Serendipita

The Atlantic: What Makes a Great Teacher? by Amanda Ripley.

“For years, the secrets to great teaching have seemed more like alchemy than science, a mix of motivational mumbo jumbo and misty-eyed tales of inspiration and dedication. But for more than a decade, one organization has been tracking hundreds of thousands of kids, and looking at why some teachers can move them three grade levels ahead in a year and others can’t. Now, as the Obama administration offers states more than $4 billion to identify and cultivate effective teachers, Teach for America is ready to release its data.”

Chad Orzel is a physics professor at Union College in Schenectady, NY, and has written How To Teach Physics to Your Dog, which will be published later this month. He’s also the author of a weblog called Uncertain Principles, where he published an 18 minute long video called The Bohr-Einstein debates, with Puppets. It’s well worth watching and really entertaining, although I have to agree with Orzel that the fake German accent of Albert Einstein really is atrocious (compare to the real Albert Einstein’s accent). I’m sure I could fake a German accent better than Chad Orzel.

Trailblazing – three and a half centuries of Royal Society publishing.

“Welcome to Trailblazing, an interactive timeline for everybody with an interest in science. Compiled by scientists, science communicators and historians – and co-ordinated by Professor Michael Thompson FRS – it celebrates three and a half centuries of scientific endeavour and has been launched to commemorate the Royal Society’s 350th anniversary in 2010.
Trailblazing is a user-friendly, ‘explore-at-your-own-pace’, virtual journey through science. It showcases sixty fascinating and inspiring articles selected from an archive of more than 60,000 published by the Royal Society between 1665 and 2010.”

Link via MetaFilter: Selected Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society.

More science links in this MetaFilter thread: Math education – how should math be taught?