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from the fixing-the-teachers-should-help dept.
Active problem-solving confers a deeper understanding of science than does a standard lecture. But some university lecturers are reluctant to change tack.
Outbreak alert: six students at the Chicago State Polytechnic University in Illinois have been hospitalized with severe vomiting, diarrhea and stomach pain, as well as wheezing and difficulty in breathing. Some are in a critical condition. And the university's health centre is fielding dozens of calls from students with similar symptoms.
This was the scenario that 17 third- and fourth-year undergraduates dealt with as part of an innovative virology course led by biologist Tammy Tobin at Susquehanna University in Selinsgrove, Pennsylvania. The students took on the role of federal public-health officials, and were tasked with identifying the pathogen, tracking how it spreads and figuring out how to contain and treat it — all by the end of the semester.
In the end, the students pinpointed the virus, but they also made mistakes: six people died, for example, in part because the students did not pay enough attention to treatment. However, says Tobin, "that doesn't affect their grade so long as they present what they did, how it worked or didn't work, and how they'd do it differently". What matters is that the students got totally wrapped up in the problem, remembered what they learned and got a handle on a range of disciplines. "We looked at the intersection of politics, sociology, biology, even some economics," she says.
Tobin's approach is just one of a diverse range of methods that have been sweeping through the world's undergraduate science classes. Some are complex, immersive exercises similar to Tobin's. But there are also team-based exercises on smaller problems, as well as simple, carefully tailored questions that students in a crowded lecture hall might respond to through hand-held 'clicker' devices. What the methods share is an outcome confirmed in hundreds of empirical studies: students gain a much deeper understanding of science when they actively grapple with questions than when they passively listen to answers.
http://www.nature.com/news/why-we-are-teaching-science-wrong-and-how-to-make-it-right-1.17963
Original Submission
(Score: 2, Interesting) by anubi on Friday July 17 2015, @08:57AM
Thanks...
Actually, I did get an A. The professor even warned me to watch out for the plate resistance thing.
I had copies of schematics of the college's oscilloscope that I had talked one of the engineering lab assistants into getting for me, as he had access to the departmental files of the test equipment we had. I was basing my design similar to that of our Dumont 304. Except I wanted to use a smaller CRT, and felt those 6CB6 were designed for high frequency. I had built enough audio amplifiers that I was quite comfortable designing around pentodes - and how to set all the grid biasing voltages knowing I was going to have quite a voltage swing on the plate.
If you feel so inclined, google those old Dumont 304a oscilloscopes... and you will see what was "new" when I was a kid.
These were just beginning to get old enough that they were showing up all over the place.
After studying "cascode" amplifiers and the "grounded grid" configuration in class, I was all starry-eyed about driving the cathodes of a pair of 6CB6 differentially from a pair of transistors... a differential cascode amplifier if you will.... with the collectors of the bottom transistor part ( long tailed pair of 2N697 ) in cascode with the cathodes of the 6CB6; control grid of which was "grounded" at +12V, screen grid about +120 volts, suppressor grid at cathode potential, and plate voltage expected +50 to +300 volts DC. I knew I could set the operating current via the long tailed transistor pair resistor, then set the plate voltages by the plate resistor to +350V, so that I could very neatly swing one plate down and the other up simultaneously to make a very clean differential sweep drive for the CRT.
I guess you know why I was using vacuum tubes... transistors were just then coming out. I considered myself extremely fortunate to get two pair of 2N697. The university had some. I do not believe that at that time, transistors with anything near 300 volt ratings even existed...
I was so enthused over the prospect of running everything so clean, differentially, so that I could drop all the way down to DC that I completely ignored all the capacitance I was throwing into the plate circuit with all my neat cabling. I was completely deluded by dreams of UHF grounded-grid designs that I saw in the Radio Amateur's handbook.
And I was so tickled to be designing with something so new.... a TRANSISTOR!. These were so new and it was the first silicon one I had ever seen. I had built some amplifiers with germanium transistors and they were not the easiest things to work with... they changed specs with temperature all over the place. Noisy too. Or, at least, the ones I had were noisy. It was hard trying to get me to abandon my 12AX7 and 6AK5 vacuum tubes for that. ( I loved 6AK5 for microphone and guitar preamps... these tubes were made for TV tuners, but they sure made nice low noise microphone amps! Easy to come by too - as living in a military town at the time, I could get my hands on expired radiosondes, and a lot of them had one in them... but I did have to unsolder them - they did not put any sockets in the radiosonde. )
I will warn you that having insane curiosity to "re-invent the wheel" does not seem to be much appreciated by the business crowd. I only wish I was in the position of hiring proteges. I would invite you over. In my mind, the most important thing I look for is insane curiosity. Anyone can buy a degree ( cite: congressmen and even presidents of the USA ). If you do not have curiosity, you are like a static charge - all voltage and no current.
I feel I was quite fortunate when I came out of University to work for some of the best at Chevron Oil Field Research in La Habra. Chevron had a whole flock of really top-notch scientists and engineers there, and I worked under them. Two in particular, Zeke and Jon, showed me more stuff than I could ever absorb. It was several years before I began to understand at their level. This team of engineers and scientists DID the stuff that students study at university. I really hated to leave the place when they shut down during an oil glut in the 80's.
I ended up going to a local aerospace firm that got bought out by Wall Street, and I utterly failed to shift gears to a more businesslike pace. I tried to adapt, but I guess the adage about teaching old dogs new tricks rang true. A lot of us old dogs had to be put to pasture. Simply weren't fast enough. I know that was true in my case.
I feel I have finally reached "Zeke" status, and actually I find it quite painful to know I have finally amassed an understanding of how most of this stuff works, but unlike Zeke and Jon, no one to pass it to. They had me and three other young whippersnappers to teach. Seems such a shame that I cannot even teach at the local community college as I technically only have a bachelor's degree in EE ( despite hundreds of hours of college courses not in matriculation programs ), and they want a Master's to teach. I was not in a classroom all those years... I was in the field working with those who were actually doing the stuff that they taught in University.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 18 2015, @09:57AM
Have you visited your local hackspace?
You sound like the sort of person that they would welcome.
https://wiki.hackerspaces.org/List_of_Hacker_Spaces [hackerspaces.org]