Category Archives: Uncategorized

Critical thinking is thinking that questions, if you believe wikipedia.  This sounds like questioning assumptions, which seems like part of critical thinking.  Not what did someone just say, but more why did they say it and why do I believe … Continue reading →

In “Deep in the Heart of Texas“, Stanley Fish notes that we aren’t always in the best position to judge the quality of something.  We don’t always know immediately after we obtain something what its actual worth is.  This is … Continue reading →

I’m not sure how it happened, but I ended up having two Washington Post articles up on my screen at the same time: “Is college too easy? As study time falls, debate rises.” and “I went to some of D.C.’s … Continue reading →

“The path to smart goes through dumb.”  A colleague of mine, Dr. Dan Dill, says this.  I really like the sentiment.  Students don’t realize that most of what they will learn in college won’t come easy and it will take … Continue reading →

The New York times always has some interesting comments on education.  “Vocation or Exploration? Pondering the Purpose of College” discusses what is the point of college.  Students come to college for all kinds of reasons (or maybe hardly an reason … Continue reading →

Online education isn’t new, but recently its gotten a bit bigger.  Stanford taught 160,000 students CS221: Introduction to Artificial Intelligence.  MIT was already in the mix with MITx.  Now Harvard and MIT just put together 60-million dollars to work on … Continue reading →

Jon Chui is probably not the first, but has a very beautiful way to show off science.  He creates pictorial guides to science topics.  Below is my favorite one about the confusion with intermolecular forces.  Just click on the picture … Continue reading →

I have students all the time telling me how much they are studying.  Sometimes it pays off and sometimes it doesn’t.  I think a lot of this has to do with how people study.  Most students have never been taught … Continue reading →

Let me start by saying this post is my attempt at bringing together a handful of ideas and information I’ve heard recently all having to do with technology changing the classroom. First lets start with the qualitative plot to the … Continue reading →

NPR had a great summary of how physicists have been gathering data on how ineffective lecturing can be and how that time can be used more effectively:  Physicists Seek To Lose The Lecture As Teaching Tool.  The link has a … Continue reading →