Yesterday was Pi Day – March 14 or 3.14 – and I heard a little story about this on NPR as I was driving into work. It reminded me how much my journalism students hate math. [Read more…] about Journalism Notes: Get Those Digits
mathematics
Review: March Madness ’14 Finals, Dialogue . . .
Integrating faith & field vs. Realizing justice in action
Yes, we’ve made it to the finals of ESN March Madness ’14. I have learned a lot as we have wrestled with the question:
What is the most pressing issue for the Christian to engage when journeying in higher ed?
Please share your vote and invite others to do likewise. Winner will be announced on Good Friday (4/18). Note: If you haven’t voted in ESN March Madness ’14 (and invited others to do likewise), now is the time to engage to make sure your vote is heard.
As I’ve shared before, this tourney is influencing our priority of focus as we prepare for Fall 2014. If you have a desire to address a particular topic or recommend a possible contributor (e.g., book to be reviewed, book reviewer, interview, offer a reflection), please let me know.
Engaging in the conversation . . .
Below are a few pieces which really caught my attention and yes, there are more on ESN’s Facebook Wall 🙂 Please do not hesitate to share your must reads in the comments section below, on Facebook, via email, etc. . . . [Read more…] about Review: March Madness ’14 Finals, Dialogue . . .
Candidate For What? — Collegiate Chemistry
Introduction
Thank-you to Dwight Schwartz, Ph.D., for continuing his Candidate for What? series by sharing a glimpse of his undergraduate and graduate school journey. A few questions for you as you dive into Part 2 and 3 (Click here for Part 1):
- How do you relate to Dwight’s journey through college (and possibly graduate school)?
- Are you (or did you) follow the recommendations of academic mentors?
- Have you found your studies giving you a larger perspective on real life?
- How do you share your journey in higher ed with others? In what manner does your faith relate to your vocation? Note: If you have interest in sharing your story with Emerging Scholars, please click here to read a description of writing for the blog and drop me an email. ~ Thomas B. Grosh IV, Associate Director of ESN, editor of ESN’s blog and Facebook Wall.
Part 2
Two years after finishing high school – I was working to save some money for college – I started taking college courses. And I started to get a bit of a handle on issues of career choice, etc., when, as a college freshman at Messiah College, I pursued not only a major in Chemistry but also a minor in Computer Science. I liked what I already knew of computers, i.e., typing on a display computer in the local department store:
10 print “helloâ€
20 GOTO 10
[Read more…] about Candidate For What? — Collegiate Chemistry
Random Notes on Doctor Bot Ed: Part II
Picking up from Random Notes on Doctor Bot Ed (5/10/2012) . . .
Back to Robots!! Personally, despite my earlier remonstration, I would be quite happy to learn all sorts of subjects from a robot. A robot is not going to rob us of our humanity and despoil our personhood – after all, we have less to fear from machines ‘wanting’ to behave like humans, as much as humans wanting to behave like machines (Hence, my prefatory diatribe against the social engineering of technocrats and their worrisome bedfellows in academic bureaucrats). A better version of my objections are to be found in William James’ prescient essay entitled “The Ph.D. Octopus†published in the Harvard Monthly in 1903, that anticipates much of the problems that arise when universities and colleges turn into a factory for credentialing. The bean counters have triumphed (by this I don’t mean the social sciences as a whole, but rather a narrow instrumentalist application of a particular philosophy).
Welcoming Dr. Bot Ed into Higher Ed can have all sorts of advantages in terms of research in planetary exploration beyond our solar system, learning foreign languages or even the behavioral sciences, insofar as exercises in situated cognition are concerned and not to mention, advanced mathematics. Even though the thought-Âprocesses in a human mathematician’s mind is distinct from the processes governing automated theorem proving, at the base, mathematics is not sui generis human as much as they are patterns for discovery – imaginary numbers, complex numbers, other forms of irrational numbers even while having no correlates in nature or grounding in empirical reality are still about mind-dependent patterns that are not necessarily confined to our species. As a thought-experiment, there is nothing to suggest that a hypothetical ‘alien’ (play along folks) from an exoplanet, a super earth perhaps, could not independently stumble upon esoteric concepts in mathematics not unlike their counterparts in carbon-based clade of Eutheria upon this kindred clod of Earth. Still, the known history of mathematics despite the obstreperous intrusion of computers and other calculating gadgets is a testament to the resilience, creativity, and genius of human mathematicians. How could anyone not be moved by the apocryphal final words uttered by Archimedes “Do not disturb my circles†as a churlish Roman soldier was incensed to intemperate wrath because our beloved mathematician refused to meet conquering Roman General Marcus Claudius Marcellus simply because he did not want to be interrupted from his study, libations and oblations to Urania, the muse of astronomy. The young scoundrel killed the genius-savant while the stolen planisphere made its way to Rome. Every major mathematical discovery does involve an element of either the sage or the heroic making its history humane and immediate even while its concepts are too arcane for the rest of us. [Read more…] about Random Notes on Doctor Bot Ed: Part II
Week in Review: Connections Edition
Here’s the top five articles, books, websites, etc., that we’ve been reading or thinking about the past week. Let us know your thoughts on any/all of them. In addition, if you have items you’d like us to consider for the top five, add them in the comments or send them to Tom or Mike.
1. Duncan Urges ‘Revolutionary Change’ in Nation’s Teacher-Training Programs (Kelly Field, Chronicle of Higher Education, October 21, 2009): Do you agree with the Secretary of Education Arne Duncan who recently called attention to the nation’s colleges of education for
doing a “mediocre job” of preparing teachers for “the realities of the 21st-century classroom” and need “revolutionary change—not evolutionary tinkering” … [and being] the “neglected stepchild” of higher education.
2. Beam Me to the Faculty Senate: Videoconferencing proves useful on campuses (Jeffrey R. Young, Chronicle of Higher Education, October 18, 2009). So we’re moving in the direction of less and less real presence, not just in the classroom (where increasing numbers of large lectures can be downloaded at some non-virtual campuses) but also among those who lead educational institutions. Tom has observed a lot of road time from campuses in the Penn State University educational system to State College. Yes, he’s wondered about the necessities of these trips. But what happens when people only get to know one-another or receive training/supervision through videoconferencing, even if it is virtual face-to-face? Of course, it’s better than no communication or only older forms of communication such as written or teleconferencing, isn’t it?
3. For Decades, Puzzling People With Mathematics (John Tierney, NY Times, October 19, 2009): How many of you have enjoyed the recreational mathematics of Martin Gardner, who turned 95 on October 21? Did you know that in 1956, when Gardner at the age of 42 started a monthly column on recreational mathematics for Scientific American, he had never taken a math course beyond high school and that he’s made his trade by researching/re-publishing puzzles developed by others?
According to Ronald Graham, a mathematician at the University of California, San Diego,“Many have tried to emulate him; no one has succeeded. … Martin has turned thousands of children into mathematicians, and thousands of mathematicians into children.â€
Where does Gardner believe the pleasure of recreational mathematics come from? “Evolution has developed the brain’s ability to solve puzzles, and at the same time has produced in our brain a pleasure of solving problems.â€
4. Remember the tossing around of mild dementia in relationship to Francis Collins? For those interested in learning more about dementia, take some to read/consider Treating Dementia, but Overlooking Its Physical Toll (Tara Parker-Pope, NY Times, October 20, 2009). The article begins:
Dementia is often viewed as a disease of the mind, an illness that erases treasured memories but leaves the body intact.
But dementia is a physical illness, too — a progressive, terminal disease that shuts down the body as it attacks the brain. Although the early stages can last for years, the life expectancy of a patient with advanced dementia is similar to that of a patient with advanced cancer. …
5. On Wednesday night, I [Tom] started reading Anne Rice’s Called Out of Darkness: A Spiritual Confession (Alfred A. Knopf, 2008). I have desired to learn about Rice’s spiritual journal, so the numerous comments regarding education come as an unexpected bonus feature. Below’s an excerpt of Rice’s reflections on elementary education and learning how to read. More of her comments on education in another post. Anyone have a similar experience or fear of education?
When I went to school and began to read, I lost an immense world of image, color, and intricate connections, but undoubtedly I retained more than I lost.I gained in school a poor understanding of things through written text. School was when excruciating boredom and anger and frustration really began for me. The mystery and calm of the early years were destroyed by school. School was torture. School was like being in jail. It was captivity and torment and failure.
But what remained forever, what continued, was the sense of God and His Presence, of His embracing awareness of all we said and did and wanted and failed to do, and of His love. School couldn’t destroy that faith. And alongside it, I retained the sense that the world was an interesting creative place, especially if one could get out of school (p.30).