education

A couple of 8th graders I tutor showed me a quiz they had done poorly on. I ran into a problem that bothered me. There wasn't technically anything wrong with it, I think. But I could see why it would trip up students. Instructions were to solve for x. It was, roughly, 5x + 2 = 5x + 2. Use...

https://skepticsalamanderblog.blogspot.com/2022/08/the-best-method-to-use-in-quest-for.html Article discusses peoples false sense of truth, the problems with opinion media, and the best method to find truth.

I suppose this is the latest front for the anti-racists (as compared to the not-racists): Now, misbehavior (within some reasonable limits) should not result in a lowered grade; there are other places on the report card for identifying social adjustment issues. But no penalties for missing...

I know a lot of people have a passing interest in crypto these days. As skeptics it's completely normal to be wary and ask questions. I've noticed that some people are also a bit uneducated about cryptocurrency because of this though. They tend to not dive into something they don't understand...

Anyone, in this here Forum, got any recommendations for books describing, in some scientifically studied detail, HOW the average, general human being learns things, while debunking some bad assumptions about education techniques that have failed over the years? I saw once, a long time ago, a...

As a side job, I am a professional tutor. I have a student that struggled through his last year in Pre-Algebra, and ultimately failed the final, despite all the work I did to prepare him. So, next year, they are going to put him in Pre-Algebra again. His mother and I have agreed to spend this...

I know it's bad form to complain to much about punctuation, spelling etc. on an Internet message board, but it seems to me there has been a drop-off lately on some pretty basic conventions on ISF. There are some comments I have to read twice to figure out what they are saying. Some of it is...

This is what a guy called Colin Hannaford is claiming. He has a website, but frankly, the text is too small and densely-packed for me to read comfortably. (Also, TL:DR) His qualifications are impressive, but he's been putting a series of ads in Private Eye, the latest of which states: "I am a...

Link Los Angeles has embraced the charter school movement, which has resulted in a rapid increase in the amount of charter schools. According to the study, charter schools as a whole in LA experience a higher rate of teacher churn, but the problem is especially pronounced at the high school...

http://news.yahoo.com/americas-biggest-teacher-principal-cheating-scandal-unfolds-atlanta-213734183.html So, anyone with an ounce of sense could see this sort of thing coming when standardized tests became the end-all-be-all in education. My issues with testing are myriad but I think it boils...

http://redd.it/hed7y PZ's take on this: http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2011/05/standard_small_town_saga.php The graduation is tonight. Here's an update from the student's brother: http://www.reddit.com/r/atheism/comments/hed7y/threatened_to_contact_aclu_for_prayer_at/c1uut0n

High School Atheists Are Organizing -- Why Are Schools Pushing Back? Source. :mad: We need to support these kids. http://www.secularstudents.org/

This ought to ruffle some feathers around here: http://slatest.slate.com/id/2284422/entry/6/#add-comment What sort of biology teacher rejects evolution? Can they even be good at their job? That's sort of the equivalent of me rejecting the foundations of tonal harmony. What about the 60% that...

I have recently changed jobs and in my new post as a Community Learning & Development Guidance Worker, I have the opportunity to develop and deliver free workshops to people that live in the local communities. I'd like to develop a 6 week workshop on critical thinking. I will have to submit...

I teach high school & college science in Illinois, and I'm also a member of both teaching unions here - the Illinois Federation of Teachers and the Illinois Education Association. I'm often proud to be a member of these organizations, though at times my patience is worn rather thin with them...

In reply to this thread, which lists the stupid things that teachers have said over the years, I thought I'd start one where people could share the smart and/or useful things teachers have said. When my brother was in high school, he flunked a semester of 10th grade English. My mother, ever...

http://www.examiner.com/examiner/x-57388-Birmingham-Atheism-Examiner~y2010m7d7-Politics-Education--Evolution-in-Alabama "The Alabama gubernatorial campaign continues to heat up, and between the three candidates vying for office, the race between the two GOP candidates appears more like a...

Check it out from the latest issue of JREF Swift... http://www.randi.org/site/index.php/swift-blog/1006-fine-tune-your-skeptical-education-skills-at-the-tam8-teachers-workshop.html

CNN recently conducted a pilot study on how kids see race: http://www.cnn.com/2010/US/05/13/doll.study/index.html Generally, the results show that dark skin is more often than not associated with negative judgments, such as "bad" or "dumb." Shocking. Also implied is that these are but...

A little shameless plug :) Teaching Freethought: How to Create a Skeptical Kid! with Matt Lowry, high school teacher and skeptic at large Sunday, May 16th 2010 at 1:00 pm Location (Our usual place): Room 613 (behind elevators), University Center East building, 750 S. Halsted (UIC campus)...

Prodigy, 13, claims age discrimination by UConn http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100325/ap_on_re_us/us_prodigy_study_abroad The short: he is in College and wants to go to S.Africa in the summer as part of school field program. College said: "nah, you're too young." Mayhem ensues.. I'm really less...

I have a somewhat strange request. Bear with me along the long intro. In my travels, and choices of work, I ended up in West-Bengal India somewhere end of 2008. Being a gung-ho kind of person I have lived in slums, mountain huts, rural villages etc. I could not resist playing McGyver at each...

Although I was mildly interested in evolution before, I never really had the motivation to read about it in any depth at all. But thanks to the loudness and high media profile of ID proponents, with their smug little crowing faces and puffed up chests harping on about the need for more...

Right. In my history course, we are discussing the Making of the Contemporary World, and more specifically at the moment, the current financial crisis and why it occurred. We have to gather together some views on why it happened, looking at various news and newspapers to discover these. Now...

Being an ex-teacher, in the Bible belt, I had my fair share of hearing, "Well, you should teach both sides." This is the way the conversation usually goes... "Okay...Both sides," I begin. "There is a belief, some people have looked at a few different animals and connected the dots. Some...

I found this site recently and a quick search did not turn up thread on it: http://academicearth.org/

Thinkorswim/Investools is an online brokerage/investor education company. Superficially they seem okay, their product seems useful, and I haven't seen any major complaints on the intertubes, but they're a little aggressive in trying to get me to sign-up for their services. For $99.00 I attended...

Title: Fifty years on, CP Snow's 'Two Cultures' are united in desperation Subtitle: In a famous lecture 50 years ago, CP Snow warned that science and arts were becoming 'two cultures' - but the problem now is far, far worse URL...

Hey All! My sister brought this to my attention: http://www.yourbabycanread.com/ I guess they have been pumping out infomercials pretty often as well. It had my skeptic sensors tingling just a bit. I think the system is extremely plausible, but something about this just doesn't sit well with...

I moved a bit away from my planned lectures on environmental science for my two freshmen biology sections to focus on this current and very teachable event, and thought that other educators may find these lecture notes and resources useful. First off, the google swine flu map provides an...