teaching
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Zinemin has a great post on understanding physics (and math) in high school. I started writing a comment, then it got so long-winded that I decided (for once) to not hog other people’s comment threads with my verbosity, but to put it all in a post. Here’s what the comment would have been (Zinemin is a physicist,
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What makes a good teacher? I am sure that people who work in education have precise metrics for what effective teaching means. I am not an education scholar, but I do teach, so doing it well is important to me (and to most of the readership, I am sure). I am at a research university, which
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I am at a major public research university. Sure, this is a university and teaching is important, for some definitions of important; anyone who says that research does not beat teaching to a pulp is a liar. Bringing in extramural funding is the most important metric in most STEM fields. It translates into overhead dollars for the university. It also
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In science, a potential answer to a problem is either right or wrong. But when it comes to teaching and learning, and especially grading student exams, there is wrong and then there is WROOONG. Here’s an example. Let’s say you need to compute a certain distance that has to do with the behavior of electrons in a nanostructure. Correct answer:
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Reader Sameir had a question: “… I just found out that a student has copied my NSF proposal for his GRFP * and got awarded the fellowship. What should I do? On one side I think it is only a student and I should let it go, on the other hand this level of dishonesty is unacceptable.”
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— I am an associate editor of a specialized disciplinary journal. I try my best to include junior researchers (postdocs, young profs or nonacademic scientists, even some senior graduate students) as reviewers when I know they do good work based on what I have heard or seen them present at conferences. It turns out, a surprisingly high number of people
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A colleague once told me this great Chinese proverb: “Time is like water in a sponge; if you try really hard, you can always squeeze out some more.” So very true. People will always find the time for the things they want to do, end of story. If you can’t find the time for something,
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