note to reader: This is an outdated page; it's a "text only" version of an earlier "Areas of the Website" page. Information from the old version is below, but there have been MAJOR revisions so I strongly recommend that you visit the new page about Areas of the Website.
You probably arrived here because nothing happened when you moved your mouse inside the navigation bar in one part of the SiteMap Page. This page has all of the "information content" you missed in the sitemap when you couldn't see the four extra boxes, about Education, Religious Perspectives, Skills, and miscellaneous:
INTRODUCTION
THIS
WEBSITE EXPLORES IDEAS IN SEVEN AREAS: Effective Teaching, School
Options, World Views, Origins Questions, Learning Skills, Thinking
Skills,
and Nature
of Science.
Each area contains sub-areas, as shown
in the table below. [earlier it was in the main page, but not in this page]
EDUCATION is the process of building
a foundation for life by learning useful ideas and skills.
Effective Teaching offers
practical Teaching Strategies and Activities that will
help you improve the quality of your teaching (and student learning!) through
effective planning-and-action: 1) Set
goals by
asking "What do you want students to learn?", and 2) Do what
is needed
to
achieve your goals by teaching in ways that give students experience with
important
ideas and skills, and help them learn more from their experience.
School Options compares four types of schools
(home, private, public, and charter) so you can understand their similarities
and differences, advantages and disadvantages,
so you can choose wisely.
SKILLS
Learning Skills — motivation,
concentration, memory, reading, writing, preparing for and taking exams, using
time effectively,... — are the foundation
for education.
Thinking Skills are essential for
modern life. We'll look at thinking that is creative and evaluative, plus
how
to combine
individual skills
into the methods used in science and design.
IDEAS and PERSPECTIVES
The Nature of Science is explored
in fascinating Stories about Science (from history and current events)
and exciting Debates about Science: Are some views of science
dangerous? Can too much of a good thing be harmful? Do scientists
seek truth, or create
reality? How can we avoid silly extremes?
Origins Questions: What do
Christians
believe
about origins (about when and how God created) and why? What does scientific
evidence,
logically interpreted, reveal about the history of nature? How
should
we teach origins in various educational contexts? For each question, a
variety
of views will be compared so you can see their similarities and differences,
so
you can explore and learn.
A World View is a mental model
of reality (a set of theories about what exists, how and why things happen, and
what it means), a view of the world that we use for living in the world, that
serves as a foundation for our thoughts, decisions, and actions.
miscellaneous
The HomePage explains what you can gain
from our website (we hope it will help you become a better learner and teacher)
and describes the website's educational philosophy and style.
To learn about the American Scientific
Affiliation (who we are, what we believe,
and what we do), click "About the ASA" at the bottom of the page.
This non-graphic SiteMap, written
by Craig Rusbult, is
http://www.asa3.org/ASA/education/altareas.htm