June 2010

Online office hours: Real conversations in virtual spaces

June 22, 2010

Just a little promo fora recent post I wrote at The Active Class on Online Office Hours (thanks to Rhett of DotPhysics for the suggestion).  Here’s a sneak preview: I recently sat in on a series of workshops for newer faculty at the university, and was surprised by a resounding theme among those academics in [...]

Read the full article →

Being smart about studying (#ACPEEP)

June 17, 2010

Students are notoriously un-smart about their study habits.  We know that anecdotally, but we’ve also got some solid data to show how bad they are.  A lot of the problem is that we can fool ourselves into thinking we’ve learned something.  From one of the ACPEEP’s summary documents: Many experiments have shown that repeated study [...]

Read the full article →

How cognitive psychology can help us better educate our students (#ACPEEP)

June 17, 2010

I’m in a three day mini-conference right now, with a bunch of psychologists, and a ton of undergraduate education reformers like me.  The psychologists are all cognitive psychologists (i.e., they deal with how people think), and they’re part of a consortium called Applying Cognitive Psychology to Enhance Educational Practice (ACPEEP).  It’s a star-studded show, including [...]

Read the full article →

Powerpoint Meets Chalk: Ubiquitous Presenter

June 15, 2010

I blog on using technology to enhance student engagement over at The Active Class. My most recent post was about Ubiquitous Presenter — a free way to add interactive ink to your slides.  Here is an excerpt: When the screen lights up, students take it as a cue to tune out.  We’ve all had this [...]

Read the full article →

Is it close-minded to be skeptical?

June 11, 2010

Here is a nicely produced little video about how it’s not the skeptics who are close-minded, but often the people who believe pseudoscientific things who are guilty of being unable to consider new ideas.  The author of this video says he gets a lot of flak from people for not believing in, say, reincarnation, and [...]

Read the full article →

We say “pshaw” to learning styles

June 8, 2010

I’ve been meaning to write this post for a very long time, but as any faithful readers might have noted, I’ve been a bit in-absentia for the past several months. I was off busy making some money to support my blogging habit, but I’m happy to report that I’m back, and working on ramping up [...]

Read the full article →

A bunch of “best of” science sites…

June 1, 2010

get sent these “best of” lists every once in a while.  I can’t vouch for how good they are, especially since they’re created by commercial sites trying to draw traffic to their site, but they often seem like potentially useful compendiums of links.  Here’s a bunch that I’ve saved up. 40 Best Social Sites for [...]

Read the full article →