Science Education & Policy

The Pattern of Contextual Diminution This pattern is a bit more involved,as it combines a number of other patterns. It also adds to theself-referential nature of PAC, as it describes the dynamics of anepistemological system, such as PAC. MethodologicalStuff: Introduction Patterns Patterns, Objectivity and Truth Patterns and Processes Complexity and Randomness The Pattern Library: A pattern of Difference A Pattern of Feedback The Hourglass Pattern The Pattern of Contextual Diminution Remember that the sort-of natural philosophy of PAC presumes that there are no…

Complexity and Randomness This pattern is from System's thinker Gerald Weinberg, and has been extremely helpful to illustrate the difference between complexity and randomness. It is also a nice example of the self-referential methodology of PAC, as the pattern is used to discuss scientific approaches: science discovers patterns, which are then used to elucidate scientific processes! Methodological Stuff: Introduction Patterns Patterns, Objectivity and Truth Patterns and Processes Complexity and Randomness The Pattern Library: A pattern of Difference A Pattern of Feedback The…

During the ClimateGate scandal, researchers at East Anglia were not found to be manipulating data but were stonewalling Freedom of Information requests, the bedrock of a democratic science society since the work is financed by taxpayers. The reason that happens, says Nobel laureate Paul Nurse (Medicine, 2001), is because opponents of climate science are inundating climate researchers with requests in order to bog down research.   Really?  How?   Biology is culturally controversial, given efforts by young earth creationism proponents to get it into science classes, but…

I have been meaning to give a summary of my experience as a judge at The Ohio Academy of Science for the State Science Day (May 7, 2011) - for, I think, the fourth time. The best part of this event every year is the impressiveness of the students who work hard - really hard in most cases - to do something they love or at least like a lot. Good research is hard to do and, when done properly, always has some very no fun parts. These projects had all passed through other competitions to get to the State level where over 100 different scholarships and awards…

Bright people run into two curses in life that others mistake as blessings.  The first is that many tasks come easy to them.  The second is that they can do okay for a long time without experiencing failure or set-backs.  Both of these lead to a life of underachievement. In "Patterns of Underachievement in Gifted Students", Carolyn Coil ( notes 3 patterns where smart kids dive into underachieving:   1) Does well in early grades, then underachieves more as they get older  2) Sporadic up-and-down pattern  3) No effort to go beyond the minimum It's terrible to be…

In 2009, Nobel Laureate Carl Wieman published a series of articles here at Science 2.0 with ways to improve science education (see Why Not Try A Scientific Approach To Science Education?) and one of the ideas he advocated was using clickers and consensus groups along with generally remaking the traditional lecture method.  He found that when students had to reach a consensus on a group answer and when they had technology available to help improve learning, the questions he received were far better and the learning improved as well. A new project published in Science showed his…

Those who can do, those who can’t teach, and those who can’t teach use Independent Learning exercises-- University teachers occupy a privileged perch in the education world.  Unlike elementary and high school teachers they’re not expected to be experts in pedagogy.  Nor are their methods and outcomes subject to scrutiny from school boards and other government agencies the way those of K-12 teachers are.  They’re allowed to teach pretty much whatever they want in whatever way they want thanks to that cute little saying “Those who can do, those who can’t teach.”  We’ve…

Those who can do, those who can’t teach, and those who can’t teach use Independent Learning exercises. University teachers occupy a privileged perch in the education world.  Unlike elementary and high school teachers they’re not expected to be experts in pedagogy.  Nor are their methods and outcomes subject to the scrutiny of school boards and other government agencies the way those of K-12 teacher are.  They’re pretty much allowed to teach whatever they want in whatever way they want, mainly thanks to that cute little saying “Those who can do, those who can’t teach.”  We’…

LONDON, April 21, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- Proposed changes to the immigration rules will not actually target sham colleges, instead the changes will shut down legitimate private education providers. This feeling is wide spread throughout the coalition Government and the Association of UK Private Schools and Colleges (AUKPSC). The colleges have invested a lot of time and money to gain accreditation and licensing and are now left with the prospect of losing everything. Vince Cable, Business Secretary, also opposed to the rule changes, wrote to the immigration minister on behalf of one of his…

    Methodological Stuff: 1. Introduction 2: Patterns 3: Patterns, Objectivity and Truth 4: Patterns and Processes The Pattern Library: A pattern of Difference A Pattern of Feedback The Hourglass Pattern Convergence Inducing Process This pattern is another personal favourite. It is basically an abstraction of a large class of optimising processes that is studied in computational intelligence. It is also sometimes called global search. Pattern Convergence Inducing Process  aka Global Search, Problem Solver      Notes The actor typically…