It's likely you've heard about MOOCS this year, but, to get your mind around their consequence, read the intriguing story by Amanda Ripley. The story takes place in Pakistan the night the government shut down the internet to squelch the spread of riots, and how that action affected a brilliant 11 year old Pakistani girl taking her final exam in an online physics class. Yong Zhao, professor at University of Oregon, holds a non-standard position about America’s mediocre scores on international standardized tests. He worries more about first-ranked China. It’s intriguing why. This year a debate about national parenting styles caused America an intriguing confrontation with our often-mocked helicopter style.
For decades America has worked hard to close the racial and minority achievement gap. What’s intriguing is that while the black/white gap closed significantly, the gap between rich and poor grew considerably. Responding to cuts in education spending, the article by Sam Chaltain, “Other People’s Children,” was intriguing for its courage. When the Los Angeles Times and New York Times published teacher evaluation rankings, corporate reform leaders, including Sec. Arne Duncan, spoke out in support, while teachers gasped in shock. But, intriguingly, in an influential op-ed in the NYT, Bill Gates opposed making teacher scores public. It might have ended the debate. We get excited when we hear our memory has surprising capacity. That’s why the research mentioned in the memory article is so intriguing.
College is Dead. Long Live College!
By Amanda Ripley, Time, 10/18/12
"On Sept. 17, the Pakistani government shut down access to YouTube...to block the anti-Muslim film trailer that was inciting protests around the world. One little-noticed consequence of this decision was that 215 people in Pakistan suddenly lost their seats in a massive, open online physics course, including Khadijah Niazi, a pigtailed 11-year-old in Lahore." [An intriguing story to acquaint you with MOOCs, the biggest EdTech trend of 2012.]
Test Scores vs. Entrepreneurship, PISA & Confidence
By Yong Zhao, ZhaoLearning, 6/6/12
"Basically it seems that countries that produce better math scores have students who are less confident in their math ability. They also enjoy math less." [Yong Zhao says the most intriguing things about education and global competitiveness.]
Why French Parents Are Superior
By Pamela Druckerman, Wall Street Journal, 2/4/12
"Driven partly by maternal desperation, I have spent the last several years investigating French parenting. And now...I can tell you this: The French aren't perfect, but they have some parenting secrets that really do work." [An intriguing comparison of national parenting styles.]
By Madeline Levine, New York Times, 8/4/12
"Phrases like “tiger mom” and “helicopter parent” have made their way into everyday language. But does overparenting hurt, or help? Is there really anything wrong with a kind of “overparenting lite”?" [A NYT op-ed on parenting styles that produced an intriguing buzz.]
Education Gap Grows Between Rich and Poor
By Sabrina Tavernise, New York Times, 2/9/12
"Sean F. Reardon, a Stanford University sociologist, found that the gap in standardized test scores between affluent and low-income students had grown by about 40 percent since the 1960s, and is now double the testing gap between blacks and whites. One reason for the growing gap in achievement, researchers say, could be that wealthy parents invest more time and money than ever before in their children..." [An intriguing shift from a racial to a socio-economic achievement gap.]
By Sam Chaltain, Democracy Learning Voice, 1/22/12
"Indeed, public education is our surest form of “national security.” ...And yet the reality is we continue to tolerate a system in which your zip code determines your access to the American Dream, and in which communities refuse to fund their schools because “their” children no longer go there." [Caring about other people's children...intriguing.]
The Real Problem with Helicopter Parents: There Aren't Enough of Them
By Brink Lindsey, The Atlantic, 10/11/12
"Well-educated parents of means these days do have their own distinctive way of messing things up. And so it's entirely appropriate for those of us in this group to mock...ourselves into lightening up a bit. Yet when we extend our gaze beyond the relatively narrow confines of college-educated parents and their college-bound kids, things look very different." [An intriguing look into overparenting that exposes the "thorniest problems in American society today."]
Parent Hacks Quadcopter Drone to Follow His Son to School Bus Stop
By Ben Kersey, The Verge, 12/1/12
"Most parents opt for a low-tech way to walk their children to the bus stop every morning, but Paul Wallich instead built a drone that would follow his son on the 400 meter journey. Now he's raised the bar in the world of parental supervision" [Intriguing DIY solution to a common parent problem.]
For Teachers, Shame is Not the Solution
By Bill Gates, New York Times, 2/22/12
"Last week, the New York State Court of Appeals ruled that teachers’ individual performance assessments could be made public. I have no opinion on the ruling as a matter of law, but as a harbinger of education policy in the United States, it is a big mistake." [How intriguing that Bill Gates opposed making teacher evaluations public.]
Why Is Memory So Good and So Bad?
By Julian De Freitas, Scientific American, 5/29/12
"Researchers at MIT and Harvard found that, if a memory can survive long enough to make it into what is called “visual long-term memory,” then it doesn’t have to be wiped out at all. Talia Konkle and colleagues showed participants a stream of 3,000 images of different scenes, such as ocean waves, golf courses or amusement parks. Then, participants were shown 200 pairs of images—an old one they had seen in the first task, and a completely new one—and asked to indicate which was the old one. They performed almost perfectly." [Wow, intriguing.]
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