Sheila Tobias -- Books & Talks

Books

Talks

Overcoming Math Anxiety, and Succeed with Math

Math Anxiety: An Update

Sheila Tobias first wrote Overcoming Math Anxiety in 1978. In her updated version, published by W. W. Norton in 1994 (and in paperback in 1995), she enlarges on her analysis of the attitude and approach variables that interfere with students' performance in college-level mathematics. Their problem, she finds, is not a failure of intellect but a failure of nerve. Above all, she challenges the notion that "math anxiety" is a disability. "Math Anxiety" can be overcome. Her second book, Succeed with Math, tells teachers and students (college age and older) how to approach mathematics and master it without anxiety. Her books and her talks are particularly pertinent to the issue of access for minorities and women. She brings a video tape of a math anxiety session along.

They're not Dumb, They're Different: Stalking the Second Tier, and
Breaking the Science Barrier

They're not Dumb, They're Different: Issues of Inclusiveness in Science and Mathematics Education

In an effort to disentangle the many variables that account for failure and/or unwillingness of large numbers of college students to pursue mathematics and science, Sheila Tobias has engaged otherwise successful outsiders in a series of experiments across disciplinary boundaries. Her findings -- that barriers to learning are the result of "disciplinary cultures" -- puts students' "failure to thrive" in mathematics and science in an entirely new and different light. Her talk includes notes taken by faculty and graduate students from fields other than physical science as they encounter topics and entire courses in introductory chemistry and physics; also a report on how science and engineering faculty respond to the challenges of studying literature in the humanistic tradition - a single experiment conducted in 1989 at Cornell University.

Revitalizing Undergraduate Science: Why Some Things Work and Most Don't

Innovation versus Change: Why Some Things Work and Most Don't

Every wave of mathematics and science education reform obliterates the one before and leaves little lasting change in its wake. Why this is so is the subject of this talk. Sheila Tobias' research suggests that the emphasis on curriculum and pedagogy and the seeking after some "magic bullet" are doomed to fail; that innovators, working alone without adequate "buy-in" from their colleagues do not improve the quality of instruction overall; and that funders misconstrue the true nature of the problem and of the solution.

Free software:

An outgrowth of this study is a computer program called "A Department-Based Audit to Improve the Quality of Undergraduate Instruction in the Sciences" available for downloading. The program comes without support, as is, and without any warrantee.

The Hidden Curriculum: Faculty-Made Tests in Science (With Jacqueline Raphael)

In-Class Examinations in College-Level Science: New Theory, New Practice

Sheila Tobias and her colleague, Jacqueline Raphael, have compiled narrative descriptions of college instructors' efforts to enlarge and alter the in-class examinations they give to science students. The point of the collection is to demonstrate that while faculty may not test what they value, in time students come to value what they test, and that an image of science emerges from traditionally constructed tests that disserves both the "second tier" student and the science major him or herself. Examinations drive student behavior. Efforts to modify curriculum and pedagogy without equivalent attention to modifying testing and grading practices is, the authors think, inadequate.

Rethinking Science as a Career: Perceptions and Realities in the Physical Sciences

The Science-Trained Professional: A New Breed for the New Century

The book from which this talk derives is published by Research Corporation as the third in the series in "neglected issues in science education." In this study of scientists in mid-career and young scientists on the job market, Sheila Tobias and her co-authors, Daryl Chubin and Kevin Aylesworth, propose new training of undergraduate and graduate majors in science, a reconsideration of the master's degree in science, and "restructuring demand" so that young people of talent can expect to have the work they deserve. The book asks and answers the following questions: How will the nation grow the science-trained professionals it needs? How will science professionals get the work they deserve? And, dare we leave these matters to chance?

Faces of Feminism: An Activist's Reflections on the Women's Movement

The Future of Feminism: Lessons from Our Past
Feminism Remembered; Feminism Divided
Why Feminists Wouldn't Abandon Clinton
Women in Science, Women and Science

In her narrative history of the second wave of feminism, Sheila Tobias concludes that the "Movement" with a capital M may be over, but the "movement" of American women into power and into the mainstream is unstoppable. How this came about, the future of feminism, and why feminists were so loathe to abandon President Clinton in 1997-98 are topics she addresses in her talks (1), (2), and (3). In (4), she goes beyond and beneath the statistics and examines the underlying paradigmatic "ideology" of access and advancement of women in science. She suggests that multiple strategies are called for, some of which may appear on the surface to be contradictory. She ends with a discussion of what employers should do and what young women in science can do to counter the dominant paradigm.

Sheila Tobias

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