Parents and Teachers: The Smartest Kids in the World

http://www.amandaripley.com/

"In a handful of nations, virtually all children are learning to make complex arguments and solve problems they’ve never seen before. They are learning to think, in other words, and to thrive in the modern economy. What is it like to be a child in these new education superpowers?"

Amanda Ripley's new book is on sale since August 13, 2013. It chronicles life inside the world's new education superpowers.

In the new book, The Smartest Kids in the World: And How They Got That Way, the journalist for Time and The Atlantic magazines, and author Amanda Ripley sets the scene for what is turning out to be battle for the soul of US Education.

http://us.123rf.com/

Reading The New York Times' article, Test Scores Sink as New York Adopts Tougher Benchmarks, August 7, 2013 - "in New York City, 26 percent of students in third through eighth grade passed the tests in English, and 30 percent passed in math, according to the New York State Education Department?" - parents and teachers were stunned. 

Not Amanda Ripley. Using PISA 2009 results as the backbone of her story, Ripley sets out to find out why it is that American students are falling behind their contemporaries in countries that aren’t as wealthy or innovative as the United States.

“PISA could not tell me how those countries got so smart, or what life was like for kids in those countries, day in and day out, compared to life in America,” 

Amanda Ripley's book 

So, she followed three Americans embedded in these countries for one year. Kim, 15-year-old, moving from Oklahoma to Finland; Eric, 18-year-old, exchanging a high-achieving Minnesota suburb for a booming city in South Korea for a year; and Tom, 17, leaving a historic Pennsylvania village for a gritty city in Poland. 

With these American teenagers as her guides, she explores the human dimension of PISA results.

Credits video: Amanda Ripley's website

Three stories, along with groundbreaking research into learning in other cultures, reveal a pattern of startling transformation: none of these countries had many “smart” kids a few decades ago. They had changed. Teaching had become more rigorous; parents had focused on things that mattered; and children had bought into the promise of education.

According to Amanda Ripley, parents have a critical role to play - but not always in the way we think. Effective parents "let their children make mistakes and then get right back to work. They teach them good habits and give them autonomy," 

If you are interested in getting familiar with PISA/ OECD, you can read my previous post about PISA (2011) and watch the video using graphic facilitation: "Measuring student success around the world".

“If you care about education, you must read this book.”
Walter Isaacson, author of Steve Jobs and Benjamin Franklin

So a good reading for the last vacation days or if you are back to school. Parents and teachers everywhere would do well to read this book first, if they are inclined to blame their children’s/students’ poor results on the next test. 

Students are never too young or too old to benefit from their parents’ interest in them. All parents can help their children achieve their full potential by spending some time talking and reading with them, even, perhaps especially, when their children are very young. And all teachers can improve their teaching by reading this book about building resilience in a new world - as told by the young Americans who have the most at stake.

"Success is going from failure to failure without losing your enthusiasm."

Winston Churchill

G-Souto

16.08.2013
Copyright © 2013G-Souto'sBlog, gsouto-digitalteacher.blogspot.com®

Parents and Teachers : The Smartest Kids in the World by G-Souto is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

References:

PISA/OECD
http://www.oecd.org/edu/

Pearson Foundation
http://www.pearsonfoundation.org/oecd/index.html

Amanda Ripley
http://www.amandaripley.com/

Schools : Erwin Schrödinger : resources, bilingual

Erwin Schrödinger 1887-1961
credits: Getty Images
https://www.gettyimages.fr/photographes/

Erwin Schrödinger nasceu em Viena, Austria, em 12 Agosto 1887, filho de um botânico, Rudolf Schrödinger e de Georgine Emilia Brenda, filha de Alexander Bauer, Professor of Química. 

Equação de Schrödinger valeu-lhe o Prémio Nobel de Física em 1933. Na equação, descreve a evolução temporal do estado quântico de um sistema físico. A equação é também conhecida como "a segunda Lei de Newton" da Mecânica Quântica.

Google Doodle: 

Google Doodle Erwin Schrödinger 126th birthday
https://www.google.com/doodles/

E hoje, dia 12 Agosto, ao aceder à página principal do motor de busca Google, deparei-me com uma bela surpresa. Adoro Doodles! Google homenageia o físico Erwin Schrödinger, Prémio Nobel de Física, e que hoje completaria 126 anos.

As imagens escolhidas por Google fazem alusão a duas das principais teorias deste cientista no campo da Física: Equação de Schrödinger e o experiência mental conhecida como Gato de Schrödinger.

Gato de Schrödinger

 http://upload.wikimedia.org/

Gato de Schrödinger, por sua vez, é um experiência em que um gato é colocado numa caixa fechada com um frasco de veneno e um contador Geiger que detecta radiação. O contador pode ser activado ou não, o que decide a vida do gato. Na experiência, o animal é ligado a um martelo que, caso accionado pelo contador Geiger, quebra o vidro e mata o felino. Pobres gatos da época.

Erwin Schrödinger passou a ser conhecido como o pai da Física Quântica, graças portanto às suas teorias no campo da pesquisa científica. 

Foi ainda professor em diversas Universidades e publicou mais de 50 trabalhos. "O que é a vida?" - What is Life - baseado em um ciclo de conferências públicas dadas por Schrödinger em Fevereiro de 1943. Foi editado em 1944.

Schrödinger's Cat 

https://www.famousscientists.org/

Schrödinger morreu em 1961, vítima de tuberculose. O seu legado como teórico e professor e as suas contribuições na pesquisa no campo da Mecânica Quântica ficaram escritos na história da Física.

Além do Nobel, recebeu outros prémios e homenagens ainda em vida. O Instituto Internacional para Física Matemática Erwin Schrödinger (ESI), Viena, tem o seu nome.

Foi ainda celebrado postumamente. Um dos departamentos da Universidade de Limerick (Irlanda) com o seu nome, e uma enorme cratera na Lua foi baptizada com o seu nome.

Depois de Ada Lovelace ou Rosalind Franklin, duas das primeiras mulheres na Ciência, Nicolau Copernicus, um dos mais célebres matemáticos, entre muitos outros, Google criou os "Doodle" como efemérides para relembrar ou trazer ao conhecimento de todos, escritores, cientistas, poetas, músicos, de modo a alargar os conhecimentos e a cultura geral a nível mundial. Doodles que podem e devem ser introduzidos nos currículos escolares quando integram os conteúdos programáticos.

Educação:

Já referi em vários posts a importância de uma boa motivação para captar a atenção e o interesse dos alunos para determinados áreas curriculares, por vezes um pouco mais complexas para alguns alunos. E os Doodles, uma criação de Google, são uma excelente estratégia dinâmica, simples, interactiva ao alcance de todos os educadores que captará, sem dúvida a curiosidade versus conhecimento dos seus alunos.

Doodles que podem e devem ser introduzidos nos currículos escolares quando integrados nos conteúdos programáticos.

Estes recursos digitais podem servir os nossos interesses pedagógicos. Devidamente introduzidos numa lição, levarão com certeza ao desenvolvimento de uma aula mais aberta e participada, sem fugir aos parâmetros das aprendizagens que se pretendem fazer adquirir aos nossos aprendentes. 

Os recursos digitais são cada vez mais utilizados pelos professores que pretendem criar um clima de aprendizagem actual, inovador e cativante.

Curriculos: Física; Ciências.

Níveis: Ensino Geral (2º, 3º ciclos); Ensino Secundário.

Sendo assim, não deixe de aproveitar esta prática|recurso pedagógica interactiva que os Doodle lhe oferece. 

A criatividade da planificação de uma lição passa também pela capacidade de explorar o instante com sabedoria.

Erwin Schrödinger

Nobel Prize in Physics, 1933

http://www.nobelprize.org/

The man who tried to explain some of the enigmas behind quantum mechanics is celebrated today, August 12th by Google.

Austrian professor and physicist Erwin Schrödinger’s 126th birthday is honored today by Google with a special Doodle today.

Born on August 12, 1887, the physicist Erwin Schrödinger won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1933 for his contributions to the often bewildering area of wave mechanics.

"for the discovery of new productive forms of atomic theory"

However Schrödinger is probably best known for his weaving a tale about a theoretical cat in an attempt to describe the paradox of Quantum Physics.

The subject of a hypothetical experiment, Schrödinger's Cat finds itself cooped up in a box along with a small bit of radioactive material, a Geiger counter, and a flask of acid. If one of the atoms in the radioactive substance decays, a chain reaction is set off that releases the acid, thus killing the cat. But if the decay does not occur over a certain period of time, the cat lives.

Further interpretation of the experiment involves the observer. Until the box is opened, the observer doesn't know whether the cat is alive or dead, meaning theoretically that both states exist at the same time.

In addition, he was the author of many works in various fields of physics: statistical mechanics and thermodynamics, physics of dielectrics, colour theory, electrodynamics, general relativity, and cosmology, and he made several attempts to construct a unified field theory. 

What is Life?

Erwin Schrödinger

1948 edition

https://en.wikipedia.org/

In his book What Is Life? (1944), Schrödinger addressed the problems of genetics, looking at the phenomenon of life from the point of view of physics. 

He paid great attention to the philosophical aspects of science, ancient and oriental philosophical concepts, ethics, and religion.

On 4 January 1961, Schrödinger died of tuberculosis, aged 73, in Vienna.

The Big Bang Theory

https://the-big-bang-theory.com/

Education:

I hate animal experiments and I am against all kind of scientific experiences with animals.

So, please don't display this video explanation to your youngest pupils. Sometimes kids are cruel and don't understand what's right or wrong. 

Who knows? Perhaps you could let them watch "Schrödinger’s Cat" a classic clip from CBS sitcom The Big Bang Theory that immortalized Schrödinger’s famous “cat in a box”  in contemporary pop culture.

Resources:

• TV programmes

In this episode, physicist Sheldon (played by Jim Parsons) uses Schrödinger’s cat theory to help aspiring actress and neighbor Penny (played by Kaley Cuoco) in her quandary about whether or not she should go on a date with Sheldon’s roommate Leonard (played by Johnny Galecki). 

Sheldon explains the cat paradox, describing Schrödinger’s Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics as they are applied to everyday objects, such as a cat that might be alive or dead in a sealed box. Students will love it! 

What is Life?

Erwin Schrödinger

https://www.amazon.com/

• Books:

Nobel laureate Erwin Schrödinger's What is Life? is one of the great science classics of the twentieth century. It was written for the layman, but proved to be one of the spurs to the birth of molecular biology and the subsequent discovery of DNA.

• Doodles:

Doodles! What can I say about Doodles! As my usual readers know, I love to include Google Doodle into my lessons. I wrote several posts about this creative digital resource on my blog.

Curricula: Physics; Sciences.

Level: Middle Education; Secondary Education.

Note: Raramente escrevo em Português, minha língua materna, pelo facto de ser mais lida em países de língua inglesa e francesa. Tenho, no entanto, várias publicações bilingues.

I write in English, Français and Português. Some posts are bilingual.

G-Souto

12.08.2013

Copyright © 2013G-Souto'sBlog, gsouto-digitalteacher.blogspot.com®

Schools : Erwin Schrödinger :  resources, bilingual by G-Souto is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Catching the Falling Stars : Science curriculum

Perseid 2012

David Harpe, Boulder USA

http://i.space.com/

"We have found that one meteor shower produces more fireballs than any other," (...) "It's the Perseid meteor shower, which peaks on August 12th and 13th."

Bill Cooke, NASA's Meteoroid Environment Office 

According to NASA research, the upcoming Perseid meteor shower produces more fireballs — bright meteors that streak across the sky — than any other annual shower, earning it the title of "fireball".

What is the Perseid meteor shower?

The Perseid meteor shower is an annual event occurring every August. They are tiny particles of dust and debris from the tail of a comet (109P/Swift-Tuttle) which planet Earth encounters every year in its orbit around the Sun. When these particles collide with the Earth’s atmosphere, they burn up causing bright flashes and streaks in the night sky. These are known as shooting stars or meteors.

The Perseids produced 568 tracked fireballs while the Geminid meteor shower came in a close second, producing 426 from 2008 to 2013. 

The annual Perseid meteor shower will reach its peak early next Sunday and Monday, August 11 and 12 2013, all night, and skywatchers in the world are flocking to their nation's national parks, where pristine, dark skies are ideal for watching what is typically the most dazzling fireball display of the year.

Some night sky enthusiasts have already reported Perseid sightings, but the meteor shower is expected to peak overnight Monday, August 12, 2013. 

photo: Credit: Starry Night Software

http://vortex.accuweather.com/

"Comet Swift-Tuttle has a huge nucleus - about 26 kilometers [16 miles] in diameter," (...) "Most other comets are much smaller, with nuclei only a few kilometers across. As a result, Comet Swift-Tuttle produces a large number of meteoroids, many of which are large enough to produce fireballs."

Bill Coke | NASA

Every year, the Earth passes through a trail of dust left behind in the comet's wake. The dust burns up in Earth's atmosphere, creating the brilliant shower.

http://www.mariacarrillohighschool.com/

Education:

Most of us are on vacation. But students can watch this exciting event of the summer with family or in campus summer.

However, if you are a Sciences teacher you can do some amazing videos or photos to explain the Perseid show during a lesson after school summer holiday.

Resources:

There is an interesting guide written by Phil Plait (adaptation):

1) Find a place that's dark. The darker the spot you find away from house and city lights, the better.

2) Your best bet is to have as much sky visible as possible. The more heavenly real estate you can see, the better your chances of seeing more meteors.

3) Be outside after local midnight - literally, halfway between dusk and dawn. After midnight, you're on the part of the Earth facing into the direction of the Earth's travel around the Sun, so you'll see more meteors then.

4) Relax! Use a lounge chair or some other comfortable way to lie out. You'll see a meteors on average once a minute or three. So you need patience - which is rewarded when you see that bit of light zipping across the sky. 

5) Look up! You don't need a telescope or binoculars or other fancy equipment. Remember, the more sky you see the better.

6) Taking pictures of meteors is easy if you only have an inexpensive camera and a tripod. Set it up, point it anywhere you want - find a nice collection of bright stars if you prefer - and let it expose for a few minutes if you can. If you are lucky, you'll find a nice bright streak or two in some of the pictures. Meteors!

7) Got wireless? Then bring your mobile device outside with you and listen to the meteors, too! This is totally cool! son't miss it and 

Other Guides: 

NASA Science

MetOffice| UK

MeteorWatch

Universe Today’s weekly SkyWatcher’s Forecast

Apps:

Meteor counter app for iPhone

Meteor counter app for Android

Social media:

Twitter: Join in with the worldwide #meteorwatch

Video: Tonight's Sky

Of course, you must keep the idea of the beauty and the pedagogical watching of this marvelous summer falling stars shower.

"The Perseids are the highlight of the astronomical calendar and a must see! They are ideal for those who want to see a meteor/ shooting star for the first time."

Hoping to be lucky! I am preparing my garden chair, a soft sweet-shirt, may be a blanket, a little Pink Floyd music, The great gig in the sky, my Android, and some green hot tea to watch the falling stars from my high balcony near country.

G-Souto

10.08.2013
Copyright © 2013G-Souto'sBlog, gsouto-digitalteacher.blogspot.com®


Catching the Falling Stars: Science curriclum by G-Souto is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

Education: Time for Vitamin 'N'

http://i.dailymail.co.uk/

"Every child needs nature. Not just the ones with parents who appreciate nature. Not only those of a certain economic class or culture or gender or sexual identity or set of abilities. Every child."

Richard Louv

Time for holiday. Time for vitamin 'N' of 'Nature' ! Beach, camping, cycling, walking and playing outdoor. 

It's not the first time I write about the importance of Nature in Education. Children's Day: let's go outdoor; Environmental Education and outdoor; World Environmental Day in School Education; Iberian wolf as environmental education; are some other posts on my blog. My usual readers know  it well.

http://richardlouv.com/

So The Nature Principle and Last Child in the Woods by Richard Louv might be interesting teachers and parents, of course, if these books are new for you.

I am a 'N' teacher! I hope you are as well. There are some lessons that will be fantastic and successful when done outdoors the classroom.

Recent studies show that over the last few decades the area in which children are free to play and roam has shrunk dramatically by almost 90%. 

"Children are generally spending far less time outdoors than any previous generation, trapped by the barriers of irrational ‘stranger danger’, very rational traffic danger, crazy health and safety fears, their increasingly structured and organised lives, their decreasing access to green space; and, of course, lured by the rise of indoor entertainment."

Consequences? In an increasingly urbanised, electronic-based, risk-adverse world, the adults of the future are displaying the symptoms of "nature-deficit disorder".

http://richardlouv.com/

May be a good reading for your season break, if you are preparing to get back in school (new school year begins in August in some countries). It can be useful.

In "Last Child in the Woods", child advocacy expert Richard Louv links the lack of nature in the lives of today's "wired generation" - he calls it 'nature-deficit-to some of the most disturbing childhood trends, such as the rises in obesity, attention disorders, and depression'. 

Last Child in the Woods was the first book to bring together a new and growing work of research indicating that direct exposure to Nature is essential for healthy childhood development and for the physical and emotional health of children and adults. 

This new edition reflects the enormous changes that have taken place since the book was originally published. It includes:

• 100 actions you can take to create change in your community, school, and family.
• 35 discussion points to inspire people of all ages to talk about the importance of nature in their lives.
• A new progress report by the author about the growing Leave No Child Inside movement.
• New and updated research confirming that direct exposure to nature is essential for the physical and emotional health of children and adults.

And in The Nature Principle, Richard Louv delivers another powerful call to action, this time for adults.

"Our society has developed such an outsized faith in technology that we have yet to fully realize or even adequately study how human capacities are enhanced through the power of nature."

Richard Louv

Those books kicked off national and international dialogue among educators, health professionals, parents, developers and conservationists. And of course, educators will be happy introducing Nature activities in School curriculum.

Education:

Research suggests that exposure to the natural world – including nearby nature in cities – helps improve human health, well-being, and intellectual capacity in ways that science is only recently beginning to understand.

What do we know about how human beings, particularly children and young people are affected by the absence of nature’s intrinsic benefits? 

And teachers! Believe it! Nature is very good for stimulate creativity. Research shows that children play more creatively in free outside space and will be more creative in school activities.

Some Activities: In your classroom  

• Display posters about Nature;

• Invite students to create Nature brochures; 

• Discuss the health benefits of playing outdoor;

• Provide information, brochures, places, parks, outdoors museums, where parents, grandparents students can get outdoors;

• Indicate website addresses about Nature and ask students to do some research about outside beneficits and the great risks of a sedentary lifestyle;

• Encourage students with their families to create natural play-spaces in their own yards and neighborhoods (urban, suburban and rural).

http://www.projectwildthing.com/

Some Resources for Teachers :

20 Ways To Create Naturally Restorative Home and Gardens: read here

Natural Leaders Network 2013 Curriculum Guide: download here

Wild Time project is a movement to get kids playing outside more, roaming freely and re-connecting with the natural world on our doorsteps. Join here

Teachers, students and parents can download the Wild Time app for free on iTunes.

Some thoughts:

I love technology in school curriculum but there are amazing connections to find in Nature. 

Children can learn so much from direct contact with nature: about nature itself (those ants!), about life (just watch a spider rebuild its web…) and potentially about any subject.

There’s a growing movement within education that recognises that children learn differently and better when outside, experiencing the world directly.

For students with special needs, Nature can be an a strategy to reduce ADHD symptoms. 

Some researchers suggest nature time as an alternative therapy for some children diagnosed with ADHD and other similar conditions. 

Nature can help other children without attention difficulties do better in school. 

And finally, Nature is good for the future of nature itself!  As naturalists and BBC presenter David Attenborough have pointed out, where will the nature lovers of tomorrow come from if children are no longer allowed to roam, seek, observe, discover and collect?

So, since the first Earth Day, my students collaborated developing outdoors activities and actions at school. You will find some posts about Earth Day on my blog or my students' blogs here and here.

I always include Nature in Humanities curriculum. Going for a lesson outside at a park, or museum gardens, even at the outdoor space at the school, we developed several projects and creative activities about Nature & Literature in School education.

Literature and nature, a good experience to explore.

“The future will belong to the nature-smart—those individuals, families, businesses, and political leaders who develop a deeper understanding of the transformative power of the natural world and who balance the virtual with the real. The more high-tech we become, the more nature we need.”

Richard Louv

G-Souto

07.08.2013
Copyright © 2013G-Souto'sBlog, gsouto-digitalteacher.blogspot.com®


Education: Time for Vitamin 'N' by G-Souto is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.