Flipped education? (IR)

I recently came across a quite interesting opinion piece in the New York times describing a different method of education, using "mastery learning" and "flipped classrooms". I guess the basic premise is that instead of the teacher determining the speed of the class, the students do. As well as that, students can work independently of one another, proving their mastery through some sort of assessment. At it's core, the idea sounds excellent, but as always, theory greatly differs from practice. Right out of the gate I am questioning the nebulous nature of the classroom environment. The article talked about one aspect of the "flipped classroom" being that rather than the teacher giving live lectures, they would create pre-recorded videos of them for students to view at their leisure. At least from my experience, the dynamics of live lectures, questions being proposed by both the teacher and the students, the discussion that stems from that an other things etc., are incredibly useful learning tools. As well as that, if my sentimentality may be excused, the idea of video lectures. would seem quite dead. The overall rationale for the video lectures being that the teacher now has time to work with individual students on practice problems and projects, the lecture being the actual homework. This lack of homework seems like it could be both a good and bad thing. Once again from personal experience, I have certainly had the displeasure of sitting at home confused about homework, having on one to really help me. Then again, having constant help on homework somewhat decreases its value, depriving students to have the challenge of practicing concepts on their own. A double edged sword I suppose, as is the entire system in a way. Speaking for the third time empirically, I went to elementary school in a Montessori classroom, where the main focus was the use of materials, but we also had a great deal of freedom to work as we pleased, but that was combined with many structured group activities, and interjections from the teacher. Now, this may have worked great with a bunch of 1-4th graders whom thought learning was "exciting", but to be perfectly frank, any system of learning that gives students large amounts of time to do with as they please is probably going to end up as more of a social time than a work one.

Or maybe that's just us.

http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/10/23/in-flipped-classrooms-a-method-for-mastery/              

Cats (FW)

I like cats. I enjoy the softness of their fur, the playfulness of their temperament, and the excellent companionship they can provide. I, however, do not own a cat. This is due in no small part to the fact that my dad does not like cats. I do not understand why. He sides with most people in his adoration of dogs and dislike of cats. That, however, is not to say I do not like dogs. I find it strange that people group themselves as either "dog" people or "cat" people. "Dog" people associating themselves with extroversion and boisterousness, "cat" people associating themselves with introversion and quietness. But why do people feel the need to group themselves in such a manner? Perhaps it is simply a feature of human disposition. People obviously have this group attachment mentality, as one can see easily from the formation of cliques. If people didn't have this desire, would there be such thing as a "cat" or "dog" person? Or is it a deeper, less frivolous connection? Perhaps we do see some sort of solidarity between our individual psyche and the generalized behavior of a species of animal. But then again, if people have a desire to fit in to a particular group, could they be wrongly interpreting themselves as a mechanism for fitting in? And, in that case, could that extend beyond the "cat"-"dog" dichotomy, to behavior, even entire personalities?

Maybe. Probably not.

In any case, cats are furry and awesome, and in fact, are the superior animal. QED.            

Aliens (CM)

An absurdity to some, a reality to others, the idea of extraterrestrials have captivated people's interest for centuries, and even more so in the modern world. The origins of people's belief ranges from solid scientific reasoning, to poor education, to downright psychosis. People's disbelief usually stems from internal skepticism, solid scientific reasoning, and in some cases, religion. I myself fall on the "believe" side, I hope for solid reasoning. To expound on that hopefully solid reason, I would like to begin with a staple of extraterrestrial belief, Drake's Equation. 

(Bad copying srry D: Please click the image)

R_* = the average rate of star formation in our galaxy

f_p = the fraction of those stars that have planets

n_e = the average number of planets that can potentially support life per star that has planets

f_l = the fraction of planets that could support life that actually develop life at some point

f_i = the fraction of planets with life that actually go on to develop intelligent life (civilizations)

f_c = the fraction of civilizations that develop a technology that releases detectable signs of their existence into space

L = the length of time for which such civilizations release detectable signals into space 

Through a series of very complicated estimations, and some very simple multiplication, the current answer comes out to be 36.4 million at current estimates. However, this is still not really the point of the equation. The point is to show how improbable it is that life doesn't exist elsewhere. When thought about, even only our galaxy is an incomprehensibly large place containing an estimated 300 Billion stars. If the majority of those stars have planets orbiting them, and in all of those solar systems there is the "Goldilocks" zone, where the heat from the sun is neither too cold nor too hot. In a galaxy and universe full of elements waiting to be formed into planets, than it would seem highly probable that a significant number of planets have formed in this zone. These planets would have been very similar, if not identical to the early conditions of our planet. The aliens, you might be wondering, come in not long after this. Though the molten and volcanic early planet may seem inhospitable, in 1953 Stanley Miller proved that organic compounds such as amino acids would be formed by running electric current through an abiotic chemical environment, one that would closely resemble the atmosphere of early Earth. This process, as I sit here typing my highly abstract thoughts into my semi-conductor powered electric computation machine, obviously works. 

As another point of information is the discovery of several "super-Earths" relativity close  to our solar system. These planets are larger than ours, but are in the same "Goldilocks" zone, and NASA says, are potentially habitable.

If this is what lies within our small view of the Universe from here on Earth, I can hardly imagine what lies outside it. 

http://www.space.com/20720-earth-like-alien-planets-discovery.html  

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drake%E2%80%99s_Equation     

Vaccines (CM)

As much as people (myself included) hate vaccines, they are indeed a vital part of modern healthcare. They have been proven again and again has an effective method of preventing many diseases, such as measles, mumps, rubella and more. It would be very difficult to dispute their effectiveness. People still do however, and even more than that, that claim that vaccines are the cause of, mainly, autism of all things. The idea is intrinsically preposterous. Autism is a disorder that is not fully understood, and what we do know about it points to it being mainly genetic. That is even besides the point. There have been multiple studies showing that there is no correlation between vaccination and autism spectrum disorders (ASD). In addition to that, it is a well established statistic that as many as 1 in 88 people have some sort of ASD. That compared to the large amount of people that receive vaccines, its not hard to draw a pseudo-scientific relation between the two. A final, and very sad reason that people may blame vaccines for autism is that the parents of children with severe autism may simply be looking for something to blame. Sad, but it's not a unreasonable conclusion. Hopefully you can see that vaccines have been proven to be effective, and the surprisingly large faction that believes autism and vaccines are connected, are very wrong.

Some citations:
http://www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/autism/data.html
http://books.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=10997&page=1
http://www.cdc.gov/vaccinesafety/concerns/autism/