New SciEd Blog I Like

Tom, over at Dealing With Creationism in Astronomy recently turned me on to the dot physics blog written by a science teacher at the university level. I've read about a month's worth of archives now and found several posts I really liked.

The first was this one, on "flipping the classroom". I think I first heard mention of this strategy at dy/dan, but it's one I think is pretty interesting: Have students learn the general lecture portion at home from a web video (either one you created or from one of many other sources) and use class time for more targeted, individualized learning. I've wanted to try this out sometime, but the lack of internet access among my students has prevented me from doing so.

The other post I really liked was this one, on the problem with "professional development" which points out how teachers are required to keep going to courses to "improve their teaching" even if they already have the skills. The comparison to the Cargo Cults is pretty spot on and is a reminder of how disconnected the ones making the policies are from the reality of the classroom.

So this blog has made it onto my RSS feed and I'll be putting a link to it in the sidebar. Check it out!