Category Archives: Teaching

Math and paleoanthropology

Posted on November 1, 2012 by Adam Van Arsdale

Holding true to my promise to add more math, and reflecting the fact that class registration for the Spring semester begins next week at Wellesley, here are some thoughts on the math courses I have had that I find the … Continue reading →

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More thoughts on Wellesley College and online learning

Posted on October 26, 2012 by Adam Van Arsdale

Next week I will be part of a roundtable discussion focusing on Wellesley’s consideration of moving into the world of online education. I previously had an online discussion with Dr. Holly Dunsworth, of the University of Rhode Island, on the … Continue reading →

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Coursera banned (sort of) from Minnesota

Posted on October 19, 2012 by Adam Van Arsdale

Coursera, one of the growing number of open access, online education platforms (developed in partnership with Stanford University), has been banned from Minnesota. The Chronicle reports: The state’s Office of Higher Education has informed the popular provider of massive open … Continue reading →

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Hrdlička on anthropology and medicine:

Posted on October 8, 2012 by Adam Van Arsdale

After a morning soccer game for my daughter, I decided to take advantage of the Columbus Day holiday on campus by doing a little cleaning of my office. I came across two old copies of the American Journal of Physical … Continue reading →

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Minimum size for a four-field Anthropology Department?

Posted on October 3, 2012 by Adam Van Arsdale

We are in the midst of considering a curricular re-shaping of our department, and I was hoping to solicit some thoughts on the minimum size necessary to produce a four-field, undergraduate Anthropology department. Wellesley College is obviously a small, liberal … Continue reading →

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Between Two Professors: Pros and cons to online undergraduate education

Posted on September 28, 2012 by Adam Van Arsdale

Note: This is a conversation I had with Holly Dunsworth, a biological anthropologist at the University of Rhode Island. This conversation is cross-posted at the blog she co-authors, The Mermaid’s Tale. Do you like the idea of online education? Adam: … Continue reading →

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In defense of equations

Posted on September 21, 2012 by Adam Van Arsdale

PNAS has a series of brief comments on the role that equations–and more broadly, math-heavy papers–play in the citation frequency of biology articles (see here, here, here, here and here). It appears to be the case that in at least … Continue reading →

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I am excited about grading

Posted on September 18, 2012 by Adam Van Arsdale

To be honest, the title to this post includes five words that I would never expect to write without including the modifier “not” before “excited.” I really do not enjoy grading. I like developing creative projects and assessments for students, … Continue reading →

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The march of the syllabi

Posted on September 4, 2012 by Adam Van Arsdale

Today marks the beginning of the Fall semester at Wellesley College. I am teaching two courses this Fall, Forensic Anthropology (Anth 209) and The Anthropology of Food (Anth 110). This will be my fourth time teaching Forensic Anthropology at Wellesley, … Continue reading →

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Anthropological training and pedagogy

Posted on July 23, 2012 by Adam Van Arsdale

There were a number of articles out a few weeks ago highlighting the difficulty in finding jobs for trained PhDs. This is a bit of an old story, already, but the new spin on this round of stories was that … Continue reading →

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