Monthly Archive for October, 2011

Keys To Finnish Educational Success: Intensive Teacher-Training, Union Collaboration

Published on October 28, 2011 in News and Newsletter. 0 Comments

By Justin Snider, Huffington Post

On March 16, I sat down with Finland’s Minister of Education, Ms. Henna Virkkunen, for a discussion of the Finnish educational system — and what lessons it might hold for the U.S. educational system.

The following interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.

The Hechinger Report: It’s well-known that Finland’s teachers are an elite bunch, with only top students offered the chance to become teachers. It’s also no secret that they are well-trained. But take us inside that training for a moment — what does it look like, specifically? How does teacher training in Finland differ from teacher training in other countries?

Virkkunen:It’s a difficult question. Our teachers are really good. One of the main reasons they are so good is because the teaching profession is one of the most famous careers in Finland, so young people want to become teachers. In Finland, we think that teachers are key for the future and it’s a very important profession — and that’s why all of the young, talented people want to become teachers. All of the teacher-training is run by universities in Finland and all students do a five-year master’s degree. Because they are studying at the university, teacher education is research-based. Students have a lot of supervised teacher-training during their studies. We have something called “training schools” — normally next to universities — where the student teaches and gets feedback from a trained supervisor.

To Read More…

Image: Paul Gooddy

Call for Book Reviewers

Published on October 28, 2011 in Book and Newsletter. 0 Comments Tags: .

Common Ground Publishing is seeking distinguished peer reviewers to evaluate book manuscripts submitted to The Learner Book Series.

As part of our commitment to intellectual excellence and a rigorous review process, Common Ground sends book manuscripts that have received initial editorial approval to peer reviewers to further evaluate and provide constructive feedback. The comments and guidance that these reviewers supply is invaluable to our authors and an essential part of the publication process.

Common Ground recognizes the important role of referees by acknowledging book reviewers as members of The Learner Book Series Editorial Review Board for a period of at least one year. The list of members of the Editorial Review Board will be posted on our website. In addition, Common Ground also offers a US$200 voucher for each completed review which meets the standards set out by the Commissioning Editor at the commencement of assignment. Vouchers may be used in the Common Ground Bookstore or for registration at one of our international conferences.

If you would like to referee book manuscripts submitted to The Learner  please email:

  1. a brief description of your professional credentials
  2. a list of your areas of interest and expertise
  3. a copy of your CV with current contact details

If we feel you are qualified and we require refereeing for manuscripts within your purview, we will contact you.

Learning Journal, Volume 18, Issue 2 available

Published on October 27, 2011 in Journal and Newsletter. 0 Comments

learning_frontThe second issue of Volume 18 of The International Journal of Learning has now been published.

Volume 18, Issue 2 contains:

Continue reading ‘Learning Journal, Volume 18, Issue 2 available’

Robo-Truant Tech and Other Apps to Fix Education

Published on October 24, 2011 in News. 0 Comments

By Jonathan Alter, Bloomberg.com

The education reform movement is at an important juncture. It will either peter out in platitudes or advance based on a new consensus. At this week’s Education Nation conference in New York City, I came away with some hope for the latter. My cautious optimism is rooted in two Ts — technology and transparency.

In the pitched battles between reformers and traditionalists, I’ve been passionately on the side of the reformers for almost 20 years. With the help of the last four presidents, they’ve made progress against the education establishment in pushing for accountability, common standards, charter schools, merit pay and rigorous teacher evaluation.

But traditionalists in the unions and the business-as-usual bureaucracy have recently been successful in depicting reformers as teacher-bashers (not guilty) and as overreliant on test scores in reading and math at the expense of other subjects (guilty).

To Read More…

Illustration by Andy Rementer, via Bloomberg.com

‘American Teacher’ Takes a Look Inside the Teaching Profession

Published on October 19, 2011 in News and Newsletter. 0 Comments

Nínive Calegari, Huffington Post

This piece comes to us courtesy of Education Nation’s The Learning Curve blog. Nínive Calegari, producer of documentary “American Teacher,” writes. The film opens in theaters in New York City and Los Angeles Sept. 30 and in San Francisco Oct. 7.

After receiving my Master’s in Education and my teaching credentials, I taught in three different settings: a large urban public school, a large suburban public school, and a tiny public charter school – San Francisco’s first.

There were huge differences in these settings in terms of resources: I was laid off from my first job due to budget cuts and our union’s “last in, first out” requirement; the second school was in a wealthy suburb with plenty of resources and meaningful professional training; and the charter school didn’t even have a building until a few weeks before the start of the year.

What the three schools had in common, however, were superb faculties. I marveled at the teachers at those schools. How David Sondheim knew the souls of every kid in the halls of Drake High. The way Jonathan Dearman brought an entire music department to our under-supplied charter school. The eye-popping science experiments that Sarah Kerley designed on a limited budget and with scrappy materials. I could go on and on.

To Read More…

 

 

Why Is Average IQ Higher in Some Places?

Published on October 14, 2011 in News and Newsletter. 0 Comments

By Christopher Eppig, Scientific American

Being smart is the most expensive thing we do. Not in terms of money, but in a currency that is vital to all living things: energy.  One study found that newborn humans spend close to 90 percent of their calories on building and running their brains. (Even as adults, our brains consume as much as a quarter of our energy.) If, during childhood, when the brain is being built, some unexpected energy cost comes along, the brain will suffer. Infectious disease is a factor that may rob large amounts of energy away from a developing brain. This was our hypothesis, anyway, when my colleagues, Corey Fincher and Randy Thornhill, and I published a paper on the global diversity of human intelligence.

A great deal of research has shown that average IQ varies around the world, both  across nations and within them. The cause of this variation has been of great interest to scientists for many years. At the heart of this debate is whether these differences are due to genetics, environment or both.

Higher IQ predicts a wide range of important factors, including better grades in school, a higher level of education, better health, better job performance, higher wages,  and reduced risk of obesity. So having a better understanding of variations in intelligence might yield a greater understanding of these other issues as well.

To Read More…

Image: iStock/Nathan Watkins (via Scientific American)

Discursivity, International Students and Representation

Published on October 13, 2011 in Book and Newsletter. 0 Comments

Discursivity, International Students and Representation: Walking through Different Worlds  by Margaret Kumar  is now available as part of The Learner series.

I suspect that in future, Kumar’s Discursivity, international students and representation, will be seen as a significant point of the departure in the literature, a work that helps to make possible a deeper and better discussion of international education.

Professor Simon Marginson, Foreword to Discursivity, international students and representation

Discursivity, international students and representation: Walking through different worlds is a text that will help academics, support services staff and administrative personnel who are involved in the teaching and learning practices of international students. The question it answers is: what constitutes an international student? In relation to this it looks at strategies for internationalising the curriculum at a micro level. It also offers a new approach towards understanding the multiple subject positions of international students whilst at the same time providing an analysis of the ways in which students are identified through various forms of labelling.

Is Myth More Comforting Than Reality?

Published on October 9, 2011 in News. 0 Comments

By Quinn O’Neill, 3 Quarks Daily

For parents wishing to introduce their children to a scientific worldview, two new books may make the job a bit easier. Daniel Loxton’s book “Evolution: How We and All Living Things Came to Be” recently won the 2010 Lane Anderson Award in the young reader category. It was also a finalist for the Silver Birch Award and is in the running for a third Canadian book award for children’s nonfiction. For the curious, the National Center for Science Education offers an excerpt here. The other book, Richard Dawkins latest, “The Magic of Reality: How We Know What’s Really True,” makes a clear distinction between myth and reality while explaining a range of natural phenomena. Both books are aimed at kids in the 8- to 13-year-old range but could certainly be understood and enjoyed by those much older.

Introducing children to current scientific thinking about human origins and other natural phenomena may seem like a no-brainer for many parents, but for others the idea may not hold much appeal. Jeremy Paxman interviewed Dawkins on the subject of myth and reality and raised what I think is an interesting question: are myths more comforting than reality? Or perhaps we should ask instead, “are delusions more comforting than reality?” since myths generally aren’t comforting unless one believes that they’re true. I think the answer is both yes and no.

On a psychological level reality isn’t comforting at all. We are, as Paxman points out, insubstantial specks in the cosmos. A scientific worldview would tell us that we have no divine purpose, we weren’t created by a kind and loving god and there’s no guardian angel watching over us prepared to step in to prevent traumatic events. We or our loved ones could be mangled in a freak accident or develop a horrible illness at any time. We live in an unpredictable and uncontrollable world full of suffering and injustice, where bad things happen to good people for no reason at all.

To Read More…

Image: European Southern Observatory (via 3QuarksDaily)

Ravitch: American Schools in Crisis

Published on October 4, 2011 in News. 0 Comments

Chris Stephens, The Forum for Education and Democracy

“If you read the news magazines or watch TV, you might get the impression that American education is deep in a crisis of historic proportions. The media tell you that other nations have higher test scores than ours and that they are shooting past us in the race for global competitiveness. The pundits say it’s because our public schools are overrun with incompetent, lazy teachers who can’t be fired and have a soft job for life.

Don’t believe it. It’s not true.”

Diane Ravitch goes on, in The Saturday Evening Post, to put present-day education reform battles and claims of student achievement into historical perspective.  She warns that true education reform will come if we lift children out of poverty, not if we continue down the road to privatization of schools. Read “American Schools in Crisis” at http://www.otlcampaign.org/american-schools-crisis.  Ravitch is an education historian, NYU professor and former Assistant United States Secretary of Education.

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