cheating doesn’t pay

http://chronicle.com/article/High-Tech-Cheating-on-Homework/64857/

It probably helps that he shares some crucial findings from his study with his students. Homework cheaters, he showed, are much more likely to get C’s and D’s on exams than those who work out the assignments on their own.

calculus camp

My dear friend Jinna is an amazingly passionate and smart teacher who runs a calculus camp for her students to prep them for the AP.  They go to Big Bear for a few days, play crazy games, and…study calculus ’round the clock.  She teaches in a high-poverty school that didn’t start offering the Calc AP until 07.  In 07 and 08 combined, and out of the 60+ students who took the test those two years…one passed.  ONE.  Under Jinna’s awesome leadership and the inaugural Julie Park/Ji Son Calculus Camp (funded more by anonymous donors than us, but what the heck–if you donate anonymously, no one can name a calculus camp after you!), 60% of her students passed last year.  This is HUGE, not only in terms of getting them AP credit, but also getting them to be college ready.  Even more amazing than the fact that you can actually get high schoolers (42 this year!) to go study calculus in the woods for a weekend is the fact that Jinna…LOVES doing this.  She loves it, she’s GOOD at it, and she has a great relationship with her students.  Talk about being a dedicated teacher.  (Jinna is fabulous in about 9,000 other ways, but that’s another post.)  But Calculus Camp ain’t free!  The total budget is $6,600 and Jinna is past the halfway mark, but her kids still need $$$.

Invest in the future: Any $ helps!  Donate today:
http://www.donorschoose.org/donors/proposal.html?id=378578

spencer rtg

Thank you Papi Spencer:
http://www.tcrecord.org/Content.asp?ContentID=14887

And don’t knock that “lounge with mailboxes and a kitchen.”  Absolutely critical.

hooray elisa

Check the latest Educational Researcher for some very nice things about my wonderful colleague and next-door-office-neighbor Elisa Abes’ work on pg. 135.

going test optional

At Ursinus College:
http://chronicle.com/article/Colleges-Explore-Shades-of/64758/

Who knew that Humanities could run in the black?
http://chronicle.com/article/The-Humanities-Really-Do/64740/

new journal and vap position

Thanks Doc KAG for alerting me to this new APA journal on Asian Am psychology:
http://www.apa.org/pubs/journals/aap/

We’re hiring for a visiting asst. professor position for next fall to teach some masters’ courses, drop a line if you know anyone who could be a good fit/for more info.

parent-teacher conferences

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/20/nyregion/20bigcity.html?hp

the plot to kill God

It’s funny that I saw professional atheist Christopher Hitchens speak yesterday because I started reading an absolutely fascinating book, the Plot to Kill God by Paul Froese.  It’s basically how the Soviet Union launched an unprecedented campaign to wipe out–literally exterminate–religious belief…and how religious belief somehow survived and persisted over the decades.  Some funny things–to replace everyday rituals associated with religious belief like marriage ceremonies, funerals, etc. the Communist Party made up all of these officially secular counterpart rituals, which wasn’t too odd because you can obviously have a non-religious wedding, funeral, etc.  But then they also made up counterparts to ceremonies that non-Christians would have no use for, instead of just discarding them–so they made up a secular version of baptism/infant dedication, for instance.  (Froese includes the script they’d use for baby dedication, it’s pretty funny, basically “welcome small person to the world!  be a good worker for the party!”)

Another interesting thing is how Froese uses the case of the Soviet Union to test certain theories from soc of religion, one of them being that supply of institutionalized religion basically supports and nurtures the demand, or there’s such a symbiotic relationship that you can’t have one without the other.  The Soviet idea was, kill the supply (basically, the church, make religious practice more or less illegal and basically destroy any social incentive to practice religion) and you will kill the demand.  Yet, the demand persisted, even when they pulled the plug on the supply.  Fascinating!  (Sorry, I can’t find another word.  Riveting!)  Reading it is kind of odd because it seems like something that happened centuries ago, but really just happened last century.  Makes me wonder about what’s going on in North Korea.

Christopher Hitchens was fairly interesting although I couldn’t understand him b/c of his accent about 20% of the time.  There were some things that I thought he was fairly reasonable and nuanced about, and other things, less so.  It was a packed house–folks filling every seat and standing against every wall.  Funny that they had it at the big lecture hall at Farmer, which is where Campus Crusade meets.

mr. rodgers, 1950s techie

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/17/us/17pittsburgh.html

I always like it when my mom speaks fondly of 1970s-80s era PBS children’s programming.

some stuff i’m writing/quoting

The students in Kim’s (2006) work negotiated the contradiction [between religious universalism and ethnic separatism] through a variety of means.  Among them were recognizing that students of other races could go to other campus fellowships and noting that they could unite with Christians of other races through occasional events held by a campus-wide coalition of campus fellowships.  Some students commented that their hesitance to leave their ethnic comfort zone could be attributed to evangelical Christians’ beliefs in the sinfulness of humankind, as Kim noted: “Given the ‘sinful’ and ‘fallen’ nature of man, Evangelicals are not surprised that people have little trouble dealing with the apparent contradictions between their religious beliefs and religious practice” (p. 137).  She also commented: “In many ways, however, much of what interview subjects refer to as a ‘sin problem’ really points to individual basic desires for what is most beneficial and comfortable and least costly and painful.  What is ‘sinful’ is [second generation Korean Americans’] and others’ desire for homophily, majority group status, and escape from marginalization in a social context where ethnic groups are categorized and race continues to matter” (p. 138).

[That last sentence is a kicker.  I'm glad she added "and others.'"]

[Funny--I was rereading Rebecca's book to look up the part about the "campus-wide coalition of..." and forgot that she directly refers to ICC at "Western University."  Former ICC prez = Davidkitani]