Monthly Archive for April, 2011

Announcing Plenary Speaker Vivienne Bozalek for the 2011 Learning Conference

Published on April 30, 2011 in Conference and Newsletter. 0 Comments

We are pleased to welcome Vivienne Bozalek to the 2011 Learning Conference as one of our plenary speakers.

Professor Vivienne Bozalek is the Director of Teaching and Learning at the University of the Western Cape (UWC), South Africa. Prior to this she was Chairperson of the Department of Social Work, University of Western Cape. She holds a PhD from Utrecht University. Her areas of research, publications and expertise include innovative pedagogical approaches in Higher Education, including the use of educational technologies, feminist and participatory research methodologies, critical family studies, and the use of post-structural, social justice and the political ethics of care perspectives to analyse policies and practices. She was a member of the Standards Generating Body for Social Work in South Africa and a member of the Quality Assurance Task Team, which has been involved in capacity building in relation to benchmarking of the Bachelor of Social Work curriculum in South African Higher Education Institutions. She is involved in numerous inter-institutional projects in teaching and learning and has been recognised as one of the academics at UWC and in Social Work education who has pioneered e-pedagogy in the academy. She was a recipient of the Vice Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Teaching and Learning at UWC in 2007. In 2010 she received the Council on Higher Education (CHE) and Higher Education Learning and Teaching Association of Southern Africa (HELTASA) National Excellence in Teaching and Learning Award and the Association of Southern African Social Work Education Institutions (ASASWEI) Distinguished Educator of the Year Award

For more information about our plenary speakers, please visit our website.

New Research Claims Motivation Affects IQ Test Results

Published on April 29, 2011 in News and Newsletter. 0 Comments

From BBC News Health

Intelligence tests are as much a measure of motivation as they are of mental ability, says research from the US.

Researchers from Pennsylvania found that a high IQ score required both high intelligence and high motivation but a low IQ score could be the result of a lack of either factor.

Incentives were also found to increase IQ scores by a noticeable margin.

The study is published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Firstly, it analysed previous studies of how material incentives affected the performance of more than 2,000 people in intelligence tests.

Researchers from the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, found that incentives increased all IQ scores, but particularly for those of individuals with lower baseline IQ scores.

Then the same researchers tested how motivation impacted on the results of IQ tests and also on predictions of intelligence and performance in later life.

To Read More…

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2011 Learning Conference Dinner Announced

Published on April 28, 2011 in Conference and Newsletter. 0 Comments

The 2011 Learning Conference Dinner will be held at Le Mirador on Wednesday, 6 July.

Nestled in the Casela Nature and Leisure Park is Le Mirador. The restaurant is made of carved stone, thatched roofs and is finely decorated. From its location in the middle of the garden, you will be able to enjoy stunning views of the west coast.

Dinner will include light hors d’oeuvres and a multicultural buffet of salads, main courses, dessert, non-alcoholic drinks and beer.  The conference dinner will be $US80.00.

For more information and to sign-up for the dinner please click here.

Valuing Teachers: How Much is a Good Teacher Worth?

Published on April 25, 2011 in News and Newsletter. 0 Comments

By: Eric A. Hanushek, EducationNext

For some time, we have recognized that the academic achievement of schoolchildren in this country threatens, to borrow President Barack Obama’s words, “the U.S.’s role as an engine of scientific discovery” and ultimately its success in the global economy. The low achievement of American students, as reflected in the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) (see “Teaching Math to the Talented,” features, Winter 2011), will prevent them from accessing good, high-paying jobs. And, as demonstrated in another article in Education Next (see “Education and Economic Growth,” research, Spring 2008), lower achievement means slower growth in the economy. From studying the historical relationship, we can estimate that closing just half of the performance gap with Finland, one of the top international performers in terms of student achievement, could add more than $50 trillion to our gross domestic product between 2010 and 2090. By way of comparison, the drop in economic output over the course of the last recession is believed to be less than $3 trillion. Thus the achievement gap between the U.S. and the world’s top-performing countries can be said to be causing the equivalent of a permanent recession.

To Read More…

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How Beliefs Shape Effort and Learning

Published on April 22, 2011 in News and Newsletter. 0 Comments

By: Divya Menon, Association for Psychological Science Press Release

If it was easy to learn, it will be easy to remember. Psychological scientists have maintained that nearly everyone uses this simple rule to assess their own learning.

Now a study published in an upcoming issue Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, suggests otherwise: “Individuals with different theories about the nature of intelligence tend to evaluate their learning in different ways,” says David B. Miele of Columbia University, who conducted the study with Bridgid Finn of Washington University in St. Louis and Daniel C. Molden of Northwestern University.

It has long been known that these theories have important effects on people’s motivation to learn. So-called “entity theorists” believe each person possesses a fixed level of intelligence, and no amount of effort can change it. “As a result, entity theorists tend to disengage when something is challenging. They decide that they’re not really capable of learning it,” says Miele. Meanwhile, “incremental theorists” believe that intelligence is malleable.  “They keep forging ahead when faced with a challenge, believing that more time and effort will yield better results.”

To Read More…