Several Lessons to Be Learned from the Finnish School System The Internet has been abuzz since the release of “What Makes Finnish Kids So Smart?” by Ellen Gamerman of the Wall Street Journal. In essence, Finland teens are able to deliver the goods on international tests and now American educators have begun researching the Finnish system to see what tidbits they can glean. According to Gamerman, the differences between Finland and American education are enormous. High-school students rarely get more than a half-hour of homework a night in Finland. In other words, Finland educates its children with a model that is virtually the anti-thesis of what we do in America. Different Schools and Different Kids However, though school is different, it should be noted that Finnish youth appear to be very similar to their American counterparts in their teenage behaviors. At the same time, it must be noted that Finland as a country is nothing like America. The people are far more homogeneous in terms of both income and education.
In Defense of Science: An Interview with NCSE’s Eugenie Scott Eugenie Scott, president of the Bay Area Skeptics and executive director of the National Center for Science Education. A physical anthropologist by training, Scott has spent the past three decades defending sound science and the teaching of evolution in schools. (Photo: Liza Gross) A few weeks ago I wrote about what happens when people respond to well-established science with disbelief or mistrust. As I noted, this is an occupational risk for researchers who work on vaccines (and journalists who write about them), which is why I told a cautionary tale about rejecting science in the face of super-bugs. As I considered how to respond, I wondered how science educators might deal with the chasm between scientific facts and public opinion. One of America’s most revered science guardians, Scott has long taught rational thought and “science as a way of knowing” as president of the Bay Area Skeptics and as executive director of the Oakland-based National Center for Science Education. Related
How to Extract DNA from Anything Living First, you need to find something that contains DNA. Since DNA is the blueprint for life, everything living contains DNA. For this experiment, we like to use green split peas. Spinach Chicken liver Strawberries Broccoli Certain sources of DNA should not be used, such as: Your family pet, Fido the dog Your little sister's big toe Bugs you caught in the yard Step 1: Blender Insanity! Put in a blender: 1/2 cup of split peas (100ml) 1/8 teaspoon table salt (less than 1ml) 1 cup cold water (200ml) Blend on high for 15 seconds. The blender separates the pea cells from each other, so you now have a really thin pea-cell soup. Step 2: Soapy Peas Pour your thin pea-cell soup through a strainer into another container (like a measuring cup). Add 2 tablespoons liquid detergent (about 30ml) and swirl to mix. Let the mixture sit for 5-10 minutes. Pour the mixture into test tubes or other small glass containers, each about 1/3 full. Why am I adding detergent? Step 3: Enzyme Power Use meat tenderizer for enzymes.
The Science Creative Quarterly & A DIALOGUE WITH SARAH, AGED 3: IN WHICH IT IS SHOWN THAT IF YOUR DAD IS A CHEMISTRY PROFESSOR, ASKING "WHY" CAN BE DANGEROUS SARAH: Daddy, were you in the shower? DAD: Yes, I was in the shower. SARAH: Why? DAD: I was dirty. DAD: Why does the shower get me clean? SARAH: Yes. DAD: Because the water washes the dirt away when I use soap. DAD: Why do I use soap? DAD: Because the soap grabs the dirt and lets the water wash it off. DAD: Why does the soap grab the dirt? DAD: Because soap is a surfactant. DAD: Why is soap a surfactant? DAD: That is an EXCELLENT question. DAD: Why does soap form micelles? DAD: Soap molecules are long chains with a polar, hydrophilic head and a non-polar, hydrophobic tail. SARAH: Aidrofawwic DAD: And can you say ‘hydrophobic’? DAD: Excellent! DAD: Why does it mean that? DAD: It’s Greek! SARAH: Like a monster? DAD: You mean, like being afraid of a monster? DAD: A scary monster, sure. (pause) SARAH: (rolls her eyes) I thought we were talking about soap. DAD: We are talking about soap. (longish pause) DAD: Why do the molecules have a hydrophilic head and a hydrophobic tail? DAD: That’s complicated.
How to retain 90% of everything you learn Imagine if you had a bucket of water. And every time you attempted to fill the bucket, 90% of the water would leak out instantly. Every time, all you’d retain was a measly 10%. How many times would you keep filling the bucket? The answer is simple: just once. The first time you noticed the leak, you’d take action You’d either fix the bucket or you’d get another bucket, wouldn’t you? Yet that’s not at all the way we learn. That weird thing is that you’re wasting time. To summarize the numbers (which sometimes get cited differently) learners retain approximately: 90% of what they learn when they teach someone else/use immediately. 75% of what they learn when they practice what they learned. 50% of what they learn when engaged in a group discussion. 30% of what they learn when they see a demonstration. 20% of what they learn from audio-visual. 10% of what they learn when they’ve learned from reading. 5% of what they learn when they’ve learned from lecture. 5000bc now has a Waiting List.
Terry Pratchett speaks to Fiona Phillips about living with Alzheimer’s On my way to interview Sir Terry Pratchett I tweeted about our meeting. The responses ranged from: “How amazing! He’s a fabulous writer and totally awe-inspiring person”, to “I hope you find him as well as can be expected” and “You and he are both doing so much for dementia”. And that’s why we were meeting. To discuss his life now that it includes being the highest profile campaigner for Alzheimer’s while actually living with the disease. The Discworld author first said he had it in December 2007, just over a year after I’d lost my mum Amy to early-onset Alzheimer’s. It was a particularly bleak period as we were told that my dad Neville also had it. Until then, I’d felt a bit of a voice in the wilderness, going on about the lack of understanding and good care. Terry’s honesty was a eureka moment for me. But it didn’t seem that way when I introduced myself and went to shake his hand. When he didn’t offer his hand back my heart sank a little. “It surprises me. Daily Mirror Rex
EasyDefine - Define multiple words quickly The Venn Diagram of Irrational Nonsense The curiously revered world of irrational nonsense has seeped into almost every aspect of modern society and is both complex and multifarious. Therefore rather than attempt a comprehensive taxonomy, I have opted instead for a gross oversimplification and a rather pretty Venn Diagram. In my gross over simplification the vast majority of the multitude of evidenced-free beliefs at large in the world can be crudely classified into four basic sets or bollocks. Namely, Religion, Quackery, Pseudoscience and the Paranormal. However as such nonsensical beliefs continue to evolve they become more and more fanciful and eventually creep across the bollock borders. Religious Bollocks ∩ Quackery Bollocks ∩ Pseudoscientific Bollocks ∩ Paranormal Bollocks = Scientology UPDATE 24th March 2013 Many thanks for the retweets and shares. I have also received the first translated copy of the Venn Diagram produced by Pavle Močilac of the Croatian Society for Promotion of Science and Critical Thinking.
Theories of Learning - Learning: Theory and Research Behaviorist teaching methods have proven most successful in areas where there is a “correct” response or easily memorized material. Background View of Knowledge View of Learning View of Motivation Implications for Teaching Background Methodological behaviorism began as a reaction against the introspective psychology that dominated the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The mentalistic problem can be avoided by going directly to the prior physical causes while bypassing intermediate feelings or states of mind. Radical behaviorists such as Skinner also made the ontological claim that facts about mental states are reducible to facts about behavioral dispositions. View of Knowledge Behaviorists such as Watson and Skinner construe knowledge as a repertoire of behaviors. View of Learning From a behaviorist perspective, the transmission of information from teacher to learner is essentially the transmission of the response appropriate to a certain stimulus. Reference
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