Sun - August 3, 2003
Why can’t education be more abstract and impersonal?
Too many teachers assume that their
students will benifit from assignments that are more personal and feeling
oriented. But young scientific types deserve consideration too.
Posted at 10:26 PM
Read More
Sun - April 20, 2003
The Trial & Tribulations of Being a Minority: Part II
There are aspects of minority status that
affect women in ways that don't generally apply to men regardless of race,
because people tend to segregate socially according to sex far more than
according to race.
Posted at 01:14 PM
Read More
Wed - April 16, 2003
The Trials & Tribulations of Being a Minority: Part I
This little tune, which I think comes
from some long-forgotten educational program, used to run through my head
frequently in lab and review sections for my physics classes. Was it that I was
the only one of twenty students wearing pink, or was it something else that made
me stand out?
Posted at 06:30 PM
Read More
The Confidence Gap: Part III
I have never understood why professors
deliberately design their tests to have such low means. While some professors
are simply clueless as to the actual difficulty of their tests, many
intentionally write exams that most students can't complete. The only
explanation I can think of it that an excessively low mean spreads the
distribution of students at the top of the class, and allows professors to pick
out the most brilliant of the students, the true "physics gods," as we called
them.
Posted at 06:25 PM
Read More
The Confidence Gap: Part II
If women are more easily discouraged from
pursuing studies in physics due to the "confidence gap," identifying and
correcting practices which tend to demoralize students of both sexes should be
of particular help to women students.
Posted at 06:20 PM
Read More
The Confidence Gap: Part I
Physics is a tough subject and the
introductory courses are often designed to weed out those unable to handle it.
It is not surprising that a good number of students end up losing faith in their
ability to do physics and switching majors. But this selection process does seem
to operate more strongly on female students, with more dropping out after each
course even when their grades are no worse that those of men who remain in the
department.
Posted at 06:09 PM
Read More
Ride, Sally Ride!
Astronaut Sally Ride is launching the
ToyChallenge a contest in which middle schoolers will design novel toys.
Posted at 01:24 PM
Read More
Perils and Pitfalls for Female Physics Majors
Women in science--why not
more?
Posted at 01:21 PM
Read More
>