by Michael Jones

Michael Jones

mjones50atu — 2013-03-30 20:31:30 UTC

The proliferation of Pseudo Science , often in the form of advertising, has expanded in the information age and in many ways has corrupted our

understanding of new learning. As with all information scientific research that is free of bias is often difficult to discern from the myriad of sources

that can appear completely legitimate but provide false or misleading information to sell a product or idea. What will you teach your students before

sending them into cyberspace or will you take refuge in text books that have been thoroughly vetted?

I would like to teach students to take information and find other evidences of pros and cons about a product or idea. To make sure they have a concrete understanding and a base of context before they explore the web.

ccrossconnectio — 2013-03-31 01:53:30 UTC

-Chris Cross

John Flurry

boxerwing — 2013-03-31 02:24:09 UTC

Great Question. I agree that some advertising can use science jargon in a biased fashion. As a teacher though, sometimes we have to bend the truth with illustrations and fictitious scenarios to teach a content in a way that facilitates understanding and helps students to process complex ideas. The difference is in the spirit of how and why we do so, for our pocketbook, or for the enhancement of the next generation.

Dr. Ibrahim

Dr_Ibrahim — 2013-03-31 12:03:34 UTC

Good question

Christopher Rehm

2013-03-31 18:14:09 UTC

You are going to have to first inform students of what counts as a legitimate source for scientific research. Of course going all out on this can be exhaustive, so give them basics such as the Lancelet or Discovery. In the end you have to mostly just tell them to be vigilant because there is a lot of bad research out there. Unless textbooks have changed since I was in school they are a horrible thing for students to learn from, they make something that was fun utterly boring, it is astounding. So really, since online research is the way of the future it seems, you simply have to have the students know that they have to be careful of their sources and that they might want to look into the background of the source.

Marian Kursh

mkursh54 — 2013-04-02 02:07:14 UTC

Great question!

I believe personally that the internet is a great source for
information. It would be beneficially to let your students know how to properly
use the internet. Making sure they get the most out of it as possible in order
to help them.

Katie Baker

2013-04-02 15:09:23 UTC

I agree with the other posts on your wall as well. I feel that if we give our students the tools that they need to be able to tell a good internet source from a "bad" internet source. I also think that a teacher would be foolish not to use the internet in their classroom.

Kathryn Higgins

kahigg90 — 2013-04-02 17:36:49 UTC

It is rather difficult to decide on good sources out on the Web. If I was teaching a class that had a research assignment to it I would likely find as many good sites myself that I could give them (such as JStor) as well as teaching them how to decide if a site and it's information is mostly reliable. As long as the students are careful I don't think there should be that much of a problem.