Moving ‘quality’ teachers between schools will not help disadvantaged children

You need to keep us interested. EPA

The bi-partisan federal legislation in the US popularly known as “No Child Left Behind” was passed during George W Bush’s first term. It had two important goals: to increase scientifically based education research and to narrow the racial achievement gap. Both goals have proven to be elusive and complicated.

Scientifically based education research has been ignored repeatedly in the US. Instead, many ongoing school reforms continue despite limited evidence from the research base of their efficacy. These include reforms such as the “Common Core standards” (a national curriculum for all public school students), the widespread take-up of charter schools, and increasing support for the alternative (non-certification) teaching programme, Teach for America.

Current education policy has also increased debates about and efforts to address teacher quality. Now, a renewed interest in how teachers are assigned to particular schools appears to be gaining momentum. The US department of education is developing a 50-state strategy to equitably distribute the best teachers around the country.

Autism: Why it’s not “Rain Woman”

Women have fewer cognitive disorders than men do because their bodies are better at ignoring the mutations which cause them

 

AUTISM is a strange condition. Sometimes its symptoms of “social blindness” (an inability to read or comprehend the emotions of others) occur alone. This is dubbed high-functioning autism, or Asperger’s syndrome. Though their fellow men and women may regard them as a bit odd, high-functioning autists are often successful (sometimes very successful) members of society. On other occasions, though, autism manifests as part of a range of cognitive problems. Then, the condition is debilitating. What is common to those on all parts of the so-called autistic spectrum is that they are more often men than women—so much more often that one school of thought suggests autism is an extreme manifestation of what it means, mentally, to be male. Boys are four times more likely to be diagnosed with autism than girls are. For high-functioning autism, the ratio is seven to one.

Why do we cry? The three types of tears

Whether we cry during a sad movie, while chopping onions, or completely involuntarily, our eyes are constantly producing tears. Alex Gendler tracks a particularly watery day in the life of Iris (the iris) as she cycles through basal, reflex and emotional tears.

Lesson by Alex Gendler, animation by The Moving Company Animation Studio.

http://ed.ted.com/lessons/why-do-we-cry-the-three-types-of-tears-alex-gendler 

New strategy needed for deaf children with reading difficulties

Jumbled up in silence. Lyn Lomasi, CC BY-SA

There has been huge investment into research seeking to understand dyslexia in recent years. This has led to the development of tests that can be used to diagnose dyslexia and interventions to help children overcome their reading difficulties.

Research into dyslexia has focused exclusively on children and adults with normal hearing. However, many deaf children at school in the UK also have reading difficulties.

Reading is based on spoken language, which deaf children often struggle to acquire. Problems they have with reading are generally attributed solely to their deafness. Yet given the genetic basis of dyslexia, it is possible that some deaf children will also be dyslexic.

A key challenge when trying to diagnose dyslexia in a deaf child is the lack of suitable tests. There is also little information about typical reading profiles of deaf children. How do you decide if a deaf child has dyslexia if you do not know what is typical for their age group?

What is colour?

Alan Alda recently challenged scientists to explain this simple question to 11-year-olds in less than 300 words. 

 

 What is colour?

 

It’s one of our most common experiences, and we all know it when we see it.

 

 
But what, exactly, is colour? Where does it come from, and why does it appear the way it does? Two things are responsible: light and your perceptions.

Mysteries of Vernacular: Quirky Animations Explore the Meaning of Language

Mysteries of Vernacular is an ongoing video series by NYC-based Myriapod Productions that explores the etymology of individual words through a carefully animated book. According to Myriapod the series will eventually include 26 stories, each of which takes nearly 80 hours to research, construct and animate.

Copying the long Chinese school day could have unintended consequences

Chinese pupils are once again at the top of international education rankings. Recent further in-depth analysis of results from the 2012 Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) tests, have now shown that it’s not just pupils from Shanghai and Beijing coming top of the class. Children from rural areas and disadvantaged environments of China also outperformed peers in other countries.

UK education secretary Liz Truss is leading a visit to China with a group of teachers to observe why. But she should be mindful of copying a system that is being questioned by some Chinese researchers for the stress it puts on children.

Chinese pupils spend more time in school than British children. School days are longer and holidays are shorter. On average, under the current system the length of the secondary school year is 245 days. Chinese pupils get around four weeks off in winter, and seven weeks in summer, including weekends and all kinds of traditional festivals. That’s a total of 175 days off, 37 days fewer than UK pupils.

Getty Launches Virtual Library

 

Getty Publications has introduced a virtual library that will provide free online access to more than 250 backlist titles, available online or as PDF downloads. The library includes titles published by the J. Paul Getty Museum, the Getty Conservation Institute, and the Getty Research Institute, with new titles added on an ongoing basis.

“Last year we made freely available thousands of images of works in our collections that were in the public domain or to which we held all the rights,” said Getty president and CEO James Cuno. “As a next step in our increasing digital engagement, we are now making hundreds of publications—many of which are out of print—freely available to scholars and the interested public around the world.”

How teaching assistants can give a boost to struggling pupils

More maths anyone? David Jones/PA Archive/Press Association Images

Teaching assistants can help children improve literacy and numeracy skills if they work in small groups with specific pupils known to have low attainment levels, new reports indicate.

The findings appear to contradict previous research on teaching assistants, which had suggested that they did little to help struggling children.

Some of the research shows pupils with already low attainment levels, or those eligible from free school meals, are particularly likely to benefit from working with teaching assistants.

The six reports are the first to be published by the Education Endowment Foundation (EEF), a UK charity set up in partnership with the Sutton Trust which has received funding from the department of education. Another 66 studies involving 450,000 children are ongoing at one in ten schools in England.

Is it a wasp or a parasite?

The emerald jewel wasp (Ampulex compressa) is definitely a wasp - as its name suggests - but it lives the first stage of its life as a parasite, growing literally, inside the body of a living cockroach!

Read more: http://phenomena.nationalgeographic.com/2014/02/27/crawling-through-the-brain-without-getting-lost/