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Why don't even the brightest students truly grasp simple science concepts? These video programs pick up on the questions asked in the Private Universe documentary and further explore how children learn. Based on recent research, as well as the pioneering work of Piaget and others, Minds of Our Own shows that many of the things we assume about how children learn are simply not true. For educators and parents, these programs bring new insight to debates about education reform. 1. Can We Believe Our Eyes?  Why is it that students can graduate from MIT and Harvard, yet not know how to solve a simple third-grade problem in science: lighting a light bulb with a battery and wire? Beginning with this startling fact, this program systematically explores many of the assumptions that we hold about learning to show that education is based on a series of myths. Through the example of an experienced teacher, the program takes a hard look at why teaching fails, even when he uses all of the traditional tricks of the trade. The program shows how new research, used by teachers committed to finding solutions to problems, is reshaping what goes on in our nation's schools

Alarmed by the tendency of engineering programs to hemorrhage undergraduates, at a time when the White House has called for an additional million degrees in science, technology, engineering and math fields-known as STEM-education researchers here at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science proposed ways to improve the numbers. At a symposium on engineering education, one group outlined a broad revamping of curriculum, while another proposed more modest changes to pedagogy.

The PER User's Guide is a web resource for physics educators to learn how to teach more effectively by applying the results of physics education research (PER) and teaching methods based on these results. Research in the field of PER has made enormous advances in understanding how students learn physics most effectively and in developing teaching methods that apply this understanding to achieve improved student learning. The goal of this site is to provide a synthesis of decades of physics education research in a format that is easy for busy physics instructors to understand and apply.

According to UCLA's Higher Education Research Institute, of all Black, Native American, and Hispanic students who aspire to a STEM degree in their first college year, just 19 percent, 20 percent and 22 percent, respectively graduate from a STEM department.

Who ultimately ends up on top has huge implications for educational technology leaders, who must determine which company is the best fit for their needs, and at a cost their districts can afford in still-difficult budget times. Complicating those decisions are changes in the technological landscape that are raising questions about the long-term educational relevance of interactive whiteboards. Do classrooms really need them in the age of iPads?

Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) today announced the launch of edX, a transformational partnership in online education. Through edX, the two institutions will collaborate to enhance campus-based teaching and learning and build a global community of online learners.

Many of us working in the field of learning technologies take for granted the need for innovation, but it is incumbent on us that we do not push innovation for innovation's sake. Nevertheless, my view is that at least for post-secondary education, we are in desperate need of innovation, and that e-learning and online learning needs to be a major component of changes to the system. In this post I want to discuss why I think that innovation is essential, and why learning technologies need to be a central part of such innovation

Welcome to the world of Diigo, one of the leading Top 10 research tools. Diigo is a cloud based information management system that helps you organize relevant facts you find online. With Diigo you can keep track of those favorite websites and revisit them from any computer at any time. Diigo is a great way to improve your online productivity and is widely used by educators. Educators, worldwide, have enjoyed the use of this social bookmarking site. Diigo is a great web-based tool for teachers to utilize,

They "don't want to ask librarians or tutors in the study center or stuff like that," she says. "It's more the informal networks that they're using."

Review of Literature on Remote and Web-based Science Labs

Almost everyone today has flown in an airplane. Many ask the simple question "what makes an airplane fly?" The answer one frequently gets is misleading and often just plain wrong. As an example, most descriptions of the physics of lift fixate on the shape of the wing (i.e. airfoil) as the key factor in understanding lift. The wings in these descriptions have a bulge on the top so that the air must travel farther over the top than under the wing. Yet we all know that wings fly quite well upside down where the shape of the wing is inverted. To cover for this paradox we sometimes see a description for inverted flight that is different than for normal flight. In reality the shape of the wing has little to do with how lift is generated and everything to do with efficiency in cruise and stall characteristics. Any description that relies on the shape of the wing is wrong.

Why College Students Leave the Engineering Track http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/01/20/why-students-leave-the-engineering-track/ Actually another study of science students asked the students why they were transferring or dropping out of science majors, and the number one reason cited was poor teaching: http://www.science20.com/news_releases/6_researchers_take_science_education "when college students abandon science as a major, 90 percent of them do so because of what they perceive as poor teaching; and, among those who remain in the sciences, 74 percent lament the poor quality of teaching" via http://edtechdev.wordpress.com/2009/08/31/50-examples-of-the-need-to-improve-college-teaching/

Part 1 of edited highlights of a talk given by John Hattie who has led a team at Auckland University, New Zealand which compares the effect on learning of over 100 classroom interventions. This section looks at methods with negative, or very low effect sizes. Hattie points out that most educational debate is about things which do not really work well. See also Part 2 of the lecture: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3pD1DFTNQf4&feature=related

here is a handy guide to some of the most common arguments made against the use of technology in education, and how to counter them

Call it the "learning paradox": the more you struggle and even fail while you're trying to master new information, the better you're likely to recall and apply that information later. The learning paradox is at the heart of "productive failure," a phenomenon identified by Manu Kapur, a researcher at the Learning Sciences Lab at the National Institute of Education of Singapore.

most of those systems do not yet allow instructors to deeply tailor the material to meet their course needs. And highly-interactive systems are often too complex for pioneering professors to adopt and sustain on their own.

Student evaluations and a heavy reliance on them can be problematic for several reasons, the authors of the paper argued. Departments can misinterpret these evaluations by comparing averages for all instructors in similar courses, which can be a very imprecise measure. Moreover, instructors may alter their teaching methods solely to boost their student evaluation scores. The potential problems, according to the paper. Teachers might try to entertain and not educate. "To instructors, generating positive student answers to questions about overall effectiveness and communication skills may smack of entertainment and dumbing down," the paper says. Professors might try to drive out malcontents or otherwise unhappy students before the end-of-semester evaluations. Instructors might avoid attempts at innovation and play it safe in the classroom just to get better evaluations.

Students in academic difficulty who took the "Learning and Motivation Strategies" course in their first quarter at Ohio State were about 45 percent more likely to graduate within six years than similar students who didn't take the class. Average-ability students who took the course were also six times more likely to stay in college for a second year and had higher grade point averages than those who didn't take the class. "We are taking the students who are least likely to succeed in college and teaching them the skills they need to stay in school and graduate," said Bruce Tuckman, a professor of education at Ohio State, and creator of the course.

Academic staff generally perceive students to be more digitally capable than is really the case. A JISC study of 3,500 learners found that while the so-called Google generation have high expectations of digital technology, for example that it will be robust, flexible, responsive to their personal needs, and available anywhere, many learners do not have a clear understanding of how courses could or should use technology to support their learning.

Digital Learning Day is a nationwide celebration of innovative teaching and learning through digital media and technology that engages students and provides them with a rich, personalized educational experience. On Digital Learning Day, a majority of states, hundreds of school districts, thousands of teachers, and more than a million students will encourage the innovative use of technology by trying something new, showcasing success, kicking off project-based learning, or focusing on how digital tools can help improve student outcomes.