Khan Academy and the Effectiveness of Science Videos

Study suggests giving kids too many toys stifles their creativity (Medical Xpress)—A team of researchers at the University of Toledo in the U.S. has found that children are more creative when they have fewer toys to play with at one time. In their paper published in the journal Infant Behavior and Development, the group describes their observational study of toddlers at play, what they learned and offer some suggestions for parents. Parents have long been subject to the opinions of others, some of which include judgments regarding the number of toys they should provide for their children. Through Course Task (TCT) - Kentucky Department of Education 2018-2019 Through Course Task (TCT) Expectations Over the past two years, each district was requested to submit samples of student work for through course tasks (TCTs). These submissions were used to create annotated student work samples to support teacher learning regarding grade band expectations for the cross-cutting concepts and science and engineering practices. Due to the high number of work samples submitted, the Kentucky Department of Education (KDE) will shift its focus from that of collection to curation and support.

Jessica Lahey’s ‘The Gift of Failure’: A Fear of Risk-Taking Has Destroyed Kids’ Love of Learning I’ve known the mother sitting in front of me at this parent-teacher conference for years, and we have been through a lot together. I have taught three of her children, and I like to think we’ve even become friends during our time together. She’s a conscientious mother who obviously loves her children with all of her heart. I’ve always been honest with her about their strengths and weaknesses, and I think she trusts me to tell her the truth. But when she hits me with the concern that’s been bothering her for a while, all I can do is nod, and stall for time.

Integrating Science and Engineering Practices into Assessments The new vision for science education articulated in the Next Generation Science Standards guides students toward a “three dimensional” understanding of science—one that integrates disciplinary core ideas, crosscutting concepts, and real-world practices from science and engineering. With this new three-dimensional model for learning, students will need new assessments to demonstrate their knowledge and competencies, ones that integrate multiple strands of student abilities. Developing assessments that combine these multiple strands presents new challenges for educators, from developing informal classroom formative assessments to those creating high-stakes state-level testing. This tool offers between four and eight possible task formats for each of the science and engineering practices listed in the Next Generation Science Standards. It can be a great way for educators to brainstorm new activities or to adapt their existing lesson plans to this new three-dimensional vision.

What not to do when your kid tells a lie At the ripe old age of 3, my older daughter has begun flirting with falsehoods. So far, the few lies she has told have been comically bad and easy to spot. Her dad and I usually laugh at them with an amused, “Oh, yeah?” But now that I’ve stopped to consider, that strategy seems flawed. While reporting a story on adult lying, I had the pleasure of talking with developmental psychologist Victoria Talwar of McGill University, who studies lying in children. I told her about an episode last week, in which I watched my older daughter swat my younger one. 5 Tips for Blending The Question Formulation Technique (QFT) with NGSS Have you ever interviewed a group of your students about their experiences in your classroom? It is amazing how much you can learn from your students’ perspectives, especially when you are experimenting with new methods. Last June, a visit from the Right Question Institute prompted me to meet with a group of my students and ask them about how the Question Formulation Technique (QFT) process impacted their learning in my science class. As I am relatively new to implementing the NGSS (Next Generation Science Standards), I was curious (and even a little anxious) to hear what they would say about how I had combined the QFT with the new standards. I was blown away.

Study Finds Montessori Schools Level the Playing Field for Disadvantaged Kids Researchers and educators have identified early childhood as one of the most important developmental periods in a person’s life, setting in place patterns that can predict life outcomes. This is not surprising given the fact that the human brain goes through profound changes in the first six years, most of which appear to be permanent. In addition, economic analyses have shown that educational interventions aimed at preschool programs have the highest return on investment. Eliciting students’ ideas Eliciting students’ ideas Why do we use these particular practices? Our main objective as science teachers is to change students’ thinking over time, so we need to know what our students understand about the target science ideas in the first place. This set of practices—eliciting students’ ideas—is used at the beginning of a unit of instruction. It is designed to 1) reveal the range of resources that students use to reason about a set of science ideas (working theories, everyday experiences, language), 2) activate their prior knowledge about the topic, and 3) help you to adapt upcoming instruction, based on how students reason about the anchoring event. Please note that this set of practices is about more than “hooking” students or temporarily capturing their interest.

12 "myths" about education in Finland debunked The success of public schooling in Finland has been a huge topic of discussion in the education community over the past year. I’ve read a few good articles about it, including Why Are Finland’s Schools So Successful?, and was impressed with what I learned. So when the image to the left started circulating on social media, I shared it along with a link to 26 Amazing Facts About Education in Finland. The image and the article weren’t in total agreement about the state of Finnish education, and neither were commenters on Facebook.

Real World Problems Can Spark STEM Lessons A MiddleWeb Blog Authentic STEM focuses on problem-solving, and the best STEM lessons address some aspect of a real-world challenge that engineers and scientists might address. So STEM teachers often face a recurring problem when designing lessons for their classroom or school lab: Just how do you DO that? How do you build a STEM lesson around a real-world challenge? That’s not always an easy thing to figure out.

bigthink It’s a well-known fact that the United States is incarcerating more people than any other country in the world - and the prison system has been widely criticized for its inhumane practices, inefficiency, and high recidivism rates. Unsurprisingly, part of the solution lies in education. Studies have shown that inmates who take part in educational programs in prison are 47 percent less likely to reoffend. But some say philosophy, in particular, can benefit prisoners in ways that other subjects can’t.

Will new standards improve elementary science education? The Hechinger Report is a national nonprofit newsroom that reports on one topic: education. Sign up for our weekly newsletters to get stories like this delivered directly to your inbox. This story about kindergarten science instructionn is part of a series about innovative practices in the core subjects in the early grades. Read about math, reading and social studies. REDMOND, Ore. – Science could be considered the perfect elementary school subject. This School in Levelfield Is Changing the Concept of Education Love reading positive news? Help The Better India grow Support our endeavor to become every Indian's source of daily inspiring positive news.