Okay, this is a little eerie. I'm about to attempt to achieve something useful with this blog. I can only imagine that Locutus will be knocking at my door very shortly.
I'm back in Seoul now. More about that later. Maybe.
Winter term just started here and I'm co-teaching a "cosmology for non-scientists" course with Eric (my adviser) and Professor Smoot (previously mentioned for winning the Nobel prize and co-guest-starring in an episode of "the Big Bang Theory" with Summer Glau; you can judge for yourself which is the more laudable achievement). Since I am one of three (dammit! stupid Borg...), I'm actually not onstage until April. Reading the textbook, however, I'm already confused. Nothing in the book is wrong, but it tends to gloss over (what are to me) important details about why it isn't wrong. None of this should be a surprise -- Eric flat-out said when he recommended this book: "I don't actually like it, but it's the best we've got" (or something to that effect) -- but that doesn't change the fact that I don't know what the point of this class is supposed to be. Should I be trying to give the students a laundry-list of things that we know, or a handful of bullet points accompanied by a deep understanding of why we know them? You should be able to tell my bias from the way I phrased that. When you're teaching to scientists, the latter is by far more important than the former (since, presumably, once they know the latter, they can figure out the former on their own) but that approach tends to rely heavily on math. Conventional wisdom counsels against math in courses of this sort. Which brings me to my question:
If you are a scientist: have you ever taught a course for non-majors before? What tack did you take? How much did the students benefit from it? In what way did they benefit from it?
If you are not a scientist: have you ever taken a course about science? What did you want going into the course? What did you take away from it? Are you glad you took it? Why?
Thanks for the help.
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What I wanted: world domination.
ReplyDeleteWhat I got: the ability to rant about all the reasons why Pluto is CLEARLY not a planet. And the realization about seven years later that I had been instructed by the Ninth Doctor.
Scott!
ReplyDeleteI have found that when trying to engage those who are inferior... sorry, I mean non-science majors; both lay-appeal and depth can in fact be achieved. All one must do is consisistently remind the students of why this all matters. So, delve all you want into the details, just make sure that about every five minutes you surface to wake them up. I have also found that it helps to act excited when you do this. Students are often compelled to listen more closely when you act excited. Good luck!
Josh