FOR many students, classes in science and math can be a sleep-inducing experience.

Two thousand years after Socrates, the traditional lecture approach where the professor dominates the classroom discussion is still the standard teaching method of science in universities.

For Harvard University Prof. Eric Mazur, this method encourages memorization rather than solving problems. Scientific concepts are thus harder for students to appreciate and apply.

Trading the physics lab for classrooms, Physics Nobel laureate Carl Wieman has embarked on a new advocacy to address this problem and make teaching science more effective to undergraduate students.

According to Wieman, the standard lecture model is archaic and goes against how the human brain works. For him, teaching science should be more interactive, and modeled to make students think as they learn.

The Personal Response System (PRS) can be used to make learning science interactive and interesting. The PRS is like a TV remote control that each student uses to transmit individual answers to a computer. This computer informs the instructor of how many students got the answer right, and thus allows for a more targeted and timely instruction.

In Harvard, Physics Professor Mazur introduced a classroom approach called peer instruction, where lectures are interspersed with conceptual questions that students discuss with each other in small groups. These questions are called ConcepTests, and develop arguments and ideas among students.

Massachusetts Institute of Technology is also implementing a new pedagogical approach in teaching science. Its Technology-Enabled Active Learning combines lectures with simulations and hands-on desktop experiments to provide a collaborative and full learning experience for students.

These current efforts at revolutionizing science teaching are timely. All around the world, students’ interest in science and technology are dropping. In the Philippines, enrollment in engineering is only 14 percent of the total enrollees, while the natural sciences attract a miniscule 1 percent.

This is a critical problem because there is a massive global need for scientists and engineers. They will lead a country’s technological capacity for innovation, which will decide whether a country develops or not.

READING the World Bank’s latest report on East-Asia and the Pacific entitled “Will Resilience Overcome Risk?”, one can’t help but think that the future indeed belongs to the region.

ARGUING with the economic “experts” about the Philippines is about the same as arguing with my five-year-old son about thunder. I keep telling Adam that the noise from thunder will not hurt him, but his knowledge on the subject is too limited for him to understand the reality. So it is also with many experts who talk about the Philippine economy.

THERE just isn’t enough evidence to support the increasingly popular hypothesis that Asian economies are “decoupling” from a slowing US.

Mirror on the wall: Pagcor strives for transparency

THE World Bank (WB) is so much concerned with the lack of transparency among client governments that recently it virtually accused the Philippines of overpricing foreign-financed projects, a charge that is not unusual anymore.

FOR many students, classes in science and math can be a sleep-inducing experience.

Two thousand years after Socrates, the traditional lecture approach where the professor dominates the classroom discussion is still the standard teaching method of science in universities.

If you overindulged in turkey last Thursday, you’re not alone.
Research by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) has found that, on average, people gain about a pound during the period between Thanksgiving and late February. Most of the increase occurs between Thanksgiving and New Year’s. When participants in the study were checked again a year later, they had gained another 1.4 pounds.

LMR. Speaker, I urge, nay, I plead with the leadership of the House not to dignify the Pulido impeachment complaint with any further formal proceeding.