Science Education

Weird Experiments and Mad Science

January 2, 2012

I found out recently about a very entertaining blog (and accompanying book, see below), Weird Experiments.  He doesn’t post very often, but what he posts is fascinating and well-researched.  The book — THE MAD SCIENCE BOOK: EXPERIMENTS FROM THE WILDER SIDE OF SCIENCE — is an entertaining look at a laundry list of interesting experiments [...]

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A summary of the research on how to study

December 19, 2011

To follow up on the last post on the videos pitched to students on how to study, I want to direct your attention to a wonderful resource I just found out about: Organizing Instruction and Study to Improve Student Learning. It was published by IES, the Institute for Educational Sciences, which is the scientific arm [...]

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The Flipped Classroom: Using class time for learning, not presentation

December 5, 2011

I write a lot about teachniques (just coined that phrase, how do you like it?) to get students more interactive and engaged in your courses.  But a lot of teachers aren’t sure how to take the time to do those activities given how much content there is to cover.  As you might be aware, one [...]

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Where can I get good clicker questions?

November 7, 2011

I give a lot of workshops on the use of clickers and peer instruction to improve student engagement and deep learning.  I just found out about one more useful place to get good question items. Quick background information — I promote the use of clickers to help facilitate getting students to discuss and argue through [...]

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Learning Assistant Liveblogging: Pedagogy course

November 3, 2011

Once again, liveblogging from the national Learning Assistant Workshop in Boulder. When we started out the conference this afternoon, and participants shared their primary area of interest in learning more about effectively running an LA program, I’d say about half of the crowd Steve Iona talked to us about what that pedagogy course entails, and [...]

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Education Emergency First Responders: Learning Assistant workshop liveblog

November 2, 2011

I’m currently at the national Learning Assistant Workshop in Boulder.  Since I’m right here, I thought it would be useful for me to learn more about LA programs that are being created at various institutions.  I’ll liveblog from the conference a little bit.  One thing that I’ll say up-front though — if you’re interested in [...]

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Teaching faculty about effective use of clickers #clickers

September 13, 2011

I’ve been working for the past several years to figure out the best ways to teach faculty about how to use clickers effectively; to engage students, ask questions that get students thinking, and to use peer discussion to help students work together to learn from the questions.  It’s not always easy.  Recent research has shown [...]

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Ideas for the first week of class: Teaching the nature of science (and evolution)

August 8, 2011

At the start of the school year, a lot of science classes start by trying to answer — what is science?  What is this endeavor and what makes it special?  One way to do that is by the dull-and-deadening pedantic introduction to the scientific method, emphasizing the formation of hypotheses and testing of those hypotheses [...]

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Providing validated tests for instructors to use (#AAPTsm11)

August 4, 2011

Our plenary speaker this morning was Thomas Holme, of Iowa State University, speaking to us about the standardized assessments in chemistry.  Sounds boring, but he raised some interesting and insightful thoughts about assessment. He started out by describing the fine line he has to walk as an instructor: “Teaching is inherently personal and inescapably corporate.  [...]

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Teaching with style: Physics to stake your life on

June 29, 2011

A friend just sent me this YouTube video, and I show it here as an example of how lecture can be used to utmost effectiveness.  A bit of showmanship, a memorable experiment, and crystal clear explanations: What strikes me is that this instructor has got this class in the palm of his hand. Not just [...]

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Free online textbooks (and prisoner education)

June 27, 2011

I get a surprising number of comments and emails about my post regarding a college education for inmates.  I take this as a sad indication of just how few resources there are out there for education for incarcerated persons. I used to volunteer at the Prison University Project at San Quentin — the only program [...]

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The importance of mental models

June 13, 2011

I wrote last week about how the metaphors we use in communication have a powerful effect on how the issue is framed and how people understand and/or are convinced by what we say. Part of the thing that is so powerful about metaphors is that they prime us to think about something in a certain [...]

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News flash! Interactive engagement helps students learn

May 23, 2011

A study that I was told about last year was just released in the latest issue of Science — in A Better Way to Teach? my colleagues in the Science Education Initiative at the University of British Columbia detail their rather elegant study.  Picture this — a young upstart postdoc approaches a veteran teacher, who [...]

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Get the word out: Effective communication of physics education research

May 16, 2011

I recently gave a plenary talk at the Foundation and Frontiers of Physics Education Research – Puget Sound conference.  What an honor!  And very fun, because I got to talk about anything that I wanted to.  I’ve been wanting — for ages — to talk about the intersections that I see between science journalism and [...]

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Video Games: A New Frontier in Pedagogy

May 4, 2011

I’ve been idly curious about the latest research and thought about video games, and what we as educators can learn from them.  So when Pamelia contacted me and asked if she could write about the topic, I jumped on it.  James Gee’s stuff is very interesting to me, and I’ll be curious to hear what [...]

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Young Voices on Climate Change

April 11, 2011

Here’s a really cool project, getting young people involved in community action.  I’ve been wanting to write about this for a while.  Lynne Cherry (a well known children’s book author, has produced a series of short films about young people who are taking action about climate change.  Each story is a little different — a [...]

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Phylm – make a film about physics!

March 23, 2011

Phylm /’film/ n. [physics + film] The fourth annual Phylm Prize is now open!  Until May 13, anyone can enter a film — though students are especially encouraged — about physics.  The first year’s winners were a set of students with the Special Relativity Rap.  The second year was Science Made Fun about black holes [...]

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Free webinars on clickers — how to use them and how to teach about them

January 13, 2011

Hey, I just wanted readers to know about my two upcoming webinars on clicker use.  One is on how to teach faculty how to use clickers effectively — basically, some tips on effective professional development.  That’s coming up next Tuesday!  The second is a repeat of an earlier webinar — how to use clickers effectively.  [...]

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Webinar: Writing great (science) clicker questions

November 1, 2010

The kind folks at i>clicker have invited me back to give another webinar on effective use of personal response systems.  This one’s called Writing Great Clicker Questions and will be focused on techniques and tips in writing questions that get students discussing and debating — questions that help students learn, rather than just assessing what [...]

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Science activities for Halloween! (Repost)

October 18, 2010

This is a repost from October 2009. Enjoy! With halloween fast approaching, it’s time to take advantage of a frivolous holiday to do some fun science stuff. No post about Halloween would be complete without a reference to the Grossology site. Scroll down for “lab activities”: This gets high marks from one teacher who says, [...]

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