Free In-Class Resource For Science Teachers

modernphysics writes "Canada's non-profit and independent Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics is now providing a free in-class, educational resource for high-school science teachers to help guide students through interesting topics in modern physics. The first module on 'The Mystery of Dark Matter' can be viewed online and features a 25-minute video, teacher's guide with hands-on demonstrations, and student activity sheets in Word format that can be edited to suit individual classes. This resource helps fulfill the number one request from the hundreds of high-school teachers who attend the popular EinsteinPlus Workshops on Modern Physics at PI each summer — to have access to enrichment materials for students in grades 11 and 12 in a flexible, comprehensive, and easy-to-use format that makes abstract ideas visual and shares the joys of research and discovery."

Comments

Re:Go, open standards.

[zappepcs]

Well, on the one hand, it's free so you can't complain too much and on the other hand is a glove... er, well, perhaps these very nice folks that donated their time and resources for this project might also come out with version 2 in ODF formats.

Can we get some volunteers to send them OpenOffice? and some training materials? Perhaps some of those that would just complain might put together a nice email with links or send them some CDs?

Tufts Uni offers training fellowships for teachers

[SpaceWanderer]

The Wright Center for Innovative Science Education at Tufts University offers fellowship opportunities for teachers of elementary and high school science, workshops for teachers and free posters and curriculum materials on request by teachers. Some materials are available on-line for free download. Materials range from Space Science and Cosmic Evolution to the Physics of Music and Ben Franklin and Electrostatics. Visit http://www.tufts.edu/as/wright_center to learn more.

they try so hard

[oceaniv]

free? education? communists!!!

Re:they try so hard

[QuantumG]

Pretty-much everywhere in the world has recognized the importance of a free education, except the US.

Re:they try so hard

[Anonymous Coward]

So I guess all those taxes I pay for education just get flushed down the toilet, and everyone who works in education and constructing the infrastructure to support those educators works out of the goodness of their heart?

Re:they try so hard

[QuantumG]

I can't say I've ever heard an American say anything good about public education. You get the feeling that they would rather it was abolished.

Re:they try so hard

[FooAtWFU]

America does a poor job of coupling teacher pay to teacher performance (they attach it instead almost exclusively to Seniority). This is not conducive to getting good teaching at schools. As government-related entities, moreover, there are (in various jurisdictions) a lot of regulations which (whatever else good they do or don't do) make it very difficult to get rid of bad teachers. My understanding is that New York City public schools are a particularly egregious example of this, and totally incompetent teachers can stick around for years and years.

Every now and again people attempt to throw money at the problem without actually fixing the problem. This is wasteful and stupid, and leads to some justified complaints. Then there are occasional budgetary cuts. These seldom correlate very well with the merits of the programs or teachers being funded. On a related note, exceptional students can find it difficult to thrive in the rather homogeneous academic environments you can find at many schools, particularly in smaller systems with fewer resources overall.

Many reasonable-sounding way to encourage better education have involved attempts to measure the education. This, however, tends to lead to more "test prep" learning and less learning learning.

I don't think anyone seriously advocates "no public education" per se. Much of it is just undirected complaint. However, advocating massive restructuring involving a system of school vouchers (or even minor restructuring and the introduction of similar vouchers) such that private educational institutions can receive some portion of public funds (since they're no longer attending public schools) is not uncommon, particularly by those with Libertarian sympathies.

Re:they try so hard

[Anonymous Coward]

I can tell you're joking, but whenever I hear people whine about our communist (or socialist, or whatever loaded term they choose) education system, I tell them its either that or a monarchical system.

If education weren't socialized, do you think all schools would be even moderately equal? Not a fucking chance. Even now, we have expensive feeder schools that consistently send graduates off to the best collages while inner city schools are struggling to get science textbooks that aren't outdated. Somehow this blatant class discrimination is legal. Cut funding and watch that inequality grow by magnitudes.

When the government (or a private institution, in this case) get involved and helps, it is generally a good thing.

Re:they try so hard

[Profane MuthaFucka]

I'm an American and I'm a firm believer in public education. I believe that it's a moral value which all Americans share. Our fault is that we respond too quickly to the emotion of fear, thus we spend our treasure on the military. It's an inversion of our moral priorities, and it's gotten so bad that it threatens the future of our country.

Yes, I believe that education should be a higher priority than war? Isn't it ironic that on Slashdot I play a depraved sexual deviant, yet my sense of morality is superior to most Americans? As proof, this posting will be moderated down, no doubt.

Re:they try so hard

[beaverbrother]

The teachers' union imposes many of those rules. Ironically, while many teachers care much about their students and want them to learn better, their own union is causing many of the problems. Abolishing the unions and changing the rules to allow the dismissal of teachers without severe legal penalties, will change the outcome of their students greatly. It is absolutely ridiculous to be forced to offer the same salary to everyone and not be able to get rid of employees. No company would function well like this, and the schools can't either.

Re:they try so hard

[maxume]

You don't even need to abolish the unions. All you need to do is to allow hiring outside the union contract, or at least under terms equal to or better than the union contract.

I wonder how seriously a judge would take the argument that union contracts represent a misappropriation of public funds by school boards.

Re:they try so hard

[sumdumass]

Maybe that is because people in the US are smart enough to know that it isn't free. Someone has to pay for it. It either be you when going or you when paying taxes over your lifetime. The big differences is that when you pay when you are going, you are only paying for yourself. When you pay as part of your taxes, you end up paying your tuition many times over in an effort to educate people not even related to you.

So the question is, do you save money or spend your money on other people? In America, we have typically worked hard for our money and decided to keep it. In other countries, it seems to be more of a how much money the government lets you keep instead of a how much will they take. And in case you don't see the fundemental difference there, it is in who owns the money. In America, the thought process is that you the citizen owns it. In other countries, even though you possess it, the thought process seems to be the community or government has ownership. And that entire though process is key to knowing what is free and what is not.

Re:they try so hard

[sumdumass]

Unions tend to take non union compensation as a base for their own and ask for more. If you allow nonunion employment and paid them more based on their abilities, it would more or less turn into a bargaining chip for the next contract talks in which they will hold out for more pay then non union employees and effectively enticing them to join the union defeating the purpose of non union employees.

In the end it would wash and probably just cause more funds to be going to payroll. It is a difficult job to evaluate the performance of a teacher too. The most effective way to deal with it might be to limit the power of the union and place part of the evaluation on them. I think a bonus pay system might be beneficial too. Maybe something like a set rate and then performance bonuses for improvements and measuring up to state standards. This could probably be setup for individual class performance, subject matters and overall school performance. It could be graded on categories as such to where a teacher could get upto 25% of the bonus in each group which could add up to 100% or more of the bonus. Then maybe take the unspent bonus and applying it to supplies and fees that students need to come up with because of cuts in other budget processes.

I don't know, that just popped into my head when I was thinking about who unions operate. They do that with minimum wage too, the higher it is, the higher their "skilled members" can ask for above the regular non-skilled labor pools. The bonus Idea might be just as whacked though, I just though I would throw it out while I could remember it.

Re:Go, open standards.

[Lewrker]

So if someone gives you a free beer, except in a special proprietary container that can only be opened by a $300 opener it's okay, because everybody already has it anyway or has a free version of it that spills just a little bit on your pants and makes it smell funny.
Oh, and the next version might actually come in a regular bottle, stay tuned.

Fun in a box

[Anonymous Coward]

The first module on 'The Mystery of Dark Matter' can be viewed online and features a 25-minute video, teacher's guide with hands-on demonstrations So, just how do they plan on having hands on demonstrations with dark matter?

I'd like to see how they do the chapter on anti-matter. 'Now John, don't drop that containment unit of' BOOM! There goes Toronto.

Re:Fun in a box

[coppro]

I'd like to see how they do the chapter on anti-matter. 'Now John, don't drop that containment unit of' BOOM! There goes Toronto. Diagnosis: too much Dan Brown.

Remedy: See 'Free In-Class Resource for Science Teachers

Re:Fun in a box

[Anonymous Coward]

Diagnosis: Missed the intended humor and the fact that scientific knowledge can and will be suspended to make a joke.

Remedy: Flog yourself like that albino.

btw, I've never read Dan Brown.

Re:Fun in a box

[ildon]

Isn't he the guy with the cooking show?

Re:Fun in a box

[Anonymous Coward]

That's Alton Brown. He's The Man.

Re:Go, open standards.

[tubapro12]

Last time I checked, Microsoft opened up many of their Office formats to be implemented by third parties free of charge, including Word 97-2007. What's the issue?

Re:Go, open standards.

[zappepcs]

Nice way to keep the mean spirited issue at hand. You piss me off. I'm thinking that anyone whose web site is powered by Joomla http://www.perimeterinstitute.ca/en/Joomla!_License_Guidelines/ might actually take the hint if you kindly... KINDLY... ask them to produce the data in ODF formats.

Some of the people involved with this institution are well read and intelligent individuals. Talking like an asshat about them is not exactly an encouragement after all.

The content was put in a modifiable format, that's half the way there.

In case "Canada's non-profit and independent Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics" is reading their press, here are some suggestions:

Start here http://www.openoffice.org/

ARSTechnica http://arstechnica.com/journals/microsoft.ars/2006/3/21/3278
http://www.osrc.org.pk/content/view/248/96/
http://www.fsfeurope.org/
http://openoffice.blogs.com/openoffice/2007/10/apple-adds-supp.html
http://www.e-cology.ca/canfloss/report/CANfloss_Report.pdf
http://wiki.services.openoffice.org/wiki/Major_OpenOffice.org_Deployments

And this search is interesting reading http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=%2Bodf+software+training+canada+education&btnG=Search

Re:Go, open standards.

[hedwards]

That's true, my understanding though is that the word specification is quite complicated and rather time consuming to replicate even with the format information.

That being said, .doc should never be used in a situation where interoperability or even different computers are needing to open up the documents. Docs just weren't meant for that, we've had rtf for quite a while, and between the size and the lack of macros they are far better.

That being said, it would be nice if the people providing these resources could use either ODF or RTF, but it really is ungrateful for people to whine about this.

Re:Go, open standards.

[piojo]

That being said, .doc should never be used in a situation where interoperability or even different computers are needing to open up the documents. Docs just weren't meant for that, we've had rtf for quite a while, and between the size and the lack of macros they are far better. Agreed--I can't even transfer certain types of documents between two versions of Microsoft Word, if they are saved as .doc ("a table in this document has become corrupted"). On the other hand, my resume, created in OpenOffice and saved as a .rtf, appears horribly messed up when opened in Word. I'm not convinced there is a current interoperable solution.

my contribution

[ILuvRamen]

This has been around for longer than you might think. See I learned how to do this in chemistry class and made an educational video and ummmm...well the grass never grew back :-P That's an added lesson. I say put this baby on during science class.
Oh and on a more serious note, this rocks cuz I was in high school just 3 year ago and most of the vids we watched were seriously still VHS. The teacher would often update us on corrections due to recent breakthroughs after some videos were done. And we were a pretty rich school! But have you ever seen the pricing on educations vids? They have horrible production values cuz of restricted budgets and since their customer is only non-profit and educational, they charge around $180 per copy for most of them. We even just watched episodes of 20/20 in some classes cuz that was cheaper and had WAY better production. So anything to get us away from that would be fantastic.

Re:my contribution

[gardyloo]

Oh and on a more serious note, this rocks cuz I was in high school just 3 year ago and most of the vids we watched were seriously still VHS. Gosh, I'd never have guessed.

      I keed, I keed.

Re:Go, open standards.

[Shawn is an Asshole]

Agreed--I can't even transfer certain types of documents between two versions of Microsoft Word, if they are saved as .doc ("a table in this document has become corrupted"). On the other hand, my resume, created in OpenOffice and saved as a .rtf, appears horribly messed up when opened in Word. I'm not convinced there is a current interoperable solution. You could install Sun's ODF Plugin for MS Word.

Re:Go, open standards.

[piojo]

Thanks for the link. I'll give it a try next time I need to get a document into Word format.

coupling teacher pay to a test is just as bad

[Joe The Dragon]

coupling teacher pay to a test is just as bad as they will just teach the test like how it is with No Child Left Behind.

Re:coupling teacher pay to a test is just as bad

[The Mighty Buzzard]

Could be but seniority as a metric for pay is meaningless if you're unable to fire a teacher who's complete shit. The solution isn't to keep the worthless teachers along with the good, it's to make the tests broad enough in scope that "teaching the test" at least means the students have a baseline understanding of the material in question.

The better solution would be to go with my grandparent poster's idea and abolish teachers unions. With that, the teachers can teach however they desire and be shitcaned if they suck at teaching. My junior high English teacher for example honestly believed that bilingual meant you couldn't speak English. He continued teaching, terribly, right up until he retired because they couldn't fire him for being as dumb as a rock. How's that for fucked up?

Re:coupling teacher pay to a test is just as bad

[sumdumass]

Please explain this to me a little more. If the teachers don't know the questions and answers on the test, and the tests are supposed to measure grade level performance in subjects the state claims the student's need to learn, then how is teaching to the test not the same as teaching the subject to the levels the state says the students should be at?

And if the state says we need students to be at this level in these subjects by this grade, and the students aren't there because the teachers are teaching something else, then wouldn't it appear that the teacher isn't doing the job they were hired for?I mean seriously, who cares if the kid can cut construction paper in art class if he isn't learning 2+2 =4 in math. How is teaching what the state requires a bad thing?

It's so easy.

[shawn(at)fsu]

The bible.

Thanks I'll be here all night,

Re:Go, open standards.

[Anonymous Coward]

Thanks for the linky, for an asshole, you sure are helpful. ;)

"teach the test" and No Child Left Behind are good

[r00t]

Why would you want teachers to waste time (their time, student's time, money, etc.) on stuff that is not of use?

Perhaps you believe that the test doesn't cover things? If so, then place your blame on the test **content** rather than on the **usage** of tests. The tests **must** cover all the stuff we expect students to learn, no more and no less. (of course, on test day one may get some random sample of the total test questions, such as 200 out of a million possible questions)

No Child Left Behind is good. Even if you have a cold-hearted disdain for the stupid kids, you must admit that providing them with some minimal education will help to keep them from being criminals. This is good for them, good for the economy, and good for our personal safety.

Scientific breakthrough

[SigmundFloyd]

Hands on demonstration on dark matter? That's it, I'm moving to Canada.

You have now heard.

[curri]

I am an American, and I think our public education is great. So there.

Measuring teacher performance is *hard*

[curri]

I think most (all?) countries do 'a poor job of coupling teacher pay to teacher performance', because measuring teacher performance is really hard. Many teachers suck at some things and are great at others. Most teachers will improve over time, but the cycle is yearly, which means it will take a few years before they have worked out their bugs and have encountered enough variety of kids so they know what works for each.

Well, how do you measure teacher performance ? You can do class visits, but they won't tell you all the story, unless you visit a lot; you can test the students, but that involves student performance (how much did they know?), you can use growth models (test before, then after the year, and see how much they improved), but still the speed at which the kids learn will vary greatly (not exactly IQ, but combination of IQ, motivation, family support etc).

Basically, if you give me a classroom with 10 'smart', 'well adjusted' kids, with family support and enough money to send them to Kumon if I suck, and I will appear as the greatest teacher ever. Give me 20 'problem' kids, with zero family support, and a bad environment, and I will appear to suck :). It's really hard, I would say impossible, to control for all those variables with the data we have and in the time frames we work with.

Also, the tenure system was created to avoid politicians firing teachers for politics. If we didn't have it, you'd hear about teachers in Kansas or Georgia being fired for teaching Evolution. Teaching would suck even more and you'd get less qualified teachers (the smart ones would go do something else :). Finding the right balance is hard.