2 September 2010

Metacognition, then and now
(a crisp example)

As a follow-on to recent posts here and here, I’d like to offer a crisp example of the standards of cognitive reflection that were taught in the once-upon-a-time United States: a sample from Studies in Civics (1897), a high school textbook.

TO STUDENTS.

You will notice in chapter one that at the close of nearly every paragraph questions are thrown in. They are inserted to help you cultivate in yourself the very valuable habit of rigid self-examination….

You will soon discover that these questions are so framed as to require you to read not only on the lines and between them, but also right down into them. Even then you will not be able to answer all of the questions. The information may not be in the book at all….

If you occasionally come to a question which you can neither answer nor dismiss from your mind, be thankful for the question and that you are bright enough to be affected in this way. You have doubtless discovered that some of your best intellectual work, your most fruitful study, has been done on just such questions.

[emphasis added in bold]

These paragraphs are about metacognition and information search strategies, and they set a high standard. If you’ve seen similar advice to students in modern textbooks, please comment on it. The quality of current textbooks in this regard may be higher than I expect, and that would be good news.

{ 1 comment }

2 September 2010

High-school civics and minds,
1890 and now

A comment on my recent post, “The problem: a metacognition deficit,” reminded me of a striking illustration of cultural change, the level of the language and content of a book used in the 1890s to teach high school civics (available in plain text, a big pdf and simulated in-browser book ). It reeks of a culture that fostered metacognition.

[Update: I found crisper example (see next post).]

Just for fun, read the whole excerpt:

[click to continue…]

{ 2 comments }

28 August 2010

The best introduction to DNA nanotechnology

Nature DNA Origami cover

For a good overview of structural DNA nanotechnology and DNA origami (a molecular wonder of the modern world), see this presentation from a course in the College of Engineering at the University of Illinois. The subject calls for a strong visual presentation, and the slides deliver this together with a good description of DNA engineering principles and an extensive bibliography.

Anyone who wants to understand the power of modern molecular self-assembly techniques — atomic precision on a million-atom scale — needs to be familiar with this topic, and this presentation the best starting point that I’ve seen.

Folding DNA to create nanoscale shapes and patterns,
by Paul Rothemund (Caltech),
presented for the ECE550 course by Abdullah Akce

For an update on larger scale, 3D applications of DNA origami see also:
“A Third Revolution in DNA Nanotechnology”.

{ comment }

27 August 2010

The problem: a metacognition deficit

…there’s a metacognition deficit. Very few in public life habitually step back and think about the weakness in their own thinking and what they should do to compensate…

Of the problems that afflict the country, this is the underlying one.

David Brooks, (“A Case of Mental Courage”, New York Times)

Brooks begins with the story of how Fanny Burney mustered the courage to set in writing (hence remember and relive) the experience of her mastectomy — the cutting of flesh, the scraping of bone, and more. There was, in her day, no surgical anesthesia.

In reaching his diagnosis of modern American culture, Brooks describes the decline of cultural expectations regarding metacognition, a process that feeds the flames of confirmation bias on the internet.

There’s a market for confirmation, and with interactive media, supply amplifies both supply and demand.

{ 4 comments }

25 August 2010

How to Learn about Everything in Belorussian

“How to Learn about Everything”, now in Belorussian translation:

       

(With thanks to Patricia Clausnitzer!)

{ 5 comments }

23 August 2010

Updated post on high-throughput atomically precise manufacturing

I’ve updated “The Physical Basis of High-Throughput Atomically Precise Manufacturing”. Not a big change, but I expanded the discussion of reliable molecular modeling of selected, highly constrained systems, along the lines discussed here: “Making vs. Modeling: A paradox of progress in nanotechnology”.

{ 2 comments }

About releasing building blocks…

August 19, 2010

A reader asks a general question about mechanosynthesis — How could a device release a reactive molecule once it’s bound to a product? — and I’d like to outline why there are many answers.

 

Subscribe

Read the full article →

The 7th Peptoid Summit:
Progress in peptoid toolkit development

August 13, 2010

The 7th Peptoid Summit highlighted progress in design technology for one of the most promising toolkits in modular molecular systems engineering.
I’ve outlined the submonomer method for peptoid synthesis as a powerful and convenient way to assemble diverse molecular components, and the recent development of crystalline peptoid nanosheets as a platform for extended atomically-precise structures. The [...]

Read the full article →

Autophagy:
Why you should eat yourself

July 24, 2010

I’d like to say a few words about one of the hottest and, in my view, most important areas in biomedicine: autophagy, a process crucial to health, disease, and aging. Autophagy research is expanding rapidly.
In autophagy (“self eating”), cells engulf and digest their own macromolecules and organelles. Autophagy serves two functions: providing critical nutrients in [...]

Read the full article →

← Previous Entries