1. Students won’t do their readings if they’re not going to tested on it immediately.  Solution: require them to fill out worksheets concerning the readings as they do them.
2. Test questions need to explicitly ask for details, otherwise students will not provide them.
3. Nuances should sometimes be left unsaid, as they can confuse students.  There needs to be a balance between the basic required information, and the exceptions to the rule.
4. As a general rule, accepting late work is a bad idea.  Students will abuse it.
5. Bad class performance is most likely due to laziness and not inability to do the work.
6. Sometimes you do have students that really can’t cut it.  I have yet to learn of a good way to deal with that.
7. If you allow your students to be creative, they will blow your mind with their creations.
8. Your actions have the biggest effect on morale.  You need to be able to make jokes and get them to laugh.
9. You cannot be afraid to be wrong.
10. Have discussion questions prepared ahead of time.  These need to be open ended, and force them to bring many different things together.

Lessons I’ve learned from observing other classes.

1. Don’t treat your students as though they are lazy or stupid.
2. A harsh word can completely ruin a semester, and force you to lose all credibility.
3. If morale gets low, you better get creative, because low morale means low learning.
4. If you find yourself ranting about your students more often that praising them, you probably need to reconsider your teaching strategies. And take a break.  Students aren’t actually that bad.
5. Don’t treat your students as though they are lazy or stupid.

It’s an ongoing process, but I think things are progressing pretty well.  I hope to keeping experimenting to see what works best.

The idea behind this concept is that you have very strong opinions about something, but you’re not dedicated to it.  You can make a passionate defense of a topic, but when presented with contrary evidence, you simply switch over.  Imagine making a very strong argument and then going ‘Oh, you’re right. Nevermind.’

This is something I don’t think very many people understand, but as someone who’s philosophy is scientific in nature, I’m very familiar with it.  I’ve experienced this countless times where I’ve made what I think is a very good argument for something, then had someone completely destroy it with a simple counter argument.  At that point, I have no choice but to change my mind.  And that’s a good thing.  It means I’ve learned something new, and I’ve progressed in some way.  It’s something I strive for, and when I see it in others, it’s something that gains them immediate respect in my eyes.

Being ‘wrong’ about something has been unfairly stigmatized in our culture.  If you change your mind about something, many times you’re viewed as a ‘waffler,’ or someone who doesn’t know what they believe, or someone who lacks principles.  In reality, it’s just the opposite.  Changing your mind when faced with a better argument does not represent the lack of principles, but dedication to the pursuit of truth.  Is is the embodiment of the idea that truth is more important than the self and that any opinions, beliefs, and views one has must bend to reality, because to do anything else is delusion, by definition.

It doesn’t mean you won’t make mistakes, that you can’t be misled.  It’s easy to imagine a situation where you hear what you only perceive to be a better argument, and in reality, you’re missing some vital information that would clearly demonstrate its incorrectness.  The beauty of this philosophy of ’strong opinions, lightly held,’ is not that it always leads directly to ‘truth,’ but that it’s self-correcting. If you take the wrong path at some point, it’s easily corrected once you do have the required information.  You never reach ‘absolute’ truth, but you do get closer to it with each iteration.

If there is a path towards wisdom, it surely must begin with the recognition of your own fallibility through self-examination, and this is exactly what is represented by ‘Strong Opinions, Lightly Held.’

As a Christian, moral relativism was something I heard about quite a bit.  The term was used in disdain; it was obvious that the Christians I were around felt that moral relativism represented something very wrong with the world.  This is something I agree with them on.  Unfortunately, I think the Christian stance on this is akin to psychological projection.  That is, they deny that their own faith contains any such relativism, and instead assign it to those “not christian.”

The demonstration that moral relativism is at the core of Christian views of faith is relatively simple.  It is a theme in the bible: from Abraham’s attempted murder via sacrifice of his only son, to the ongoing acceptance of hell as a legitimate theological stance.  Abraham is held up as one of the holiest men of all time – the father of three of the worlds largest religions.  His faith in God is adored and held up as an example.  Very rarely are his actions questioned in a moral light.  The questions, “why did he feel it appropriate to take action he knew to be wrong?”  The answer for Christianity is a given:  God told him to do so, and when you’re given a commandment by god, you are not to question, but to obey.  To obey is the moral, holy thing to do. This idea has not died out.  It’s why we still have suicide bombers, women who drown their children by divine commandment, and apparently, a war in Iraq.

Additionally, a divine commandment delivered personally supersedes any other divine commandments (turn the other cheek leaps to mind, ignoring the Big Ten.)

The other big example of moral relativism is the doctrine of hell.  That is, the idea that those humans not made holy through the acceptance of Jesus Christ as their personal lord and savior will spend eternity in eternal torture.  It never ceases to amaze me how easily people seem to accept this idea.  It’s given as the practice of perfect divine justice.  Yet, given the definition of Justice, hell certainly doesn’t fit.  There is no justice, fairness, grace, or love to be found in the doctrine of hell.  I’ve gone in depth on this in the past, so I’m not going to rehash it.  The doctrine of hell is the ultimate expression of faith: the acceptance of something known to be morally abhorrent as holy.

The theme is simple: morality is not objective but derived from mandates from god and the only absolute is obedience to those mandates.

This is a source for cognitive dissonance.  How can any god worthy of the title give immoral commandments?  Obviously he cannot, therefore any actions he takes are moral.  Yet just a quick browse through the old testament yields dozens of instances where the abrahamic god is most certainly not moral.  The solution for those who wish to remain Christians is to plead imperfection.  The argument goes, god is much wiser than us, who are we to to judge his actions? God is all-just, especially when he’s killing people – or more likely – commanding people to kill other people.  God is all-wise, especially when sending people to spend eternity being tortured.

The result of all this is nothing more than the further erosion of objective morality.  What meaning does justice have when we accept eternal torture as a legitimate practice of it?  What meaning does “right and wrong” have when it’s subject to ever-changing whims?  It’s even worse in that there is no way to verify these whims.  How can the woman who drowns her children by divine commandment be prosecuted?  How do you know God didn’t tell her to take that action?  There is no way to check.  Luckily we have a secular government who can act against such madness.

Unfortunately for Christians, the remaining choices are not acceptable:  either decide that god is not worthy of worship, and go looking for a god so deserving elsewhere, or stop believing in gods all together (or as I did, both).  Some Christians are forging another way: re-interpreting Christianity to remove the moral ambiguity.  Hell doesn’t survive the cut and Abraham becomes a villain.  I don’t know how intellectually acceptable it is, but it is interesting.

So the next time you hear a Christian railing against “Moral Relativism” just remember: their beliefs are likely more relient on it than yours are.

Disclaimer:  I realize I may be taking a simplistic approach to Abraham’s situation.  The book that really talks about it, Fear and Trembling, is on my reading list, but it might be a while before I get to it.

Disclaimer 2:  Yes, this is another post where I pigeonhole christians to mean “fundamentalist christians”  Bad Josh!  Bad bad Josh!  I realize that not all Christians have the problems described above.  However, those christians who have railed against moral relativism usually do have these problems, and that is why I wrote this.  If you have a better way to describe these people that identifies them specifically, please let me know.

Mark 11:12-14

¹²The next day as they were leaving Bethany, Jesus was hungry. ¹³Seeing in the distance a fig tree in leaf, he went to find out if it had any fruit. When he reached it, he found nothing but leaves, because it was not the season for figs. ¹⁴Then he said to the tree, “May no one ever eat fruit from you again.” And his disciples heard him say it.

Mark 11:20-25

²⁰In the morning, as they went along, they saw the fig tree withered from the roots. ²¹Peter remembered and said to Jesus, “Rabbi, look! The fig tree you cursed has withered!”

²²“Have faith in God,” Jesus answered. ²³“I tell you the truth, if anyone says to this mountain, ‘Go, throw yourself into the sea,’ and does not doubt in his heart but believes that what he says will happen, it will be done for him. ²⁴Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours. ²⁵And when you stand praying, if you hold anything against anyone, forgive him, so that your Father in heaven may forgive you your sins.”

Christians tend to look at this story as a lesson in faith.  While verse 24 is quoted often as an example to live up to in faith, I think there is another way to read this story.  It is a retelling of the original downfall of mankind according to Genesis.  The key fact that makes it so is that the fig tree wasn’t in season, something the story points out explicitly.   Jesus cursed it for not bearing fruit when it supposed to have no fruit.  There was no way the fig tree could have behaved any differently.

This parallels nicely the story of man’s downfall in Genesis.  God created Adam and Eve and told them not to eat of the tree of knowledge.  But without the knowledge the tree provided, how were they to know that was wrong to disobey?  How would they know that it was wrong to indulge curiosity?  Their ignorance secured in their creation, they acted in the manner that they were created.  God was not pleased, and he cursed them.

Christians read the story of the downfall as a lesson in disobedience, but I must disagree.  The actions of god in this case are mirrored by the actions of jesus: a curse on his creation for the way he created them!

Two days ago, my sister and I attended an event that some of my musical colleagues consider heretical (in a kind sense, I think).  What was this event?  The Drums of Summer, in Broken Arrow, OK. It’s part of the Drum Corps International (or DCI) summer tour.  It’s a competition for drum and bugle corps comprised mostly of college students.  Put another way, it’s hardcore marching band.

It was amazing.

This was the first time I’ve ever seen a DCI World Class-level corp, and I was not disappointed. The music, sound, technique, and showmanship made this one of the most entertaining musical events I’ve ever attended.  Imagine a human kaleidoscope that creates it’s own music and is executed with pin point precision both visually and musically, and you will begin to approach the drum corp experience.  I’m already looking forward to the next time I can attend one of these events.

The trip down to Broken Arrow was pretty much without incident.  The roads were clear, and we made excellent time, Oklahoma’s insane way of showing road construction signs aside.  The trip back, however, proved much more trying.

It started with a trip to Goodyear in Broken Arrow, and three new tires on my car.  A few hours (and a few hundred dollars later), and we were finally ready to leave.  I wasn’t very familiar with the area, and followed the signs, only to discover I had entered a turnpike with no immediate exits, going south, when I was supposed to go north.  Getting off at the first available exit, I was over 50 miles away from where I was supposed to be.  This set the theme for the trip back.

There was an unbelievable amount of problems I encountered as I neared Warrensburg, MO, where I was going to drop off my sister.  The first route I chose took me out of cell phone range where I discovered the highway was completely closed.  I had no choice buck to back track several miles and head north.  This route nearly had the same thing happen, as the state highway ended abruptly.  Luckily, the road continued, however, and I was able to find a connection to another state highway.

Once we got into Warrensburg, I had visions of a quick trip through town.  It’s not very big, and I thought there would be no issues.  But it was not to be.  A fatal vehicle accident earlier in the day blocked off the road, forcing me to return to the high way and find another route.  Once I finally got back on track, a funeral procession pulled out in front of me, holding us up again.  After the funeral procession, we came to an intersection that had a traffic light that had been plowed over, stopping traffic again.  Finally, I routed us around all that, and made it to our destination.  Total added time: nearly three hours.  When I finally arrived back home to my apartment, I felt very relieved.

Some might say that this series of unfortunate events was retribution by Apollo for my musical heresy.  Since I like to play up the Odyssey-esque journey back home, this explanation is not without appeal.  Over-all though, it was a great trip, and I’m very happy I went.

To a certain extent, both sides are correct, but it’s not a debate I’m really interested in.  As an educator, the reach of my influence is greater than the common person, but not that great, and I’m personally satisfied with what I’m doing.  I can’t do anything about the rest.

The question I have seems to be the one that the accomodationalists (that is, the people who think scientists should focus only on the science) have yet to answer.  What should be done about those people who are not merely ignorant, but ignorant and proud of it, and actively work against known truth.

I don’t have a problem with people believing evolution is wrong and the earth is only 6000 years old, until those beliefs start influencing public policy.  How should those demonstrably harmful beliefs be handled then?

I don’t have a problem with people taking homeopathic medicine and other alternative medical treatments, but how should those beliefs be treated when they’re foisted upon children and others who are unable to protect themselves?

How should the psychic who preys on the weak and hurt be treated?

How should the faith healers who use honest belief as instrument for personal profit be treated?

The popularization of science is not going to make the young-earth creationist change their mind.  When they come to the schools and attempt to gut science curriculum, what should be done?

Education will work in the long term.  We see it working already.  But it will take decades before we get the kind of literacy society really needs.  What are we supposed to do in the meantime?  Sit silently and hope we don’t destroy ourselves out of ignorance?  What can we do right now beyond education?

These are the questions I’d like answered by the accomodationalists.

My Underpowered Superpower was simple: I could tell the future, but in a very limited sense.  I could tell if someone would choose a circle, a square or a triangle ahead of time.  For three or four weeks, I told people about this super power and demonstrated it for them.  I’ve had a variety of responses.

First the data.  Out of 13 demonstrations, all were accepted as something silly.  Over all, they didn’t understand what was happening, and spent most of their time confused.  8 people demanded that I immediately do the trick again, which unfortunately was impossible.  I explained that my power is also limited in that it only works once in a given situation.  There were two people who weren’t fooled by it at all, and gave possibilities for how it was done (I admit nothing!).

Okay, I should modify that to say that only two people pointed out exactly how I did it immediately following my performance.  Upon reflection, it’s likely many others knew, but didn’t say anything for whatever reason.  For the rest: yes, my secret is out.  I don’t really possess any super powers.  It’s nothing more than a trick I developed while reading a biography of Harry Houdini.*  Reading the biography got me interested in magic again, and I started thinking about some possibilities for performing Mentalism tricks, and I came up with a really simple forcing mechanism that I wanted to try.  The underpowered superpowers thing seemed to be a perfect opportunity.

The problem is that I really need to work on my delivery.  I stumbled around a lot in the dialogue I had prepared ahead of time.  I thought I would try playing it by ear a little bit, but this did not turn out well.  It’s one thing that really added to the confusion, beyond normal levels.  So it’s back to the drawing board, and to help me out, I ordered a few books, and a separate trick that I’m looking forward to learning.

Overall, I think this particular experiment was a success.  I found out a little about myself, had fun, and confused people in the process.  I will have to do it again sometime.

*The Secret Life of Houdini: The Making of America’s First Superhero (Amazon) – I highly recommend this book!

I’ve been woefully delinquent in blogging over the last few months, mainly because I haven’t had much to say. But now I’m starting to get into the swing of things again, and I’m preparing a post of education research that should be up in the next few days.  The summer has been very mixed so far, but here are some highlights:

• Visited my friend Tara in San Antonio.  I stayed on the River Walk, and it was amazing.  I hope I get to go back sometime, probably in Winter!
• Rented a cabin on a small fishing lake in Eastern Kansas.  It was a nice way to get away for a while.  I spent the time rereading the Dresden Files, and finally read the latest book in the series.
• Had a tire blowout on the interstate.  Not fun, but I got through it, obviously.
• Getting back into the habit of going to the gym.  I hadn’t been in a few months, but now that I’m going again, I’m starting to feel much better.
• My twitter use has exploded from where it was.  I’m starting to see the use, not only as a publishing platform, but also as a resource for information.  search.twitter.com has been extremely helpful in the last few months.
• Bought a new Sony 40 inch LCD television.  It’s incredibly awesome.  Got rid of my old TV.  Thinking about building a PC to connect to the TV to serve as a media center, and do things like stream Netflix and Hulu without using my laptop.
• In case I decide to stay in KC, I’ve started considering building a house instead of buying.  It’s been the fun thing to think about for the last week or so.
• 7 weeks left until I graduate with my Masters degree.  So I’ve started looking at possible Ph.D. programs, grants, and fellowships.
• I’m teaching two sections in the fall, one of them an evening course.
• Will probably upgrade to a new MBP sometime in the fall.
• I’ve gotten into poetry, both reading and writing.  Reading “Leaves of Grass” has been interesting.
• Still thinking about getting a dog. If I do, I’m going to either name it “Darwin” or “Schroedinger” (or “Ding” for short).  If it’s a beagle, then I will definitely name it Darwin.

Well, that’s basically been my life for the last few months.  I wrapped up teaching, and all my students passed, something I’m very proud of.  Now I’m anxious to see the student evaluations of my teaching.  I have no idea when those will appear.

I’m starting to get back into the home science swing of things too.  Hopefully will have something to post about my experimentations involving mexican jumping beans and the moth-like creatures that hatch from them in the coming days.

The first sentence reads: “Republicanism, a new idea about government, became popular in the late 1700s.”

I realize this may be over pedantic, but I just couldn’t let this drop.  Republicanism was a new idea about government?  Perhaps the author of this short blurb should have read Plato.

That’s all for now.  I need to get back to catching up on email.

This particular study focused on the users of the popular massive multiplayer online role playing game (mmorpg) World of Warcraft, and specifically an online discussion forum used by players to communicate.  The abstract sums up their findings:

Eighty-six percent of the forum discussions were posts engaged in “social knowledge construction” rather than social banter. Over half of the posts evidenced systems based reasoning, one in ten evidenced model-based reasoning, and 65% displayed an evaluative epistemology in which knowledge is treated as an open-ended process of evaluation and argument.

The paper itself it very accessible, and doesn’t take long to read.  The findings are surprising, and I think important for educators to be aware of.  Since I’m not much of a gamer, I was unaware of the level of detail and care gamers put into playing this game, although after reading “Everything Bad is Good For You” last fall, this really shouldn’t have been much of a surprise.  From the paper, here is an example of what I’m talking about:

The calculations correctly show that mind flay [spell]
receives just as much +damage percentage as mind
blast. However mind blast has a 1.5 second cast time,
and mind flay has a 3 second cast time. And therefore
mind flay receives half the dps [damage per second]
boost it should. (post #2609.43)

There are two things about this kind of thinking that really demonstrates something I hope I can foster in my own classroom: the depth of analysis, and social knowledge construction.  The user in this case, wasn’t satisfied by the damages given by a particular attack; they took it a step further and came up with their own method of identifying what kind attack is better (damage per second).  While this particular example seems simple, since it only involves one issue (a single tactical decision), it’s important to realize that this is just a piece of a much larger discussion that involved many more variables. From later in the paper, here is an example of a more complicated, user generated equation:

For Mindflay, SW:P, and presumpably VT [3 priest spells]:

Damage = (base_spell_damage + modifier * damage_gear) *darkness * weaving * shadowform *misery

The second thing they did was post their analysis in a forum, generating discussion and debate.

It was this paper that inspired me last semester, when I was assigned to create a lesson plan that integrated some form of technology, to use Schorched3D as a way for students to create models for learning about trajectory and range.  While I wasn’t able to give this lesson to actual students, and it’s outside the field I actually teach, I think this kind of integration will be necessary in the classrooms of today and tomorrow.

For further reading, there is a wealth of information to be found in the citations of this article.  I also recommend the book “Everything Bad is Good for You.”  Finally, I check out Constance Steinkuehler’s website.  She’s done a lot of great work in this area.

References

1. Steinkeuhler, Constance & Duncan, Sean (2008). Scientific Habits of Mind in Virtual Worlds Journal of Science Education and Technology, 17 (6), 530-543