April 2010

Ideas for teaching the phases of the moon

April 27, 2010

A while back, a teacher on a listserv asked for some ideas and resources for teaching the science of the phases of the moon.  Veteran teacher Eric Plett shared this great hands-on activity that I thought merited a blog post of its own. 1.  Darken your room and get a bright light source like an [...]

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Evidence-based undergraduate science education: About the Science Education Initiative.

April 20, 2010

How do we transform undergraduate education?  That, of course, is the question of the century. We know there are problems with how undergraduate institutions are churning out students (and not cheaply, I might add) who can’t explain why we have seasons, or how to light a lightbulb. Or, perhaps worse, think that science is a [...]

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Spook: Science Tackles the Afterlife

April 11, 2010

“Spook” is another one of science writer Mary Roach’s forays into the science of some weird topic (and not even her most recent, I’m just behind in my reading). Wonderfully researched, and with Ms. Roach’s typical biting humor and marvelous turns of phrase, it’s such a joy to read.  I still liked Stiff better (where [...]

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Taking tests helps you learn (maybe)

April 9, 2010

photo by Patrick Hannigan (click for Wikimedia link) I’ve written before on some interesting psychology studies on the benefits of retrieval for learning and memory.  I recently heard a talk on the subject (by Sean Kang of UCSD) that spurred me to think about it again, and also generated some interesting discussion with a thoughtful [...]

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Clickers — Another trendy technical gadget!?

April 4, 2010

I recently started blogging for The Active Class – a blog run by i>clicker, our local favorite brand of “clicker” or classroom response system. (Why do we like it?  It’s simpler and easier to use than most systems, so easy to get a bunch of different faculty on board with it.  And it has a [...]

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Remote sensing…. it’s just like being there

April 2, 2010

For those who don’t know what “remote sensing” means, that probably sounds like a much sexier title than it really is. “Remote sensing” refers to getting data from instruments from afar, or remotely. The ability to collect data via satellite or cellular connection was an important step in being able to gather information from remote [...]

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