Skip to main content

Home/ Cognitive Interfund Transfer/ Group items tagged science

Rss Feed Group items tagged

Bradford Saron

Computer Science for Non-Majors Takes Many Forms - NYTimes.com - 2 views

  • “To reading, writing and arithmetic, we should add computational thinking to every child’s analytical ability.”
  • “ ‘Literacy’ implies reading and writing, so ‘computer literacy’ suggests that writing programs is a required skill for activity under this name,” says Henry M. Walker, a computer science professor at Grinnell. “However, general citizens may or may not have to write programs to function effectively in this technological age.” He prefers to promote “computer fluency,” attainable without assignments in programming.
  • Someday, the understanding of computational processes may be indispensable for people in all occupations. But it’s not yet clear when we’ll cross that bridge from nice-to-know to must-know.
  •  
    Here we see coding added to the literacies that we should all be able to exert as adults. Again, I sense a theme here. HT-@wiscprincipal
Robert Slane

Poll Finds Support For Use Of Technology | LEAD Commission - 0 views

  • poll results today that found that the majority of parents and teachers of K-12 students support greater use of technology in education
  • the poll found that these audiences increasingly believe that school systems should be doing more to improve access to technology in education.
  • 89 percent of teachers and 76 percent of parents would choose to spend $200 per student for an Internet-connected device over $200 per student for new science textbooks
  •  
    "... poll found that these audiences increasingly believe that school systems should be doing more to improve access to technology in education. "89 percent of teachers and 76 percent of parents would choose to spend $200 per student for an Internet-connected device over $200 per student for new science textbooks
Dave Laehn

Unsexy Reforms That Stick and Work (Mike Smith)* | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Cla... - 0 views

  •  
    Good article that speaks to reforms that work in education comparing Massachusetts and Minnesota with top performing Asian countries in math and science
Bradford Saron

The Hard Science of Teamwork - Alex "Sandy" Pentland - Harvard Business Review - 1 views

  • Our data show that great teams: Communicate frequently. In a typical project team a dozen or so communication exchanges per working hour may turn out to be optimum; but more or less than that and team performance can decline.Talk and listen in equal measure, equally among members. Lower performing teams have dominant members, teams within teams, and members who talk or listen but don't do both. Engage in frequent informal communication. The best teams spend about half their time communicating outside of formal meetings or as "asides" during team meetings, and increasing opportunities for informal communication tends to increase team performance.Explore for ideas and information outside the group. The best teams periodically connect with many different outside sources and bring what they learn back to the team.
  •  
    Great article on Teamwork, and the internal dynamics of human interaction (or lack there of). 
Robert Slane

IGES Earth Day Photo Contest - Grades 5-8 (Entries Due May 11) | NASA Earth & Space Sci... - 0 views

  •  
    This is a test to see how this "bookmarking" works. 
Bradford Saron

Why We Need a 4th R: Reading, wRiting, aRithmetic, algoRithms | DMLcentral - 0 views

  •  
    Another push for programming to be recognized as a educational discipline like English, math, science, and social studies. 
Robert Slane

Understanding student weaknesses | Harvard Gazette - 1 views

  • If teachers are to help students change their incorrect beliefs, they first need to know what those are.
  • Knowledge of student misconceptions is a critical tool for science teachers. It can help teachers to decide which demonstration to do in class, and to start the lesson by asking students to predict what’s going to happen. If a teacher doesn’t have this special kind of knowledge, though, it’s nearly impossible to change students’ ideas.
Bradford Saron

Using Technology to Support Real Learning - 0 views

  • pedagogical practices and the curriculum may need to change in order to prepare students to participate meaningfully in the knowledge-based and globally interconnected world of the 21st century.
  • focus less on teaching and more on learning
  • transformative strategies include teaching less and encouraging students to learn by undertaking projects, doing away with textbooks, and replacing the entire curriculum (math, science, social studies and language arts) for a particular grade wtih a set of technology-based activities designed to ensure the same learning outcomes.
  • ...2 more annotations...
  • Knowledge is a process, not a product and it is not produced in the minds of individuals but in the interactions between people
  • We need less emphasis on content and assessment and more on real learning and the creation of genuinely new knowledge
  •  
    Scott McLeod notes that this article is a "must read."
ron saari

How To Explain the Michelle Rhee Syndrome: The Big Picture | Larry Cuban on School Refo... - 1 views

  • Historically, when the nation has a cold, schools sneeze. Examples are legion. When the Soviet Union launched the satellite Sputnik in 1957, President Eisenhower signed the National Defense Education Act (1958) aimed at getting better math and science teachers National problems of drug and alcohol abuse and tobacco smoking has led to states mandating courses to teach children and youth about the dangers of all of these substances. The Civil Rights movement in the 1950′s and 1960s’s spilled over the schools across the nation. Christian groups have pressured school boards to have prayer in schools, teach creationism, and vouchers (Educational Policy-2004-Lugg-169-87). The U.S. has competed economically with European and Asian countries for markets in the 1890s and since the 1980s. Each time that has occurred, business leaders turned to the schools to produce skilled graduates then for industrial jobs and now for an information-based economy.
  • This vulnerability to political stakeholders is very clear now with business and civic leaders pushing schools to be more efficient and effective in competing with China, Japan, and Germany.
  • In big cities where the problem of bad schooling is worst, results-driven reformers want mayors to take over schools and appoint their own superintendents, individuals who will accept no excuses from teachers and principals, will fight union rules, raise test scores, and create more charter schools.
  • ...3 more annotations...
  • In American culture there is a decided historical preference for individual action, technological fixes (“miracle cures,” “silver bullets”) to problems, and heroic leaders.  And here at the intersection of cultural traits and a dominant business-driven school reform agenda stretching back over a quarter-century is where Michelle Rhee, Joel Klein, Paul Vallas, Arne Duncan, Geoffrey Canada, and similar figures enter the Big Picture.
  • The current business-dominated reform agenda is harnessed to heroic, media-wise individuals carrying tool-kits filled with charter schools, union-busting devices, and pay-4-performance schemes. This agenda and bigger-than-life individuals place major attention on  ineffective teachers as the major reason for poor student performance in schools.
  • Yes, the conflating of urban schools with all U.S. schools is as damaging a fiction as schools being responsible for economic growth and heroic leaders saving urban schools. No one says such things about schools and teachers in LaJolla (CA), Northbrook (IL), and Massepequa (NY). 
  •  
    I don't always agree with Cuban on his views of tech integration, but he has a wonderful way of explaining the "big picture" which helps us understand what's happening better. 
  •  
    interesting article about school reformers
1 - 10 of 10
Showing 20 items per page