Swans on Tea

Title IX Takes on Science
Men once greatly outnumbered women in collegiate athletics—Title IX brought equality. Men currently outnumber women in science—could Title IX have the same effect? Associated primarily with sports since its inception 26 years ago, Title IX actually applies to sexual discrimination throughout education. According to a recent article in the New York [...]

Students Who Use ‘Clickers’ Score Better On Physics Tests
If, like me, you don’t already know what a clicker is and how it’s used, read this (buried nine paragraphs in) first:
In clicker classes, multiple choice questions appear on a large computer screen at the front of the lecture hall. Students hold the wireless devices, which resemble [...]

A side comment by Matt about quizzes triggered a thought (so many of these interactions are induced rather than spontaneous)
I have all my old lecture notes and materials so the only real thing I have to do is make up new quizzes. Students are good at nothing if not gaming the system and they’d notice [...]

Don’t you see the joker laughs at you?
Over at Physics and Physicists, a followup to an earlier post, to which I had added my two cents.
In an earlier post, I responded to a writer who called professional scientists the “most scientifically illiterate group in the US” and pointed out several fallacies of that statement. The [...]

Awesome megapost over at Science after Sunclipse, covering many overlapping issues on the topic.
To use mathematics in the natural sciences, we first decide how we wish to represent some aspect of the world in mathematical form. We then take the diagrams and equations we’ve written and manipulate them according to logical rules, and in so [...]

Via Talk Like a Physicist, an ad campaign by Science World in Vancouver BC. (and I have a vague recollection of visiting it back when I lived slaved there as a postdoc)

I can’t find any link to this at the Science World web site but then this is apparently from a little while ago (other [...]

Science Education for Everyone: Why and What? over at physics and physicists. A commentary on an article at redOrbit.
The original article makes several good points but, unfortunately, also build a strawman or two.
A common response to the notion of teaching all of the sciences is the claim that the standard type of [...]

Dr. Pion’s blurb about exam design and grading reminded me of a few things. I taught for the Navy in the nuclear power program, long ago, when the school was in Orlando, Fl; physics, which included applications to plant operations whenever possible, and a class on principles of reactor operation. There are some [...]

Brian Greene Op-Ed in the NY Times, on science and science education. Put a Little Science in Your Life
But here’s the thing. The reason science really matters runs deeper still. Science is a way of life. Science is a perspective. Science is the process that takes us from confusion to understanding in a manner [...]

There’s the Batman problem, and “an Elephant is in the way” problem.
I have a contribution that I’ve recreated below. Back when I was teaching for the Navy, there were many opportunities to learn “new” physics and see interesting answers (one shipmate kept a list of the various spellings of “Bremsstrahlung” found on [...]

Some schools would really make Ralph Wiggum failing English unpossible.
Minimum-50 grading scheme reported at USA Today
Any grade below 50 is recorded as a 50. And this idea is not brand spankin’ new.
Their argument: Other letter grades — A, B, C and D — are broken down in increments of 10 from 60 to 100, [...]

Over at Backreaction
Current illusions such as the idea that if it’s on the internet, and especially if it’s in an oft-visited location, then it must be true (argument from popularity), if it can’t be explained in a short presentation, it must be false (argument from incredulity), if it’s not on the internet then it [...]