Information and communications technology
Courtesy edans
Tech trio wants to change what is tested
Three tech giants, Microsoft, Intel, and Cisco, have banded together to develop new ways of measuring skills and competencies that current and future generation of students will need for successful and prosperous lives in the 21st century.
Changing global educational systems
Based on extensive research, they concluded that most education systems have not kept pace with the skill sets that are required for students to succeed.
Barry McGaw will serve as executive director over leading experts and innovators from both academia and government.
“Reforming assessment is essential to enabling any systemic change in education. And change on a global scale is required to equip students of today with the skills they need to succeed in the workforce of tomorrow,” he says.
McGaw and his team of researchers, especially John Bransford and his working group on learning environments, will look into innovative classroom practices globally and identify those practices that support 21st-century skills.
"In many classrooms, the teachers teach what is measured," said Gupta. "By influencing international assessments, and working with countries to influence their policy and approaches to national assessment, we believe this project will have a direct and large-scale impact on what is taught and how it is taught in schools across the [world]. In this way, it is our hope that this project will help schools move to the style of learning environment that engages the current and future generation of students and delivers to students the skills and competencies they need for successful and prosperous lives in the 21st century."
Skills tech leaders recommend
- to think critically and creatively
- to work cooperatively
- to adapt to the evolving use of information and communications technology (ICT)
Learn more
Tech giants vow to change global assessments
Measuring 21st-century skills
Tags : Biography
- I wish I were an expert in:
- Anything!
- Dream jobs:
- I have it.
Education and work
- Website
- Museum of Life and Science
- About me
- I work as the Vice President for Innovation + Learning at the Museum of Life and Science in Durham, N.C. and I'm a big fan of Buzz and the people who run it.
Science in my life
- What is science to you?
- Science is a way of knowing about myself, my community and my world.
Biography
- I wish I were an expert in:
- gourmet cooking
- Dream jobs:
- Massage therapist, aromatherapist, anthropologist, healer, a teacher in any one of those disciplines
- About me
- I work at the Science Museum as a gallery supervisor and team lead. I am going to school to get a LPN degree. I am interested in health and wellness, integrative medicine, the earth, nature, plants, human evolution and many other things. I also have a massage therapy diploma.
Science in my life
- What is science to you?
- Science is everywhere. The more we look at things, the more complex they get. Science is the way we can understand the world around us.
- I would invent
- A cat door that brushes the cat off when it entered a house, a massage tool so people can get in the practice of massaging themselves,
- What technology do you use every day?
- Computer, cell phone, TV, car,
- What math do you use every day?
- As a nurse, I will be using math everyday to give medications. I use in my daily life today when I buy things and in many many other ways.
The online issue of The Scientist is featuring profiles of two prestigious scientists who are also highly effective mentors for the students working in their labs. Their tips and techniques are useful for anyone, in any field, who has an opportunity to mentor. Check it out.
Biography
- I wish I were an expert in:
- The history of the world and our cultures. As Americans we are so forward looking we have no respect for the past and seem not to learn from mistakes. We forget major cultural changes that occur 10 to 50 years ago that shape us today.
Science in my life
- What technology do you use every day?
- I am surrounded by technology. I have become so used to it that I barely recognize it. When I go to the Boundary Waters, I am reminded of what it is like to have limited technology.
- What math do you use every day?
- All day, every day. I am an accountant and deal with numbers in the financial world. I also use math in shopping for groceries, going out to eat, and making purchases of any kind.
Biography
- About me
- I'm outgoing and and invovled. I like to talk to people and have no problems asking (or answering) questions. I love to read and frequently use the internet to research authors of my favorite books or anthologies.
Science in my life
- What is science to you?
- Science, to me, is curiosity-gone-wild. It's wanting to find out how something works, how that works, ok, how does that smaller process work? It's also figuring out how far you can push the limit, or ... to quote daffy duck "What happens if I push the red button?" It's interesting that it's a human's quest for knowledge that has given us (for better or worse) cars, cell phones, electricity (!), the internet... Everything we have and everything we use, even the food we eat has come from someone's want to know/learn/create--and that's science.
- What technology do you use every day?
- I use sooo much technology every day. I don't think all of it could fit here. I use a bed, an alarm clock, radio, lights, locks, electronic unlocking device (key fob), vehicles, traffic lights, elevators, structures, computers, internet, calculators, pens, telephone systems... I could include more, but really? Do you get the idea yet? =P
- What math do you use every day?
- I use math daily to figure out my gas mileage, remaining fuel, budgeting money for "fun stuff" vs bills, figuring out terms of payment/sale on vehicles (for my job).. all sorts of things.
This man is a professional: And his yelling can make anybody learn.
Courtesy xiangdianSo, it turns out that kids aren’t able to learn from their mistakes, at least not until they’re about 12 years old.
That is to say, negative feedback don’t mean a thing to an 8-year-old, as far as learning goes.
Now, don’t start worrying yet. All that time you’ve spent hollering at little children hasn’t been a total waste of time, it’s just been a waste of their time. And kids have time to waste—they’ll be alive for decades, while you could go any day now. With your days as numbered as they are, it’s important that you spend your remaining time living life to the fullest, and part of that involves yelling at young children, doesn’t it? Everybody needs a good yell now and again, and if you were to go around yelling at grown-ups all the time, you’d probably get punched in the mouth all the time. Because yelling at people is disrespectful.
And I don’t want you to walk away from this thinking that you should only yell at young kids. In fact, yelling at kids after they’re about 12, but before they’re old enough to crash your car on purpose, is particularly effective, because those kids can actually learn from negative feedback. This means that they’ll probably learn to provide you with fewer excuses to yell at them—and that makes each rarified yell that much sweeter.
See, it just so happens that kids develop a dramatically different learning style between the ages of 8 and 12. An 8-year-old (and younger kids) will only learn from positive reinforcement—so saying to them “Hey, JGordon Jr, good job bringing me my cigarettes!” is a good strategy, but yelling, “These aren’t my cigarettes, you accident, these are Darla’s!” at them is just going to go over their heads. You may have enjoyed yelling, but that’s not necessarily going to help you get the right cigarettes in the future.
Once they reach the age of twelve, your productive yelling options really open up. So, if you really wanted to, you could probably praise your 12-year-old for the stuff they do right, and they’ll learn. But you could also yell at them, with just as effective results. “Two and a Half Men season 3? What am I supposed to do with this? I wanted Three Men and a Baby! Three Men and a Baby! Charlie Sheen is a kitten killer!” is going to make sure you get what you want next Christmas.
Researchers are still unsure as to whether this change in learning styles is a result of the brain maturing, or if it simply comes from experience. But, as I see it, there’s only one good way to find out.
Professor Julius Sumner Miller educated and entertained generations of Australians on television with his TV series called "Why is it so?"
Now you too can watch some "enchanting experiments" with the good professor! Both dialup or broadband connections available (click the link above for dozens of episodes).
Grand Challenges for Engineering in the 21st Century
Want to know what to do with your life. A diverse committee of experts from around the world, at the request of the U.S. National Science Foundation, identified 14 challenges that, if met, would improve how we live.
Here is their list in no particular order. You can learn more about each challenge by clicking on it.
- Make solar energy economical
- Provide energy from fusion
- Develop carbon sequestration methods
- Manage the nitrogen cycle
- Provide access to clean water
- Restore and improve urban infrastructure
- Advance health informatics
- Engineer better medicines
- Reverse-engineer the brain
- Prevent nuclear terror
- Secure cyberspace
- Enhance virtual reality
- Advance personalized learning
- Engineer the tools of scientific discovery
You can vote for which is most important
The committee decided not to rank the challenges. NAE is offering the public an opportunity to vote on which one they think is most important and to provide comments at the Engineering Challenges website
Biology Browser
in Life Science, Diversity of Organisms, and Biological Populations Change Over Time
Biological research resource
A great biology teaching resource can be found at biologybrowser.org. Both the Biology Browser home page and their search engine are subdivided into:
- organism (animals, plants, viruses)
- subjects (biodiversity, botany, genetics)
- geography (Africa, Asia, North America)
To experiment, I entered the term "turtle" in the search box which resulted in 369 hits (the MN DNR web page entry, Turtles of Minnesota was #6).
Biological database gains several hundred links per day
A fourth column lists the latest additions to the BiologyBrowser database gleaned from the Biology News Net site. This week averaged about 300 new additions per day!
Access top papers and interviews with top scientists
Biology Browser
Courtesy Art Oglesby Another feature is the "Hot Topics" box inserted top and center of the page. Todays hot topic was "stem cells". The link took me to an Essential Science Indicators page listing the top 20 papers, authors, institutions, and journals.
An editorial section features, interviews, first-person essays, profiles, and other features about people in the stem cell field. Three scientists are featured, the first being Dr. Outi Hovatta discussing her highly cited paper, "A culture system using human foreskin fibroblasts as feeder cells allows production of human embryonic stem cells"
Check it out
If you wish to keep up with advances in the biological sciences, I recommend exploring BiologyBrowser and learn to use the tools they provide.
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Science Buzz is supported by the National Science Foundation.Copyright © Science Museum of Minnesota, 2004-2010, except where noted.
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