It ain’t necessarily so

THE ECONOMIST | BRAUNSCHWEIG

The textbooks children learn from in school reveal and shape national attitudes—and should provoke debate.

… Few, if any, instruments shape national culture more powerfully than the materials used in schools. Textbooks are not only among the first books most people encounter; in many places they are, along with religious texts, almost the only books they encounter.

A Computer Lesson Still Unlearned

NEW YORK TIMES | by FLOYD NORRIS

It was just a quarter-century ago that Wall Street was shaken to its core by the Oct. 19, 1987, stock market crash.

…  What it [signified] was the beginning of the destruction of markets by dumb computers. Or, to be fair to the computers, by computers programmed by fallible people and trusted by people who did not understand the computer programs’ limitations. As computers came in, human judgment went out.

How Stereotypes Can Drive Women To Quit Science

NPR | by SHANKAR VEDANTAM

Claude Steele and his colleagues found that when women were reminded — even subtly — of the stereotype that men were better than women at math, the performance of women in math tests measurably declined.

[*Studies have found that, if no comparative supposition prefaces examination, then the individual—no matter their gender, culture or economic background—performs at the highest level of their ability.]

New Learning Lab Will Research, Develop Games to Engage Students, Measure Learning

MacARTHUR FOUNDATION

A new learning lab will research and develop compelling video games that engage students in innovative ways and provide data on students’ comprehension of the core skills deemed critical by states for college and the 21st century workplace. …  Unlike traditional measurement tools, video games are by nature designed to measure progress since learning is happening, and is captured, in the gaming experience itself.

Put Away The Bell Curve: Most Of Us Aren’t ‘Average’

NPR | by SHANKAR VEDANTAM

For decades, teachers, managers and parents have assumed that the performance of students and employees fits what’s known as the bell curve — in most activities, we expect a few people to be very good, a few people to be very bad and most people to be average. … New research suggests, however, that rather than describe how humans perform, the bell curve may actually be constraining how people perform.