Sunday, September 30, 2007
Engineering School has 40% Female Students!
The article also noted that 40% of its student are GIRLS, a high percentage for an engineering school. The Class of 2011 consists of 79 new students (34 women and 45 men). So yes, this is a very small school, but it has some very BIG ideas. Perhaps if more universities adopted such an approach, they would attract increasing numbers of engineering students, and a greater number of women to a male-dominated profession.
Re-engineering Engineering
The Hands-On Approach: Building a different breed of engineer at Olin College. 'In an era when software matters more than steel, Olin College wants to produce technologists with soul.'
By JOHN SCHWARTZ
Published: September 30, 2007 NY Times Magazine Section
Read the entire article at http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/30/magazine/30OLIN-t.html?ex=1348891200&en=6c28466b3eb78d2f&ei=5124&partner=permalink&exprod=permalink"WHEN NONENGINEERS THINK ABOUT ENGINEERING, it's usually because something has gone wrong: collapsing levees in New Orleans, the loss of the space shuttle Columbia in 2003. In the follow-up investigations, it comes out that some of the engineers involved knew something was wrong. But too few spoke up or pushed back - and those who did were ignored. This professional deficiency is something the new, tuition-free Franklin W. Olin College of Engineering wants to fix. At its tiny campus in Needham, Mass., outside Boston, Olin is trying to design a new kind of engineer."
Labels: education, engineering school, Olin College, project based learning, Richard K. Miller, undergraduate curriculum design
Monday, September 24, 2007
Dining Out Math Lesson Plan
Some envision a curriculum around the topic of EveryDay Math. With my personal experience and background in finance (I worked on Wall Street for a number of years, as a Mortgage Office after that and for a financial planning firm), I really know a lot about this and it is one of those things I really like teaching. Too often our students graduate high school knowing nothing about credit cards, bank accounts or budgeting. There are all kinds of financial decisions we make - from picking a cell phone plan to furnishing an apartment - and a class like this can give students a real jump on dealing successfully with these situations.
At The Young Women's Leadership School in East Harlem, NY I taught a similar class, and I really enjoyed the students and their engagement with the subject matter. There were equations, too, of course, but it all fit into Math in Every Day life. The school has a computer lab & mobile laptop carts that can be used, too. Students can learn to use a spreadsheet program, research investments, and tap into an online Mathematical Skills plan to practice and create their portfolios. Dan Stein, college professor and consultant, has developed a spreadsheet that students can use to track their progress and link directly to AAAMath.com for topic reviews and practice.
I published the lesson on the web using google pages and used a calculator widget from Lab Pixies. Widgets are great... and this one cames in handy! Lab Pixies has something new call "moodgets".... I'm sure you'll be seeing this one on myspace ... and it could be great to use with little kids when learning about expressions and feelings..
For more teaching ideas, lesson plans and articles, see my Portfolio page at LynneMBailey.com.
Labels: consumer math, instructional technology, lab pixies, lynne bailey, math lesson plan, numeracy, Prof. Dan Stein, sany hs, satellite hs, teaching, widgets
Blogging Basics
On Thursday, October 25, 2007 there will be another blog workshop on designing and implementing a blog. You can register for the workshop here. Consider joining Webgrrls while you're at it. Webgrrls is a great resource for anyone interested in tech-related issues and meeting interesting people with very diverse backgrounds in many fields. There are monthly meetings and lots of opportunities for networking.
Blogging can be a bit confusing for the uninitiated. I wrote a paper, A Look at Blogging in December, 2006 about blogging with ideas for using it in the classroom. You can download it here (it's a PDF file for Adobe Acrobat) and check it out. Using blogs for students to post and comment can be very beneficial for learning, and teachers and administrators find them to be a great communications tool.
For more teaching ideas, lesson plans and articles, see my Portfolio page at LynneMBailey.com.
Labels: blog workshop, blogs, education blog, instructional technology, lynne bailey, lynne m. bailey, nelly yusupova, teaching with blogs, webgrrls
