got a twofer in the current issue of the Physics Teacher!  One is my article on the chemistry behind the saltwater battery. The other is an article on blogs that physics teachers can use.  I’ll post the full blog article (the published one was cut quite heavily) a little later! Here’s the [...]

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How to write assessments for students to learn how to learn

November 20, 2008

This is the last in a series of three posts on Dan Schwartz’s work on preparation for future learning, or helping students learn skills instead of rote facts so that they can apply their knowledge to new situations. All pictures in this post are courtesy of Dan Schwartz. Contrasting cases In the previous post, I [...]

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Surface tension wins – Water balloons in space

November 20, 2008

Here’s a great video of what happens when you pop a water balloon in space. This is a nice clear lesson about surface tension and the war between different forces. When you take away gravity, then surface tension is able to hold together a much larger blob of water. It no longer has gravity trying [...]

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Another example of a Preparation for Future Learning activity (density)

November 17, 2008

In my last post, I wrote at length about Dan Schwartz’s work about teaching students how to learn by having them create a solution to a problem before you give them the standard lecture about how to solve that kind of problem. I wanted to give you an example of this kind of “Preparation for [...]

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Why students fail to transfer what they learn

November 17, 2008

We had a visit from Stanford education researcher Dan Schwartz last week, and what he told us about how people learn just rocked my world. I always enjoyed his work (and it was a real pleasure to tell him how much he’s influenced my thinking about education), and have blogged before about his A Time [...]

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A college education for inmates?

November 16, 2008

One of the great travesties of this nation, I think, is the complete lack of logic in how we treat criminals. Our criminal justice system sucks people in and makes it very hard for them to reintegrate back into society. We stick them in jail, where they lose their connections to community and become enmeshed [...]

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A true pie chart

November 14, 2008

I love this… from GraphJam.

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Why Monet and Degas couldn’t see (updated post)

November 12, 2008

I wrote a post a week or so ago about a study that showed what Monet’s and Degas’ artwork would have looked like through their respectively failing eyesights, which may account for particular deteriorations of their art in later years. I just managed to get a copy of the original paper, and have just updated [...]

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Please please please please please click here!

November 10, 2008

If you’re reading this post, please click here. I’m trying to get a sense of my readership on this site. Please help me out with a quick click! Since I am deeply opposed to limiting my RSS feed to the first few lines of each post (which is what people do to force click-throughs to [...]

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32 education blogs

November 9, 2008

Richard Hake (of Physics Education Research fame) has just posted a very nice list of 32 education blogs, fully annotated with useful descriptions of the content and author of each blogs. Includes blogs on eLearning, how people learn, mathematics education research, and more. UPDATE 12.1.08  Hake has now posted an updated list of 60 education [...]

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Hey neat! (OR The importance of hooking your students’ interest)

November 7, 2008

I had the great pleasure to work at the Exploratorium with a wide variety of master teachers, each with their own unique style.  I learned something new from each one of them.  What I learned most from Modesto Tamez –  who taught K-12 science with aplomb for 18 years — was about how to work [...]

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Resources for teaching about voting and mathematics

November 6, 2008

The NSDL has pulled together some classroom resources for teaching about voting and polls, voting technology, and the history of voting.  These are taken from the NSDL Expert Voices blog. Annenberg/CPB: Cast Your Vote From the NSDL Middle School Portal: Math and Science Pathways Multiple polls claim to know how public opinion shifts day-to-day during [...]

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Water droplets in space

November 6, 2008

Have you seen the videos from the International Space Station on suspended water droplets? NASA Astronaut Don Pettit is the science officer for the mission, and did some fabulous videos on how water (and other liquids) behave in space. They’ve long known about the ability of water to form suspended droplets in space, but he [...]

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Muscle trick: Why do your arms feel stuck together?

November 5, 2008

A reader to this blog posted this excellent question: Hi. My kids heard about this “trick,” one which I assume has to do with muscles or musculo-skeletal mechanics (or crampinG) but for which I don’t really have a definite, or detailed explanation. If you extends your arms out, holding your fists side by side together [...]

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