The complicated business of reading signs
Even simple daily tasks can involve very sophisticated thinking.
Interpreting French Oast
Articles Tagged with science teaching
On textbooks
Learning and re-learning
Textbooks are to learn from, of course. But who is doing the learning, and when?
What are tests for?
Several possible answers (and an essay)
One of our consultants has begun tutoring, which has brought him into contact with the world of standardized tests after many years away.
Applied numerology
Why astronomers are natural translators
Our astronomer offers an apology and an explanation.
Learning from a master
The expert may not be the best teacher
As we mentioned last week, our navigator was out of the office teaching a professor how to use his sextant. Having decades of experience in both the observations and the calculations involved, he certainly has a firm grasp of the subject. But that’s not always the quality you need in a teacher.
No more libraries?
Electronics replaces paper
For many purposes, books are no longer necessary. That is, for entertainment or learning one need not find or carry around a pile of bound paper. The internet contains a vast landscape of information and e-books are ubiquitous. So do will still need places to borrow paper books from—libraries? Or librarians?
No more trade-offs
It’s easier when you can have it all
Life was more complicated in the old days. Not only were many things more difficult and tedious to accomplish, often you had to work out which of several methods you should use depending on what you really needed done. It’s much easier now. Really.
Learning the stories
Using words instead of math
Here on the 100th birthday of General Relativity our science consultants were pondering why Relativity and Quantum Mechanics were so easy for them to accept but so hard for people a century ago. Certainly it’s not because we’re more insightful or brighter scientists–quite the opposite. Nor is it that we’re better at math; again the opposite is true, and these are highly mathematical subjects. We finally concluded that we’re comfortable with the theories because we were told the stories, word-descriptions of what the math means, from an early stage and so the theories never seemed impossibly strange. The stories are important. But it’s also important for both scientists and laymen to understand their limitations.
Don’t know much geometry
Why are we forced to learn what we’ll only forget?
While attending to his regular workout in the Five Colors S&T exercise room, our astronomer was reminded of his High School geometry class. (We’ll explain the connection later; it has nothing to do with the angles at which his various muscles were applying force.) Everyone was required to take geometry (and pass it), and most were required to do the same with algebra. Yet it’s a truism that very few people actually use those subjects later on, and most forget them immediately. Why, then, do we bother with teaching and learning them? There are several possible answers, to which we’ll add one of our own.
“I was, like, you know. . .”
A different kind of communication
Our astronomer has often found himself traveling on public transport and occasionally eating alone at crowded restaurants. This means he has overheard many a conversation, unintentionally to be sure (he lacks the gossip gene, or alternatively the instincts of the spy). Many of them have been very irritating to him, and at least he sat down to work out why.