What science can — and can’t — do for education
This was written by cognitive scientist Daniel Willingham, professor and director of graduate studies in psychology at the University of Virginia and author of “Why Don’t Students Like School?” His newest book is “When Can You Trust The Experts? How to tell good science from bad in education.” This appeared on his Science and Education blog.
By Daniel Willingham
Steven Levitt, of Freakonomics fame, has unwittingly provided an example of how science applied to education can go wrong.
On his blog, Levitt cites a study he and three colleagues published (as a National Bureau of Economic Research working paper). The researchers rewarded kids for trying hard on an exam. As Levitt notes, the goal of previous research has been to get kids to learn more. That wasn't the goal here. It was simply to get kids to try harder on the exam itself, to really show everything that they knew.
(Patrick Reddy/AP)Among the findings: (1) it worked
Principals: Our struggle to be heard on reform
This was written by Carol Burris and Harry Leonadartos. Burris is the principal of South Side High School in Rockville Centre, New York. Leonadartos is the principal of Clarkstown High School North in Rockland County, New York. Carol is the co-author and Harry is an active supporter of the New York Principals letter of concern regarding the evaluation of teachers by student scores. Over 1,500 New York principals and more than 5,400 teachers, parents, professors, administrators and citizens have signed the letter which can be found here.
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