Parent Cortical Mass

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

The big news this week is a policy statement from the American Academy of Pediatrics. The story was widely covered by mainstream media, so maybe you've heard. Pediatricians are telling education leaders that the science of learning about sleep and the teen brain is too significant to ignore. Will this impact high school start times across America? 6 7 Several weeks ago Hillary Clinton started an initiative on the “word gap,” one of our top learning concepts. Now Sal Khan, the celebrated founder of Khan Academy, started a campaign to spread the word about growth mindsets. We're thrilled because these initiatives are sure to help parents gain cortical mass! 1 3 5 Learn more this week about PCM topics such as informal learning 2, the 10,000 Hour Rule 4, the common core 8 9, teacher effectiveness 10, and charter schools. 11 12 Parents, it's fall. The question will come up. Please, don’t spread bad science about what causes the leaves to change color. Really. Let's fix this! 13

Parenting

1 The Learning Myth: Why I'll Never Tell My Son He's Smart - Sal Khan, Khan Academy

2 Informal Ed: What Students Are Learning Outside the Classroom - Annie Murphy Paul, Hechinger Rpt

Kids and Screen Time: What Does the Research Say? - Juana Summers, NPR Ed

What Are Schools Doing with Your Kids' Data? - Dan Tynan, Yahoo! Tech

5 Ways to Help Your Kids Have a Great School Yr (Hint: Don't Help) - Adrienne Wichard-Edds, WP

Don't Just Pay for Chores, Pay for Performance - Ron Lieber, Motherlode, NYT

Taking on the Myth of the Spoiled Child - Jill Suttie, Greater Good Science Center

Learning

Your IQ Isn't Constant: It Changes Over Time - Bryan Roche, Quartz

3 Pretending to Understand What Babies Say Can Make Them Smarter - Cari Romm, The Atlantic

Toddlers Are Really Good at Probability - Adam Epstein, Quartz

4 The 10,000 Hour Rule is Not Real - Rachel Nuwer, Smithsonian

How a Bigger Purpose Can Motivate Students to Learn - Ingfei Chen, Mind/Shift

5 You Can Learn Anything [Videos] - Khan Academy

Uncram: 'How We Learn' by Benedict Carey - Dan Hurley, New York Times

Education

6 The Case for Letting High School Students Sleep In - Libby Nelson, Vox

7 Report from American Academy of Pediatrics: School Starts Too Early - Jessica Lahey, The Atlantic

8 Buyer's Remorse on Common Core for Policymakers? - K. Hefling & J. Carr Smyth, Real Clear Politics

9 A Tale of Two Polls - Cory Turner, NPR Ed

Making Sense of the Ed Reform Backlash - Michael Petrilli, Flypaper

10 Education is Not 'Moneyball': Why Teachers Can't Trust Value-Add Yet - William Eger, EdWeek

11 What Charter Schools Are Getting Right - Conor P. Williams, The Daily Beast

Resources

Who Stole the Cookie? A Quick Game of Deduction - Jonathan Liu, GeekDad

8 Great Games That Will Make Your Kids Smarter - Dan Tynan, Yahoo! Tech

Back-to-School Game Playlists, by Subject, by Grade - PowerMyLearning

12 America's Top High Schools 2014 - The Daily Beast

How to Criticize with Kindness: 4 Steps to Arguing Intelligently - Maria Popova, Brain Pickings

40 Maps that Explain the Internet - Timothy B. Lee, Vox

13 The Cool Summer is Not Causing Early Fall Colors - Angela Fritz, Washington Post

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. Thank you!

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

It’s midsummer. Doesn’t it feel like a time for family game nights? Check out Jessica Lahey’s article describing 5 fun games and the cognitive benefits of this informal learning time. ● Annoyed by the 10,000 Hour Rule? Good news. Maybe talent is more important than practice. Bothered by that? No worries. In a few years we'll see further research. Knowledge advances in refining increments! ● Have you wondered how the switch from print to digital media affects reading comprehension? Read Maria Konnikova’s well-written article on the topic. ● In education this week public discussion over teacher tenure turned bizarre. Dozens of articles covering Diane Ravitch’s unflattering comments about Campbell Brown circulated. But none of that is below. Too mindless for us, right? Instead, check out Daniel Willingham’s level-headed take on K-12 tenure. ● Meredith Broussard’s story about standardized tests is straight from a parent's point of view. Then, she makes helpful connections to education policy. Don’t miss it. ● Have you heard of the toy whisperer? She’s a huge hit on YouTube!

Parenting

How Family Game Night Makes Kids Into Better Students - Jessica Lahey, The Atlantic

How Becoming a Father Changes Your Brain - Christian Jarrett, Wired

New Dads Want Paid Leave to be Caregivers - Brigid Schulte, Washington Post

When Work Becomes a Haven From Stress At Home - Shankar Vedantam, NPR

Why We Should All Take a Nap in the Afternoon - John Medina, Brain Rules

Didn't Read Facebook's Fine Print? Here's Exactly What It Says - Amanda Scherker, Huff Post

OMG! Texting Doesn't Hurt Kids' Grammar or Spelling Skills - Joseph Stromberg, Vox

Learning

Humans Already Use WAY More Than 10% of Their Brains - Sam McDougle, The Atlantic

How Tests Make Us Smarter - Henry L. Roediger III, New York Times

Students Benefit from Learning That Intelligence Is Not Fixed - Ingfei Chen, Mind/Shift

What's Going On In There? How Babies' Brains Practice Speech - Nicholas St. Fleur, NPR

How Do You Get to Carnegie Hall? Talent - Benedict Carey, New York Times

The Neuroscience Behind Stress and Learning - Judy Willis, MD, edutopia

Being a Better Online Reader - Maria Konnikova, The New Yorker

Education

2 Years Isn't Enough: What K-12 Can Learn from Higher Ed on Tenure - Daniel Willingham, RCE

Higher Calling: To Improve Schools Make it Harder to Become a Teacher - Amanda Ripley, Slate

Five Inconvenient Truths for Reformers - Jal Mehta, Education Week

Five Inconvenient Truths for Traditionalists - Jal Mehta, Education Week

Sweden's School Choice Disaster - Ray Fisman, Slate

Charter School Battle Erodes Middle Ground - Joan Vennochi, Boston Globe

A Basic Flaw in the Argument Against Affirmative Action - Linda Darling-Hammond, Washington Post

Why Poor Schools Can't Win at Standardized Testing - Meredith Broussard, The Atlantic

The Case Against Exit Exams - Anne Hyslop, New America Foundation

Teaching 4-Year-Olds To Feel Better - Anya Kamenetz, npr_Ed

Resources

YouTube’s Biggest Star Is An Unknown Toy-Reviewing Toddler Whisperer - H. Reinsberg, BuzzFeed

12 Dozen Places To Educate Yourself Online For Free - The Mind Unleashed

This Software Guy Accidentally Designed an App That's Saving My Dyslexic Son - Jenn Choi, Quartz

Pack Your Bags for Summer Coding Camp - Charley Locke, edSurge

14 Facts That Help Explain America's Child-Migrant Crisis - Dara Lind, Vox

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. Thank you!

Week's Top Articles on Learning & Education, for Parents

School’s out! With the start of summer, parents are now in charge of all that informal learning time. Several articles below provide science-backed guidance--all about play, fun, and executive function. (To quote Dr. Seuss, “These things are fun, and fun is good.”) ● You’ve heard of the word gap. This week we have more on the topic. It's called “dad talk” and it’s worth knowing. ● What have the world’s smartest countries determined is the most efficient education reform? Amanda Ripley, author of best-seller The Smartest Kids in the World, answers the question. Teacher effectiveness improves, she explains, with more selective teacher education programs. ● If you’ve read the headlines about kids learning to code, but have yet to dive deeper, click on Tasneem Raja’s “Is Coding the New Literacy?” You don’t want to not know this stuff. ● In the past week have you heard or said, “Whoa, how do they bend the soccer ball like that!!?” Time to talk physics!

Parenting

4 Ways to Plan a Mind-Restoring Vacation - Victoria Stern, Scientific American

Let Kids Take Risks When They Play - Peter Gray, Boston Globe

Chart: American Dads Are Stepping Up - Matthew Yglesias, Vox

Birth Order and Success: Implications for Parenting - Richard Rende, Red Hot Parenting

Chart: Media Habits of the Class of 2014 - Niche

Parents: Learn About Mobile Safety, Privacy & Security From Your Kids - L. Magid, ConnectSafely

Looking at Link Between Violent Video Games and Lack of Empathy - Nick Bilton, New York Times

Learning

Why Free Play is the Best Summer School - Jessica Lahey, The Atlantic

How Background TV Impacts Toddler's Language Development - Robert Preidt, HealthDay

What Fathers Can Teach Us About Talking to Babies - Gwen Dewar, PhD, BabyCenter

Why Crawling Matters...A Lot - Richard Rende, Red Hot Parenting

7 Memory Skills that Will Make You Smarter - Drake Baer, Business Insider

Neuroscientists Say handwriting is Good for You - Gabriella Munoz, Science Alert

Education

To Improve Our Schools, Make It Harder to Become a Teacher - Amanda Ripley, Slate

How Teacher Prep Programs Are Failing New Teachers--And Your Kids - Joy Resmovits, Huff Post

There is No War on Teachers - Eric A. Hanushek, Education Next

The Overworked Bachelor's Degree Needs a Makeover - Jeffrey Selingo, The Chronicle

Early Vocabulary Development and the Common Core - Conor Williams, EdCentral

Is Coding the New Literacy? - Tasneem Raja, Mother Jones

Digital Games and the Future of Math Class - Jordan Shapiro, Mind/Shift

Creating Our Most Compliant Generation of Workers Yet - Jeffrey Benson, TeachThought

Are Schools Putting Your Child's Information at Risk? - Sienna Kossman, Fox Business

Resources

Explained: How Does a Soccer Ball Swerve? - Peter Dizikes, MIT News

Summer Solstice: Longest Day and Shortest Night of the Year - Justin Grieser, Washington Post

A Beginner's Guide to Photographing Flowers - Lindsay Rothfeld, Mashable

% of Bachelor's Degrees Conferred to Women, by Major (1970-2012) - Randal S. Olson, randalolsen.com

Cool Kids' Video Game Trends from E3 2014 - Jeff Haynes, Common Sense Media

5 Virtual Summer Camps for Kids - Melissa Taylor, Imagination Soup

10 Game Playlists for Exploring Future Careers - PowerMyLearning

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. Thank you!