Finland's school system accomplishes some impressive feats: so what makes Finnish students so successful?
"Students get plenty of teacher interaction: Finland and New York City have the same number of teachers. But Finland has nearly half the number of students. Standardized testing is kept to a minimum: before a New York student reaches high school, he or she will have taken 10 standardized tests. Collectively, US students take 100 million standardized tests a year. Finland's only standardized test is taken when students are 16 years old. Kids have more time to be kids: an average us 5th grader has 50 minimum of homework per day. Finnish students rarely do homework until their teens. And while us elementary students average 27 minutes of recess students in Finland get about 75 minutes a day). Finland knows good teachers are essential: teachers in Finland are all required to have a Master's degree (which is fully subsidized by the state)."
(OnlineClasses.org, 21 January 2013)
CONTRIBUTOR
Simon PerkinsSHARE
Ericsson: the future of learning in a networked society
"We are on the brink of an extraordinary revolution that will change our world forever. In this new world everyone, everything and everywhere will be connected in real time. We call this the Networked Society, and it will fundamentally change the way we innovate, collaborate, produce, govern and sustain. When one person connects their life changes. With everything connected our world changes."
(Ericsson Limited, 2012)
Fig.1 Published on YouTube 19 October 2012 by Ericsson
CONTRIBUTOR
David ReidSHARE
Ken Robinson: human ability and talent is highly diverse
"Yes you know there’s this view that only special people are creative and it's not me. It's not it's not anybody I really know. It's a very isolated sort of genius you know to be really creative. And you know people doubt their own strengths and their own capacities. So I meet all kind of people who don't really get much fulfilment from the work they do. You know they just get through it and wait for the weekend. But I also meet people who love what they do. And couldn't imagine doing anything else. You know if you set and don't this anymore they wouldn’t' know what you were talking about because this is who they are. You know I mean like I don’t know what else I would do. They are so to speak in their element. And so the book is about that. It's about the journeys people took to discover their own talents and what difference it made in their lives. And I talk to all kinds of people. It's not just interviews. But the book is seasoned as you know with interviews with people in science in business in the arts in sports in technology all kinds of different fields and what's interesting to me is of course it's different for everybody and this is really a key point you know that human ability and talent is highly diverse. You know what turns somebody on might totally turn somebody else off. What excites some propel does not excite other people and I know when I am signing the book these days I always ask people what they do. And when they tell me I ask them if they like it. And I always think it's great when people say I love it. Because you just never [inaudible].'"
(Ken Robinson, Conversations from Penn State)
Fig.1 Conversations from Penn State Episode 207: Sir Ken Robinson, Uploaded by WPSU TV/FM/Online on 6 Nov 2010, YouTube.
CONTRIBUTOR
Simon PerkinsSHARE
Seeking quality in criterion referenced assessment
"Norm and criterion referenced assessment are two distinctly different methods of awarding grades that express quite different values about teaching, learning and student achievement. Norm referenced assessment, or 'grading on the curve' as it is commonly known, places groups of students into predetermined bands of achievements. Students compete for limited numbers of grades within these bands which range between fail and excellence. This form of grading speaks to traditional and rather antiquated notions of 'academic rigour' and 'maintaining standards'. It says very little about the nature or quality of teaching and learning, or the learning outcomes of students. Grading is formulaic and the procedure for calculating a final grade is largely invisible to students.
Criterion referenced assessment has been widely adopted in recent times because it seeks a fairer and more accountable assessment regime than norm referencing. Students are measured against identified standards of achievement rather than being ranked against each other. In criterion referenced assessment the quality of achievement is not dependent on how well others in the cohort have performed, but on how well the individual student has performed as measured against specific criteria and standards. Underlying this grading scheme is a concern for accountability regarding the qualities and achievements of students, transparency and negotiability in the process by which grades are awarded, an acknowledgement of subjectivity and the exercise of professional judgement in marking."
(Lee Dunn, Sharon Parry and Chris Morgan, 2002)
CONTRIBUTOR
Simon PerkinsSHARE
Ken Robinson: Changing education paradigms
"In this talk from RSA Animate, Sir Ken Robinson lays out the link between 3 troubling trends: rising drop-out rates, schools' dwindling stake in the arts, and ADHD. An important, timely talk for parents and teachers."
(RSA Animate, Filmed October 2010)
CONTRIBUTOR
Simon PerkinsSHARE
