Resources – useful and interesting web links on various education topics.
Technology
reading relevant for technology
http://www.independent.ie/irish-news/education/reading-to-children-more-effective-than-technology-at-boosting-science-skills-35155472.html
for in class note-taking, handwriting superior to laptop and word processor
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/a-learning-secret-don-t-take-notes-with-a-laptop/
a second study on in class note-taking, handwriting vs. laptop
http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0956797614524581
Taking notes on laptops rather than in longhand is increasingly common. Many researchers have suggested that laptop note taking is less effective than longhand note taking for learning. Prior studies have primarily focused on students’ capacity for multitasking and distraction when using laptops. The present research suggests that even when laptops are used solely to take notes, they may still be impairing learning because their use results in shallower processing. In three studies, we found that students who took notes on laptops performed worse on conceptual questions than students who took notes longhand. We show that whereas taking more notes can be beneficial, laptop note takers’ tendency to transcribe lectures verbatim rather than processing information and reframing it in their own words is detrimental to learning.
Literacy & Language
Atlantic Monthly. Nov 2024. “Elite College Students Who Can’t Read Books. To read a book in college, it helps to have read a book in high school.”
https://archive.ph/cvECB
reading and the future https://brightside.me/article/some-brilliantly-insightful-thoughts-on-why-our-future-depends-on-reading-22355/
physical books vs. e-books http://news.sky.com/story/physical-book-sales-rocket-as-digital-dips-10510980
Stanford Mag May/June 2016. “Classroom Disrupted”.
‘fabrication laboratory’, building stuff.
children learn from fantasy stories
https://aeon.co/ideas/why-kids-can-learn-more-from-tales-of-fantasy-than-realism
why children skip:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1689187/
Carnegie Mellu NELL: Never-Ending Language Learning (via duolingo article in Slate)
Schools & Education broadly
alternative schools
[_]
25 Feb 2017 FT. ’Play School” – educational ‘larp’ (live-action role playing) Osterskov Efterskole (Danish boarding school)
the UWC schools
A second renaissance
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/e20b32f4-1e8a-11e6-b286-cddde55ca122.html#ixzz49TbGXW2i
"Digitised renaissance. EdTech may finally be coming of age for three main reasons: product, cost, and accessibility, writes John Thornhill. He meets Xavier Niel, the French internet and telecoms billionaire who founded Ecole 42, a coding school for young adults in Paris in 2013 and is spending a further $100m on a new school in San Francisco.(FT)"
"Ian Goldin, co-author of the Age of Discovery , believes we are entering an era of the mass production of ideas, or a Second Renaissance. Higher education has already exploded in China and India, and the internet will provide near-universal, virtual access to some of the world’s best teachers. By his calculation, the number of people alive today with a degree is greater than the total number of degrees awarded before 1980. “If you believe in the random distribution of talent then we can discover a lot more smart people out there,” he says. It may seem difficult to believe at times, but our planet is growing smarter.
Parenting
treating children with respect
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/quora/my-wife-and-i-never-said_b_11083798.html?
"Both of our sons were treated as if they were adults whose ideas mattered as much as ours from early on."
not parenting, but caring, love (WSJ)
http://www.wsj.com/articles/a-manifesto-against-parenting-1467991745
basic adult skills
French parenting– education not discipline.
http://www.businessinsider.com/french-parenting-tricks-2016-6
Education vs. Discipline: One of the biggest points in Druckerman's original article is that French parents don't discipline, they "educate" them - teaching them to be patient and play alone. In her follow-up article, she elaborates: "When a child interrupts, parents ask her to please wait a minute. And conversely, they try not to interrupt the child. If he's absorbed in something and playing happily, they don't barge in and offer her a snack. Of course the child will try to interrupt again. But her parents keep saying, 'please wait.'"
social media and middle school kids
Liberal Arts and Natural Sciences
critical thinking (WSJ)
philosophy for children
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/answer-sheet/wp/2016/02/03/why-kids-now-more-than-ever-need-to-learn-philosophy-yes-philosophy/
‘sound reasoning, good judgement’ (i.e. like an adult skilled at thinking)
While teaching philosophy to undergraduates at Columbia University in the 1960s, Lipman saw that his students were passionate to change the world but deficient in their ability to reason soundly and exercise good judgment. He also realized that college was a little late in life to learn to think properly, so he created the Philosophy for Children movement, known as P4C.
philosophy makes kids better at math
a critic of liberal arts changes his mind:
http://blogs.wsj.com/experts/2016/06/01/why-i-was-wrong-about-liberal-arts-majors/
the fallacy of math
Mr Romer’s paper decried the pretend “mathiness” of many economists: the use of meaningless number-crunching to give a veneer of academic credibility to near-useless theories.
Mark Cuban on liberal arts & jobs:
http://www.businessinsider.com/mark-cuban-liberal-arts-is-the-future-2017-2
Cuban: No finance. That's the easiest thing — you just take the data have it spit out whatever you need. I personally think there's going to be a greater demand in 10 years for liberal arts majors than there were for programming majors and maybe even engineering, because when the data is all being spit out for you, options are being spit out for you, you need a different perspective in order to have a different view of the data. And so having someone who is more of a freer thinker.
…Cuban highlighted English, philosophy, and foreign language majors as just some of the majors that will do well in the future job market.
Psychology
Encourage children, don’t tell them they are ‘smart’
http://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2015/06/the-s-word/397205/
mindset
conversation for learning
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2016/01/the-new-preschool-is-crushing-kids/419139/
The real focus in the preschool years should be not just on vocabulary and reading, but on talking and listening. We forget how vital spontaneous, unstructured conversation is to young children’s understanding. By talking with adults, and one another, they pick up information. They learn how things work. They solve puzzles that trouble them.
the “Hard Thing" Rule
http://www.businessinsider.com/angela-duckworth-the-hard-thing-rule-2016-5
Danish empathy & "Klassen Time"
teachers and mediation
http://www.businessinsider.com/teachers-mindfulness-helps-students-2016-8
Curriculum Resources
Stanford SHEG – Reading like a historian
https://sheg.stanford.edu/intro-historical-thinking
http://sheg.stanford.edu/world
http://beyondthebubble.stanford.edu/
Bibliography of reading manuals
Adler. How to speak, how to listen.
Adler and van Doren. How to read a book.
Stanley Fish. How to Write a Sentence: And How to Read One
http://www.npr.org/2011/01/25/133214521/stanley-fish-demystifies-how-to-write-a-sentence
(cf. Farnsworth’s Classical English Rhetoric )
Fish. Winning Arguments: What Works and Doesn't Work in Politics, the Bedroom, the Courtroom, and the Classroom
Foster. How to Read Literature Like a Professor
Foster [for kids]. How to Read Literature Like a Professor: For Kids
[old ed] Foster. How to Read Novels Like a Professor
Joseph. The Trivium: The Liberal Arts of Logic, Grammar, and Rhetoric
Strunk & White. The Elements of Style.
Zinsser. On writing well.