The Importance of Being Interested: Adventures in Scientific Curiosity

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A real love letter to science, and very, very Robin Ince. It occasionally rambles along in an entertaining way, is driven by science fact, but allows (plenty of) room for alternative views, respect and understanding. And imagination, there's a whole chapter on that. But the improvisational part of tutoring—which is to say, the fun part—involves being interested: being curious about the student, their project, their discipline, the guidelines and constraints they’re working with, and what we each might learn or realize in the course of our conversation. For me, the best conferences—and they aren’t rare—are those in which I’m learning something that is of no practical use to me, something unrelated to my own scholarly work or to tutoring pedagogy. Something that’s just interesting. Being interesting and being interested “Bookcase, Ruth Mendez Home, New York, New York, 2000.” Photo by Susan Carr. In documenting the homes of people who had lived in one house for forty years or more, Susan, my aunt, had to cultivate an open-ended curiosity about and interest in whatever she might find in each home she photographed.

The Importance of Being Interested by Robin Ince | Waterstones The Importance of Being Interested by Robin Ince | Waterstones

I appreciate your pointing out the wonderful benefits of what becomes second nature to us as writing center tutors—that being interested is part of what brings joy to our work. It claims to be popular science. Written by a man who confesses to not understand science, yet tells us to accept what science teaches us, because you know science is fact. Well, it isn't really, is it? But Ince thinks it is even though he is incapable of proving or understanding anything science tells him. Meanwhile he summarily and harshly disparages other schools of thought such as theology, religion, conspiracy theory and accuses those writers and thinkers of blinding people with lies and mistruths to confuse the listener to a point where they accept without understanding, and Ince is very clear on his distaste for such thinking. Yet, he accepts the science he is told even though he fails to understand it. This is very much a case of "Listen to what I say, but don't listen to anyone else, everyone else is wrong, I am right but I cannot prove it". He frequently resorts to "non science" to illustrate his points about science! For example, there is a chapter that is largely using science fiction films to illustrate scientific achievements. It is nonsense from top to bottom and one of the most poorly thought through books I have ever read. If anything it is more damaging to an inquiring and developing mind than it is beneficial. Palmer DH. Student interest generated during an inquiry skills lesson. Journal of Research in Science Teaching. 2009; 46:147–165. doi: 10.1002/tea.20263. [ CrossRef] [ Google Scholar]Admitting one’s ignorance and making use of it in tutoring requires confidence. Like many beginning classroom teachers, I was anxious about my knowledge and authority when I began serving as a teaching assistant at UW-Madison in 2007. Needless to say, such anxiety did not make me comfortable with open-ended curiosity as a teaching tool. But when I began working at the writing center a couple years later, tutoring put me in a different frame of mind. Not having to worry about securing authority freed me up to use my ability to ask questions and my capacity to be interested to empower students. Lakhan SE, Hamlat E, McNamee T, Laird C. Time for a unified approach to medical ethics. Philosophy, Ethics, and Humanities in Medicine. 2009; 4 doi: 10.1186/1747-5341-4-13. Article 13. [ PMC free article] [ PubMed] [ CrossRef] [ Google Scholar]

The Importance of Being Interested: Adventures in Scientific The Importance of Being Interested: Adventures in Scientific

Interest is both increased attention, effort, and affect toward a particular object or topic and an enduring predisposition to reengage over time. This book consist mostly of reflexions around astrophysics - not science in general. The author also occasionally reflect on faith and religion. in other words, the title is slightly misleading. I found my love for science through curiosity and I’m now a scientist so, guess anyone can overcome their preconceived high school dislike of science.Teacher preparation policies and practices are useful only insofar as they translate to action in the classroom, which suggests incentivizing the design and adoption of interest interventions and rewarding faculty for the downstream benefits of their efforts toward enhancing student motivation. Getting down into the weeds of creating instructional opportunities that promote and sustain students’ interest or facilitate utility-value connections is time-consuming and requires careful attention to intervention implementation details ( Yeager et al., 2016). Various evaluation policies could reward educators who use evidence-based motivational science to inform their curricula and instructional methods, for example, by providing professional development funds, creating organizational teaching awards, and other meritorious recognition for such efforts. We thank Max Knogler, Ann Renninger, and Lynda Ransdell for helpful comments on an earlier version of this article. I found this book super interesting. I wasn't sure what I was getting into before reading apart from some classic Robin Ince comedy. Belland BR, Kim C, Hannafin MJ. A framework for designing scaffolds that improve motivation and cognition. Educational Psychologist. 2013; 48:243–270. doi: 10.1080/00461520.2013.838920. [ PMC free article] [ PubMed] [ CrossRef] [ Google Scholar] This is the second book I have listened to by Robin Ince and it was, yet again, brilliant. As a writer he has written a fascinating journey into science having had access to some amazing minds and also having a great gift for explanation. As a narrator he comes across as utterly fascinated and enthusiastic about his subject matter. This really is great on all levels.

The Importance of Being Interested by - Perlego [PDF] The Importance of Being Interested by - Perlego

Many people think science is for ‘others’. For people with an Einstein level IQ and those who were born with a quantum physics book in their hand. But science is everyone’s. Robin really goes a long way to show that and this book is beyond perfect to rekindle a curiosity in science. It can enrich your life and how you think, and can be nothing but a benefit to those who retain their curiosity about the world and the universe through science. So I personally fail to see how this mans mind can arrive at a conclusion where he dismisses certain schools of thought in favour of others, claiming one to have no value where as science has all the value. But how can this man tell us this when he understands neither? Eccles JS, Adler TF, Futterman R, Goff SB, Kaczala CM, Meece JL, Midgley C. Expectations, values, and academic behaviors. In: Spense JT, editor. Perspective on achievement and achievement motivation. San Francisco, CA: W. H. Freeman; 1983. pp. 75–146. [ Google Scholar]

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Hidi S, Renninger KA. The four-phase model of interest development. Educational Psychologist. 2006; 41:111–127. doi: 10.1207/s15326985ep4102_4. [ CrossRef] [ Google Scholar] As a library, NLM provides access to scientific literature. Inclusion in an NLM database does not imply endorsement of, or agreement with, And I think any tutor—even the most non-exclamatory sort—can express interest most essentially by asking good questions. Which is to say, questions that emerge from and engage with the details of the student’s draft, ideas, or talk. Not the questions we routinely ask when opening a conference, not broad questions about the student’s concerns or general questions about the course or assignment, important as those are. But questions that dig in to the nitty-gritty of the student’s thoughts about the topic or rhetorical situation of their writing. Questions we ask without any kind of follow-up advice in mind—questions that are not designed as lead-ins to where the tutor thinks the conference to go next. Questions that we ask because we don’t know the answer, and we’re interested in what it might be. There is no such thing as a stupid question from an outsider because it may very well be that question helps solve the problem.

The Importance of Being Interested Robin Ince – The Importance of Being Interested

In this erudite and witty book, Robin reveals why scientific wonder isn’t just for the professionals. Filled with interviews featuring astronauts, comedians, teachers, quantum physicists, neuroscientists and more – as well as charting Robin’s own journey with science -The Importance of Being Interested explores why many wrongly think of the discipline as distant and difficult. Brown ER, Smith JL, Thoman DB, Allen JM, Muragishi G. From bench to bedside: A communal utility value intervention to enhance students’ biomedical science motivation. Journal of Educational Psychology. 2015; 107:1116–1135. doi: 10.1037/edu0000033. [ PMC free article] [ PubMed] [ CrossRef] [ Google Scholar] The clincher for me was the comment, "I would hope that those private companies that are now financing space missions have not build up their fortunes needed to become extraterrestrial by skimping on tax or employee rights and benefits", that's exactly what they've done - it's well documented. Hung W, Jonassen DH, Liu R. Problem-based learning. In: Spector JM, Merrill MD, Van Merrienboer J, Driscoll MP, editors. Handbook of research on educational communications and technology. 3. New York, NY: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates; 2008. pp. 485–506. [ Google Scholar]To celebrate the publication of Robin’s new book, ‘The Importance of Being Interested: Adventures in Scientific Curiosity’ the award winning comedian is joining us on his tour of 100 independent bookshops around the UK. About the Book Smith JL, Brown ER, Thoman DL, Deemer ED. Losing its expected communal value: How stereotype threat undermines women’s identity as research scientists. Social Psychology of Education. 2015; 18:443–466. doi: 10.1007/s11218-015-9296-8. [ CrossRef] [ Google Scholar] Eccles JS, Midgley C, Wigfield A, Buchanan CM, Reuman D, Flanagan C, Mac Iver D. Development during adolescence: The impact of stage-environment fit on young adolescents’ experiences in schools and families. American Psychologist. 1993; 48:90–101. doi: 10.1037/0003-066X.48.2.90. [ PubMed] [ CrossRef] [ Google Scholar] Ainley M. Connecting with learning: Motivation, affect and cognition in interest processes. Educational Psychological Review. 2006; 18:391–405. doi: 10.1007/s10648-006-9033-0. [ CrossRef] [ Google Scholar] But the essential requirements of advanced research in specialized fields encourage habits of mind that do not necessarily foster that flexibility—let alone complement our teaching mission. One such requirement is a laser-like focus on a specific question framed through sustained engagement with the literature of a subfield. If you have written a dissertation or are close to anyone who has, you’re probably familiar with the stage in any intensive research project where everything starts to seem related to your topic of study—for me, organic form in poetry. While it’s enormously rewarding—and fun!—to be in that focused and synthesizing frame of mind, I have not found that it makes me a great conversationalist.