Tag: science

Humanities Problems

What can we do to make the case for the humanities? Compared with the STEM professions (science, technological innovation, engineering and mathematics), they do not, on the surface, contribute to the nationwide protection. It is challenging to evaluate accurately, their impact on the GDP, or our employment rates or the stock market. And yet, we know in our bones that luxurious humanism is one of the biggest resources of durability we have as a nation and that we must secure the humanities if we are to maintain that durability in the millennium forward. When you ask economic experts to chime in on a problem, the odds are great that we will eventually get around to a primary question: “Is it worth it?” Assistance for the humanities is more than worth it. It is important.

humanitiesWe all know that there has been a reasonable quantity of anger to this concept lately in the Congress and in State Houses around the nation. Sometimes, it almost seems as if there is a National Alliance against the Humanities. There are regular potshots by radio experts and calling to decrease federal funding in education and scholarship in the humanities. It has become stylish to attack the government for being out of contact, swollen, and elitist; and humanities financing often strikes experts as an especially muddle-headed way of federal funding. Because of this, the humanities are in risk of becoming even more of a punching bag than they already are.

In the present economy, these strikes have the potential to move individuals. Any expenses have to be clearly worth it. “Performance funding” hyperlinks federal support to professions that offer high number of jobs. Or, as in a Florida proposal that appeared last year, a “strategic” educational costs framework would basically cost more cash to learners who want to study the humanities and less cash for those going into the STEM professions. As an outcome, there is severe cause for problem. Government support for the humanities is going in the incorrect route. In the fiscal year 2013, the National Endowment for the Humanities was financed at $139 million, down $28.5 million from FY 2010, at some point when science financing remained mostly unchanged. This is part of a design of long-term decrease since the Reagan years.

College Level Examination Program Purpose

CLEP (College Level Examination Program) is a program developed to provide learners possibilities to obtain higher education degree credit for certain academic places of study by testing their knowledge through specific placement assessments. CLEP is the abbreviation for College Level Examination Program. CLEP is developed for learners to accomplish higher education credit by passing exams for the appropriate undergrad college programs. Most institutions provide credit and/or placement for passing CLEP exams provided by the College Board.

CLEP-TitleCLEP exams involve a sequence of multiple-choice questions that are evaluated on a range of 20-80. Most institutions consider a score of 50 a passing grade. However, some academic institutions provide more or less credit according to your ranking and the subject. For example, a score of 50 in Spanish might compensate 6 credits to a college student while a grade of 65 might give 12 credits. Consult with a consultant or CLEP professional at your preferred university to find out the range of credit given for a particular discipline.

As of 2007, CLEP exams are provided in the following areas:

Business

  • Financial Accounting
  • Intro Business Law
  • Information Systems & Computer Applications
  • Principles of Management
  • Principles of Marketing

Composition & Literature

  • American Literature
  • Analyzing & Interpreting Literature
  • English Composition
  • English Literature
  • Freshman College Composition
  • Humanities

Foreign Languages

  • (Check with the school for foreign language CLEP exams offered)

History & Social Sciences

  • American Government
  • Intro to Educational Psychology
  • History of the United States I, II (Early Colonization to 1877 / 1877 to Present)
  • Human Growth & Development
  • Principles of Macroeconomics
  • Principles of Microeconomics
  • Intro to Psychology
  • Social Sciences & History
  • Intro to Sociology
  • Western Civilization I, II (Ancient Near East to 1648 / 1648 to Present)

Science & Mathematics

  • Biology
  • Calculus
  • Chemistry
  • College Algebra
  • College Mathematics
  • Pre-calculus
  • Natural Sciences

Gender Gap in Mathematics

The misconception that men exceed females in the mathematics and science fields has persisted for decades. However, scientists from Brigham Young University, University of Miami and Rutgers University recently conducted a study to challenge that misconception and the gender gap associated with it. In their report, which was already released by the Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization and showed up in a EurekAlert public launch Feb. 25, scientists determined females are as efficient as men in mathematics when changing the conditions of a competitive environment.

gender_gap_mathematicsJoe Price, the lead specialist of the research and an associate lecturer of business economics at BYU, said the idea for his research occurred out of a couple of main issues. “We’re getting to the point where there are more ladies in college than young boys, but there are some careers that men are much more represented,” Price said. He detailed CEOs and associates in law companies as a several examples of generally male-dominated careers. “If women don’t do as well in aggressive configurations, they will not do as well in these careers or will fall out of those careers.”

Price said this was one reason why he and scientists started learning the gender gap’s existence in educational and aggressive surroundings. With the increase of female’s registration in higher education, he said it has become progressively important for scientists to examine the causes and solutions of gender gaps. Between 2000 and 2010, colleges underwent a 39-percent increase in women registration, as opposed to 35-percent increase among men, according to a review by the Institute of Education Sciences. This number is predicted to improve significantly over the next several years. Price said a part of his inspiration for the research was personal. He is a mathematics fanatic and a dad of two girls. “[I was] really inspired to find mathematical contests that ladies could flourish in,” he said.

Advanced Placement Courses Role

Learners in high school have many choices in terms of seeking the kinds of training they want. Many regions offer Magnet Programs that provide improved knowledge in specific areas (Arts, Science) which students are keen on seeking later on. Other educational institutions have implemented the International Baccalaureate Program, which has become highly popular, for its focus on separate, globally-minded query. There is also Advanced Placement Courses, a traditional mainstay of high school improved program.

Advanced Placement CoursesThere was lately interesting news brief on the current state of Advanced Placement Courses in United States public education. The piece stated that 1 in 3 United States High Schooler’s, in public educational institutions, took an Advanced Placement Courses Examination this year. Of that, 33% of High Schoolers, 1 in 5 received a passing score on the test. These are really quite impressive numbers. First, a third of United States, openly educated students is seeking advanced instructors in high school, presumably, on their own accord, though with the support of their family and instructors. Second, the opportunity to engage in serious work in United States educational institutions is available, and with knowledge of what is out there, students have real opportunities. One third of scholars are certain enough, during high school, that educational accomplishment is really important and that the work they put in during high school will pay off in college.

And, it will. A passing score on an AP Examination is worth a credit at most colleges, amounting to a significant savings in money. Enough time spent in high school can be an appealing factor in higher education and kids realize this. Significantly, Advanced Placement Courses is a wide effort and covers topics from Math to English to the Arts with many areas of expertise in between. There were 34 different subject examinations given most lately, indicating the breadth and depth this method has achieved. After all, this is a high school program with 34 college degree course choices.

Culture and Mathematics

During the last few years, there has been significantly improving interest in something known as “mathematics and/in culture” or even “mathematical culture” in the history and viewpoint of mathematics. Thoughts of “culture” have already been used in the record of the sciences in arithmetic knowledge analysis for some time, but they are relatively new in the history of mathematics. Yet, they are incredibly exciting as I see them providing a two-fold promise:

On the one side, focus on mathematics and/in culture allows for the further analysis of mathematics as an individual action programmed and formed by the culture which it is created and impacting that culture in return. For a long time, mathematics has been designed so that it belong to a separated world — to Ivory Tower so to speak, as it were, perhaps limited by its situations, but providing little with regards to impact on wider culture. However, latest improvements in analysis have permitted us to remedy that scenario and analysis resemblances and impacts between different factors of culture such as mathematics, literary works, art, and science. On the other hand, the idea of societies within mathematics provides us with a device box for examining traditional improvements in math that are not so quickly taken under other techniques of study such as conventional periodizations, paradigms, analysis programs, designs, or even methods.

Lately, a number of educational conventions and classes have been dedicated to such conversations. They are important not only for scholarly research of the history and viewpoint of mathematics, but also for the present. Social techniques, so it seems, offer a way of making mathematics available for a wider audience by linking it with a scaffold of current cultural information of literary works, history, art, social and scientific topics and so on. Therefore, it is also of importance to upper secondary education where advertising mathematics in trans-disciplinary segments with other factors of European culture is growing as a new task.