Category Archives: Teaching

In defense of the treatment of race, in part, on biological/scientific grounds

Posted on June 1, 2012 by Adam Van Arsdale

One of the first issues I want to unpack from my just completed seminar on race is the treatment of race, in part, as a topic of biological and scientific relevance. The history of scientific racism is the history of … Continue reading →

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Teaching in new ways

Posted on May 29, 2012 by Adam Van Arsdale

Holly Dunsworth goes through an assessment of her curricular changes in an Introduction to Biological Anthropology course and her students’ learning experience: Based on only two semesters of data, it’s hard to link my curricular changes to the improvement between … Continue reading →

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The teaching sweetspot

Posted on May 11, 2012 by Adam Van Arsdale

I spent most of my day yesterday learning from colleagues about the special challenges and opportunities associated with teaching first-year college students in preparation for teaching a first-year seminar course next Fall titled, “The Anthropology of Food.” I have actually … Continue reading →

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More on biocultural anthropology

Posted on May 3, 2012 by Adam Van Arsdale

Kate Clancy’s post that I linked to the other day continues to generate wonderful conversation. I would first recommend re-visiting her original post and checking out the comments, which include very thoughtful replies from a number of people, including Greg … Continue reading →

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Thoughts on an anthropology curriculum

Posted on April 30, 2012 by Adam Van Arsdale

Following up on my post last week (the usefulness of Anthropology), I could not help but continue to think about the issue of structuring an anthropological curriculum in such a way as to actively develop skills in students and encourage … Continue reading →

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The usefulness of anthropology

Posted on April 27, 2012 by Adam Van Arsdale

The Daily Beast published a list this week of the “13 Most Useless Majors.” Coming in at #9 was Anthropology and Archaeology. The information they publish alongside their ranking is as follows: Unemployment, recent grad: 10.5 percent Unemployment, experienced grad: … Continue reading →

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The Biological Anthropology of Living Human Populations

Posted on April 2, 2012 by Adam Van Arsdale

Current Anthropology has a special supplemental issue available (for free) titled “The Biological Anthropology of Living Human Populations.” I will not have a chance to go through it in detail till later, but it looks to be a great collection … Continue reading →

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Growth and development of the human craniofacial skeleton

Posted on April 2, 2012 by Adam Van Arsdale

I could make some minor complaints about the details (like the exaggerated difference between male and female skulls in size), but this video outlining human craniofacial growth by Beatrice Lau is pretty well done. A nice resource to show students.

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Public distrust of science

Posted on March 29, 2012 by Adam Van Arsdale

According to a recent paper by Gordon Gauchat, nobody has much confidence in science. The paper sets itself up to test whether self-identified political conservatives have gotten more distrustful of science over time (it says they have), but as the … Continue reading →

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NOVA – Cracking your genetic code

Posted on March 28, 2012 by Adam Van Arsdale

I was only able to watch the final 10 minutes of this program on PBS tonight (I recorded it and will watch the full program later). Any thoughts from people on its merit? Is it worth showing my human genetics … Continue reading →

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