Discoveries are not simply confined to a lab, nor is learning to a classroom. On this page you will find photos, news, and articles that we find relevant and interesting.
The Power of Palindromes
Here is Rhea's take on Jennifer Doudna and Samuel Sternberg's book on CRISPR-Cas. The book is is essential reading for anyone concerned with our medical and agricultural future. Published in the Cooper Square Review.
A few thoughts on making teaching a priority...
The Chronicle of Higher Education published this piece on navigating academia. The authors suggest a mix of flying under the radar and liberating yourself from imposed standards of success. While I don't agree with everything they've said, I think they make some great points about prioritizing teaching. Teaching well and writing well have a direct positive impact on our well-being as academics, and succeeding in those aspects of our career can make it easier to handle the institutional stresses of funding and publishing.
One line that resonated with me is "...we shouldn’t separate writing from teaching. They’re both forms of productions, like a documentary film." That's the key. Imagine we put in the same amount of care into our courses or our writing as we would if we were producing something for mainstream consumption, like a newspaper op-ed or a short film. You would be embarrassed to put a sloppy piece of work up there for the public to see, right? The same should apply to the classroom. Another motivator - think of how many students pass through our classrooms. We are impacting someone's future. We should care about that as much as we care about our peer-reviewed discoveries.
One line that resonated with me is "...we shouldn’t separate writing from teaching. They’re both forms of productions, like a documentary film." That's the key. Imagine we put in the same amount of care into our courses or our writing as we would if we were producing something for mainstream consumption, like a newspaper op-ed or a short film. You would be embarrassed to put a sloppy piece of work up there for the public to see, right? The same should apply to the classroom. Another motivator - think of how many students pass through our classrooms. We are impacting someone's future. We should care about that as much as we care about our peer-reviewed discoveries.
Why do we have to learn this stuff?
On overhauling STEM pedagogy
A long overdue article on the need to emphasize active learning in science classrooms.
| The science of teaching science (Nature 2015) |