There is now a greater awareness among academics that teaching skills, like clinical and research skills, must be acquired and practised, usually over an extended period of time. In addition, teachers have a great responsibility in ensuring that medical students develop the knowledge, skills and attitudes to enable them to become competent and effective doctors. Although teaching theory is comp...

Undergraduates students in 12 courses at 8 different institutions were surveyed to determine the prevalence of 13 different misconceptions (conceptual difficulties) about cardiovascular function. The prevalence of these misconceptions ranged from 20 to 81% and, for each misconception, was consistent across the different student populations. We also obtained explanations for the students' answer...

On March 24, the Program for Economic Research sponsored the 2009 Spring Economics Forum, “Reforming Financial Regulation: Fundamental Principles and Urgent Steps”. The event featured a presentation by Hyun Shin of Princeton University, with responses from Patrick Bolton, Frederick Mishkin, and Edward Morrison, and was moderated by Michael Woodford. The forum discussed questions on how to impro...

We discuss the advantages of incorporating computational physics into the undergraduate curriculum and the special advantages of a separate course that emphasizes computer simulations.