Parent Cortical Mass

Week's Best Articles on Learning and Education, for Parents

Here are nine questions for you this week. Are parents being guilted over children’s screen time? 1 Should you let your kid use Snapchat? 2 How can you tell if an app is really educational? 3 How much help do teachers expect parents to provide their kids on school projects? 4 Could you be confused about what a growth mindset really is? 5 Do you know how the “testing effect” works? 6 Does comparing American and Chinese scores on international tests mislead parents? 7 Are you familiar with the new college ranking systems? 8 What are the conventions for greeting people in Spain? Italy? Germany? Austria?... 9 Ok, maybe there's more than nine questions!

Parenting

1 Why Parents Shouldn't Feel Guilt Over Kids' Screen Time - Alexandra Samuel, The Atlantic

2 Why Your Kids Love Snapchat, and Why You Should Let Them - Rachel Simmons, New York Times

Can We Just Talk About Sexting? - Diane Graber, Huffington Post

The Astonishing Amount of Data Being Collected About Your Kids - Haimson & Kiesecker, WP

3 How to Tell If Your Kid's Education App is Actually Educational - Jenny Anderson, Quartz

4 When a Child’s Project Shows a Parental Hand at Work - Jessica Lahey, New York Times

Learning

5 Growth Mindset: Clearing Up Some Common Confusions - Eduardo Briceno, Mind/Shift

6 To Learn, Retrieve - Shane Parrish, Farnam Street

Googling Might Make People Feel Smarter Than They Actually Are - Jesse Singal, Science of Us

A Child's Lifelong Self-Esteem Emerges Earlier Than We Thought - Carolyn Gregoire, HuffPost

Nine Things You Need to Know About the Brain - Global Digital Citizen Foundation

Education

In This Classroom, Knowledge Is Overrated - Liz Stinson, Wired

How To Get Students To Stop Using Their Cellphones In Class - Anaya Kamenetz, nprEd

How Big Is the Ed-Tech Market in the Era of Common Core? - Angela Chen, The Atlantic

7 Chinese and American Education: Compare and Contrast - James Fallows, The Atlantic

Teaching Social and Emotional Learning in Elementary School - Julie Scelfo, New York Times

Stanford Study: We're Sending Children to School Way Too Early - Jenny Anderson, Quartz

Can Colleges Protect Free Speech While Curbing Voices of Hate? - Anderson & Svriuga, WashPost

8 The New Math of College Rankings - Jillian Berman, Wall Street Journal

In Swan Song, Arne Duncan Extols School Progress Under His Tenure - Kate Zernike, NYT

Resources

9 The Definitive Guide to Saying Hello to (Almost) Everyone - Ed M. Wood, Babbel

Best New Math Apps & Games for Kids, Nov 2015 - Balefire Labs

11 TED Talks to Watch with Kids - TED

Leonid Meteor Shower 2015: How to Watch This Year's Show - Lee Moran, Huffington Post Science

Read a few articles each week, and gain parent cortical mass! If you enjoy our weekly article roundup, please email it to a friend, or share on social media. Follow us on Twitter at @ParentCorticalM. Thank you!

Week's Best Articles on Learning and Education, for Parents

The parent movement to “opt out” of excessive standardized tests has been so persuasive it actually won over President Obama this week. He announced that his administration needed a "smarter" testing policy. Just about all the pundits agreed. Still, diverse opinions abound. 1 2 3 5 The President’s announcement came two days before scores on the latest Nation’s Report Card were released. For the first time since the launch of these tests in the 1990s, scores declined. What does this mean? Get some facts, read some opinions. 4 5 6 7 8 You’ve probably heard of "adaptive learning software," but, could you explain it to a neighbor? Read Will Oremus’ primer and get informed. 9 In the eighties, E.D. Hirsch developed the controversial “cultural literacy” list, his codification of common knowledge all American’s should know. This list was an ancestor of the Common Core. Thirty years later an effort to establish a new list is underway, and of course it’s crowdsourced! What 10 items would you include? 10

Parenting

Everything You Need to Know About the New SAT - Eric Hoover, New York Times

'Affirmative Testing' a New Way to Look at Learning Process - Leanna Landsmann, uexpress

How the Internet Has Changed Bullying - Maria Konnikova, The New Yorker

Parents’ Dilemma: What Should My School Do About New Technologies - Yalda Uhls, Larry Cuban's Blog

"How to Raise an Adult," a Q&A with Julie Lythcott-Haims - Patt Morrison, L.A. Times

How to Give Your Child the Gift of Failure - Nico Pitney, Huffington Post

Learning

For Babies, Copy-Cat Games Provide a Social Compass - Susan Pinker, Wall Street Journal

Can You Get Smarter? - Richard A. Friedman, New York Times

8 Brain 'Facts' We All Get Wrong - Kate Horowitz, mental_floss

Best Way to Learn Math Is to Learn How to Fail Productively - Jenny Anderson, Quartz

Education

1 Open Letter to America's Parents and Teachers on Smarter Testing - Pres. Barack Obama, Huff Post

2 Study Says Standardized Testing Is Overwhelming Public Schools - Lyndsey Layton, Washington Post

3 The President's Pledge to Reduce School Tests Is Meaningless - Robert Pondiscio, US News

4 U.S. Student Performance Slips on "Nation's Report Card" - Emma Brown, Washington Post

5 Our National Test Fixation Isn't Just Bad for Kids, It Doesn't Work - Diane Ravitch, Salon

6 Beware the NAEP Overreactions - Matt Barnum, The 74 Million

7 Heartbreak on NAEP - Michael J. Petrilli, Flypaper

8 Why Did NAEP Scores Drop? - Grover J. "Russ" Whitehurst, Brookings

No Child Left Behind: What Worked, What Didn't - Cory Turner, nprEd

9 Adaptive Learning Software Is Replacing Textbooks, & Reshaping US Education - Will Oremus, Slate

Resources

10 What Every American Should Know - whateveryamericanshouldknow.org

Best Illustrated Children's Books of 2015 - The New York Times

A Demo of the Pythagorean Theorem Using Water - Flowing Data

Apps That Actually Help Kids Learn - Annie Murphy Paul, The Brilliant Blog

Read a few articles each week, and gain parent cortical mass! If you enjoy our weekly article roundup, please email it to a friend, or share on social media. Follow us on Twitter at @ParentCorticalM. Thank you!