Albert Einstein managed to reveal some of the most fundamental properties of the universe by visualizing the problem in his head, so clearly there must be alternative ways to beautiful science (other than Current Latin).

It’s time to make an appeal to every genius out there for a new comprehensible mathematical language; MISC (Mathematician’s Interpreted Symbolic Code) that works instantly both on paper and computers!!

But here’s the innovation I found most interesting: For physics, the Dean instituted a tutor system designed to help students with difficult course content. He recruited high school physics teachers to advise on the introductory course content to ensure a good transition from high school. These teachers were available to tutor students if needed. They also provided feedback to professors on their teaching methods. They attended lectures, evaluated the teaching, and gave profs feedback on how to improve! You can imagine how the profs liked that! The Dean got a great deal of push back from the profs. They recruit new profs based on research excellence, not teaching excellence. They warned him that the university would gain a mickey mouse reputation and lose lots of its research funding. End of story: the Dean persisted, the profs came around (albeit grudgingly), research funding went up, enrolments went up, drop out rates declined.

If you’re interested in the OECD conference and studies, see their final report at http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/16/30/36645825.pdf

On Sean and girls in science. I attended an OECD conference in Amsterdam last fall on “Declining Youth Interest in Science Studies”. It reported on a study in which 22 countries looked at enrolment and graduation rates in science discplines. Physics, chemistry and math are in trouble – OECD-wide. In particular, girls shun these subjects increasingly. (Female participation in higher education is increasing faster than that of males, but in the science subjects, the rate of increase is slower. In physics, there’s a decline in many countries).

Another part of the study looked at ways in which different countries are tackling the problem. Many of the techniques involve working with younger girls in grade school to encourage them. At these age-levels, girls love science as much as boys, though often in different ways and for different reasons (vive la difference!). The drop-off starts to occur in junior high school. For boys and girls, partly to keep grade point averages up (i.e. science is hard). For girls, partly because of what some of the responders to this blog allude to – the way in which science is presented in school and in texts. One woman at the conference responded to a discussion of some very innovative promotional activities targeted to young females to encourage them to pursue science at university. She said: “You can do all the promotion you want and you’ll probably succeed in getting more girls to enrol in university science. But if the universities keep teaching science the way they do now, the girls will drop out!” We have to face facts, folks. We have a real problem – and its a cultural one.

If you’re interested I’ll tell you about a Dutch university that solved the problem… (I’m a Canadian so there’s no nationalistic promotion here.)

Sean has spent some time investigating Dark Matter. Perhaps this last confusion is due to the fact that Sean can’t decide if he believes in WIMPs (Weakly Interacting Massive Particles) or MACHOs (MAssive Compact Halo Objects)…? :-}

More info on WIMPs and MACHOs:
http://map.gsfc.nasa.gov/m_uni/uni_101matter.html