So, you have taught your classes everything they need to know about moles and molarities.
You have run over the IA criteria with them and have talked in depth about data presentation and errors. What next?
Triple A Learning IB Blogs
September 23, 2011
Power vs. Efficiency for a cell
One of my colleagues does a really nice activity in the current electricity unit where he has the students investigate the conditions under which a cell gives maximum power and the conditions where it gives maximum efficiency. This is a very concrete way of having students realize the effect that the internal resistance of a cell can have. In a nutshell the experiment looks like this.
1. Measure the EMF of the battery / cell
September 22, 2011
Vaccines
Vaccinations took a major setback in the late 1990′s with the publication in The Lancet of a paper written by Andrew Wakefield linking autism to the MMR vaccine. The Lancet have now distanced themselves from the findings, calling the paper a hoax and Andrew Wakefield a fraud. (Also check out the link from Bad Science.)
So it was with a resounding sigh of relief that the National Academy of sciences has concluded within a 667 page report that there is no link between immunisations and autism or other serious medical conditions.
ideas & inspiration
Nonprofit groups are experts at doing more with less. This fact holds true and has important lessons for CAS Coordinators.
Groups such as GiveWell, DonorChoose.org and Charity: Water use innovative technologies, business models, and marketing techniques to further their causes and spur supporters to action.
September 21, 2011
Groupon deals: a win-win or a win-lose proposition?
Although less than three years old Groupon, the daily deals internet business, has become the phenomena of recent times, with a staggering growth in revenues and subscribers (although it remains unprofitable). The company’s much vaunted initial public offering (IPO) is almost as eagerly awaited as that of Facebook. After postponing presentations to potential investors early this month because of volatility in stocks, the online coupon giant is now aiming to go public in late October or early November. The firm reported enviable results in its second quarter of 2011, including a 36% gain in net revenue to $878 million. The increase in sales volumes has pushed its valuation ever higher, with some analysts estimating that it could fetch $25 billion to $30 billion when it floats, dwarfing the $6.6 billion advance from Google Groupon reputedly rejected at the start of 2011. Indeed, Groupon co-founder Eric Lefkofsky now ranks among the 400 richest Americans, according to Forbes magazine’s annual listing released last week.
Groupon signs up local merchants to offer daily discount deals for everything from hotels to balloon flights to sky-diving, which it claims offers a win-win proposition. However, the company is facing doubts over its business model and its ability to sign up the new merchants it requires to maintain its growth rate. The daily deals market space is becoming increasingly crowded and in the US, Groupon’s largest market, 53 deal sites launched in August alone. There are few barriers to entry and discount sites are easy to set up, although difficult to scale without substantial capital and human resource investment. Growth requires the hiring of a huge army of sales staff and account managers to develop relationships with merchants, and this is expensive. Two years ago, Groupon has 30 employees; that figure is now approaching 10,000.
Social and Cultural Anthropology Workshop
Triple A Learning is running the following IB-approved workshop, beginning October 10th and lasting for 6 weeks:
Teaching IB DP Social and Cultural Anthropology (Category 1)
Topic 1 – Calculating Empirical Formula Resources
Topic 1 – Quantitative Chemistry resources
Here is a good website to help supplement your notes when it comes to the teaching of empirical formula using percentage composition data. It gives a couple of good worked examples for you.
Join ITGSopedia Group on Facebook
How can colleagues share current news article quickly with others without even writing a word? ITGSopedia on Facebook with simply copy and paste!
For example, the URL for the article Fate of ‘Web Assets’ After Death is
Special Event – ITGS Project
From the 21 September through to 7 October, there will be a special event on the ITGS Project on the Online Curriculum Center. The focus of the event will be becoming familiar with the ITGS Project and how to use the ITGS criteria to guide and assess student work.
September 20, 2011
gladly would he learn, and gladly teach
Thank you, Anthony. As I’ve been gazing at medieval cathedrals here in France, on holiday, and wandering through the old quarters of Troyes and Reims, I’ve been thinking of you and all you taught me so many years ago. In a blog on knowledge, I pause to appreciate your role as my teacher, passing on not just factual information on the medieval period but also broad understanding and wonderfully infectious enthusiasm.
Our own personal experience gives us such limited knowledge. It’s second hand knowledge that opens our awareness of how others have lived at different times and in different places, and how and what they have thought. This second hand knowledge is conveyed by language and handed on carefully by teachers, ideally charged with a sense of lively debate. Readers, have you also been lucky enough to have had, at some point, a truly excellent teacher?
