Guest Post by Karen Schweitzer 15 Free Science Courses for Self-Learners

Karen Schweitzer

15 Free Science Courses for Self-Learners

Open education is an excellent way to broaden your horizons and your knowledge of specific topics. There are many different colleges and universities that now offer open education options for self-learners. If you have an interest in science, you may want to explore some of these opportunities. You cannot earn a degree or college credit when you complete a course, but you can get a quality education without any out-of-pocket expense. Here are 15 free online science courses to try today:

Introduction to Neuroscience - The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) offers this free online course for self-learners who are interested in the science of cells. Course materials include 34 lectures, tests, and other study materials.

Elementary Astronomy - Elementary Astronomy is just one of the five online courses offered free by the College of Eastern Utah. The course is taught using lectures, videos, and other learning aids.

Introduction to Political Philosophy - Yale University offers this introductory political science course for free online. The course seeks to explain political philosophy through video, texts, and discussion.

Physics for Humanists - This free online course from Tufts University discusses facts and concepts of classical and modern physics. Students learn through lecture slides, handouts, tests, and supplementary material.

Cell Biology - The University of California, Berkeley provides webcasts of some of their most popular science courses. This free course includes 44 lectures and can be enjoyed as audio or video.

Introduction to Applied Statistics - The University of Massachusetts, Boston offers several free science courses, including this course on applied statistics. The 13-week course is designed for self-learners who are ready for graduate-level study.

Human Physiology - This free biology course from the University of Utah teaches students about a healthy human body.

Quantum Mechanics - Utah State University's free lecture course focuses on the foundations and techniques of quantum mechanics. The course includes more than 30 lectures in addition to other course materials.

Science and Society - This free online course explores the social and ethical issues that occur in the field of science. The course includes 30 hours of lectures as well as supplemental reading materials.

General Science - The University of Southern Queensland introduces self-learners to general science through this free online course. The course covers the basic concepts of science through a series of four modules and assessment tests.

Introduction to Biology - This introductory biology course from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology teaches the fundamentals of biochemistry, genetics, cell, and molecular biology.

General Ecology - This free Utah State University course focuses on the concepts and principles of ecology. The course provides audio lectures in addition to lecture notes.

Environmental Ethics - Canada's Capilano University offers this social sciences course to self-learners around the world. The course provides an overview of the philosophical study of humans' interaction with other species and the environment.

Nuclear Warfare - This free online science course from the University of Notre Dame uses lectures to teach students about nuclear warfare and weapons of mass destruction.

Science and Nature - This environmental course from The Open University explores plate tectonics and the changing of the Earth's face. The course takes approximately 15 hours to complete and is designed for intermediate learners.

Guest post from education writer Karen Schweitzer. Karen is the About.com Guide to Business School. She also writes for OnlineColleges.net.

Discussion of the book We-Think

I just finished reading We-Think by Charles Leadbeater. In order to ensure that I would not lose the salient points from this book, as they apply to learning I decided to blog about this book ..not so much as a review but to identify the salients points.

We-Think provided the following that I took away from my read of this book:

A better understanding of how the web connects us
Collaboration: thinking, sharing, working together

How this leads to innovation and creativity in groups.
Provides an avenue for freedom, creativity, equality, collaboration, and networking
ie) wikis
Concerns: how these are governed, how teams form, the diversity associated with the teams

Proliferation of user created web content blogs, websites, wikis, social media

Social networking sites work when they foster a spirit of self-governance (page 35)

Provide some order to the chaos of information and a way of managing the information.

History of the Internet----based upon the roots of collaboration that came from the culture of hippy and academics C

Changes in how information is owned and paid for and what is paid for

Open source---radically changes how and what is paid for

Those who create the content provide it as a gift for others to collaborate with them, to improve and create conversation

Diverse ways of thinking are essential for innovation
Diverse values how to resolve differences
Keep them from being overwhelming
Creation of a self-governing community

Thrives on different talents of different people

Provides a spectrum for measuring the level of "we-think"....No We-think to full we-think...The delivery of organized combination of contributions from group of diverse people with differing points of view (Linux, Wikipedia)

The web's best known self-governing communities do seem to bear out, (the need for) responsible self-governance--in which decision making is relatively transparent and power is held to account --- with the outcome that citizens become more engaged and the political process more legitimate and engaged.

New Media Challenges and changes in learning

As I have learned more about open education and open learning I have asked myself.."What does this mean? How does this change learning? What are the challenges?" With that thought in mind I put pen to paper and started to jot down a few things. Learners will have plenty of information via the internet and other means but more this information will be also not be categorized. Further challenges will require that the learner has the skills to determine the validity of the information, but chances are he/she will at times suffer from "information overload, and will be challenged by determining the credibility of the learning resources.

The learner will have unprecedented opportunities for interaction with others; for learning and socializing but he/she will have to determine the legitimacy of this interaction for learning. These interactions go beyond the individual one to one interactions to the basic team interaction to social learning. In order to do this the learner will need to have the skills to evaluate the arguments and be able to objectively develop his/her own arguments. The learner will have to develop critical thinking skills to understand the diverse points of view and understand all sides of an argument to craft his/her own.

The advent of social networking may also be driven by the economy, not only will universities and colleges be looking at cost effective ways to communicate with learners the learners will also be make the same decisions. Social networking tools, most of which are free or basically free, are demonstrating a positive return on investment as more and more learners, faculty, and institutions turn to them in this economic downturn, to underpin communication in online classes and facilitate communication for classes. Not only are these tools free they are easy to access and use.

The formalization and acknowledgment that games are tools for learning. Learners will move away from the notion that using virtual worlds for learning, 3d environments, and immersive environments offer more to their learning experience than just "video games." These environments can be highly structured to meet the outcomes of the course or curriculum and provide the potential to engage a student in his/her learning experience. The learners will need to have the ability to evaluate what he or she is learning and how that applies to the course.

Learners will need to be able to critically self-evaluate in order to understand whether or not the learning experience was meaningful and applied to what they needed to learn. The informal learner will especially need to have this skill as he/she reviews the offerings of open course ware, for example in order to ensure that the course materials he/she is accessing are those that will lead him/her to the intended educational goal.

Finally the learner will have to have the skills to present the informal learning in such a way as to get credit or recognition for it, this could be through portfolios or other presentations. This is a critical skill, a review of univerisity or college course catalogs may indicated whether or not that institutions give credit for prior learning, challenge exams, or CLEP tests.