Tag Archives: Education for Life and Work Developing Transferable Knowledge and Skills in the 21st Century

Yale study: Internet makes folks feel smarter than they are

7 Jun

Sarah D. Sparks wrote good synopsis of the report, Education for Life and Work: Developing Transferable Knowledge and Skills in the 21st Century in the Education Week article, Study: ’21st-Century Learning’ Demands Mix of Abilities:

The committee found these skills generally fall into three categories:

  • Cognitive skills, such as critical thinking and analytic reasoning;
  • Interpersonal skills, such as teamwork and complex communication; and
  • Intrapersonal skills, such as resiliency and conscientiousness (the latter of which has also been strongly associated with good career earnings and healthy lifestyles).

Stanford University education professor Linda Darling-Hammond, who was not part of the report committee, said developing common definitions of 21st-century skills is critical to current education policy discussions, such as around Common Core State Standards.

“Unless we want to have just a lot of hand-waving on 21st-century skills,” Ms. Darling-Hammond said, “we need to get focused and purposeful on how to learn to teach and measure these skills, both in terms of research investments and in terms of the policies and practice that would allow us to develop and measure these skills.”

http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/inside-school-research/2012/07/study_deeper_learning_needs_st_1.html

The National Research Council published the report, Education for Life and Work: Developing Transferable Knowledge and Skills in the 21st Century  Technology does not replace the need for critical thinking skills.

Moi wrote in In Critical thinking is an essential trait of an educated person:

The key is developing the idea that facts should be used to support an opinion.

The Critical Thinking Community has several great articles about critical thinking at their site. In the section, Defining Critical Thinking:

A Definition
Critical thinking is that mode of thinking – about any subject, content, or problem – in which the thinker improves the quality of his or her thinking by skillfully taking charge of the structures inherent in thinking and imposing intellectual standards upon them.

The Result

A well cultivated critical thinker:

  • raises vital questions and problems, formulating them clearly and
    precisely;
  • gathers and assesses relevant information, using abstract ideas to
    interpret it effectively comes to well-reasoned conclusions and solutions, testing them against relevant criteria and standards;
  • thinks openmindedly within alternative systems of thought,
    recognizing and assessing, as need be, their assumptions, implications, and practical consequences; and
  • communicates effectively with others in figuring out solutions to complex problems.

Critical thinking is, in short, self-directed, self-disciplined, self-monitored, and self-corrective thinking. It presupposes assent to rigorous standards of excellence and mindful command of their use. It entails effective communication and problem solving abilities and a commitment to overcome our native egocentrism and sociocentrism. (Taken from Richard Paul and Linda Elder, The Miniature Guide to Critical Thinking Concepts and Tools, Foundation for Critical Thinking Press, 2008). http://www.criticalthinking.org/pages/defining-critical-thinking/766 https://drwilda.com/2012/01/22/critical-thinking-is-an-essential-trait-of-an-educated-person/

Cruising the Internet is not critical thinking.

Poncie Rutsch of NPR reported in Searching Online May Make You Think You’re Smarter Than You Are:

Using the Internet is an easy way to feel omniscient. Enter a search term and the answers appear before your eyes.

But at any moment you’re also just a few taps away from becoming an insufferable know-it-all. Searching for answers online gives people an inflated sense of their own knowledge, according to a study. It makes people think they know more than they actually do.

“We think the information is leaking into our head, but really the information is stored somewhere else entirely,” Matthew Fisher, a doctoral student in cognitive psychology at Yale University, tells Shots. Fisher surveyed hundreds of people to get a sense of how searching the Internet affected how they rate their knowledge. His study was published Tuesday in the Journal of Experimental Psychology: General…. http://www.apa.org/pubs/journals/xge/

The results kept coming back the same: searching online led to knowledge inflation.

There are practical consequences to this little exercise. If we can’t accurately judge what we know, then who’s to say whether any of the decisions we make are well-informed?

“People are unlikely to be able to explain their own shortcomings,” says Fisher. “People aren’t aware of the quality of explanation or the quality of arguments they can produce, and they don’t realize it until they encounter the gaps.”

The more we rely on the Internet, Fisher says, the harder it will be to draw a line between where our knowledge ends and the web begins. And unlike poring through books or debating peers, asking the Internet is unique because it’s so effortless….http://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2015/04/02/396810355/searching-online-may-make-you-think-youre-smarter-than-you-are

Here is the press release:

Internet Searches Create Illusion of Personal Knowledge, Research Finds

Inflated sense of personal knowledge may have negative effects, study concludes

Read the journal article

WASHINGTON — Searching the Internet for information may make people feel smarter than they actually are, according to new research published by the American Psychological Association.

“The Internet is such a powerful environment, where you can enter any question, and you basically have access to the world’s knowledge at your fingertips,” said lead researcher Matthew Fisher, a fourth-year doctoral candidate in psychology at Yale University. “It becomes easier to confuse your own knowledge with this external source. When people are truly on their own, they may be wildly inaccurate about how much they know and how dependent they are on the Internet.”

In a series of experiments, participants who searched for information on the Internet believed they were more knowledgeable than a control group about topics unrelated to the online searches. In a result that surprised the researchers, participants had an inflated sense of their own knowledge after searching the Internet even when they couldn’t find the information they were looking for. After conducting Internet searches, participants also believed their brains were more active than the control group did. The research was published online in the Journal of Experimental Psychology: General®.

For nine experiments, a range of 152 to 302 participants were recruited online, with different participants taking part in each experiment. In one experiment, the Internet group used online searches to research four questions (e.g., “How does a zipper work?”) and provided a website link with the best answer. The control group was given the exact text from the most common website used by the Internet group to answer the questions. Both groups then rated their ability to answer other questions (e.g., “Why are cloudy nights warmer?”) on topics unrelated to the Internet searches, although they didn’t have to answer those questions. The Internet group members consistently rated themselves as more knowledgeable than the control group about those unrelated topics.

The Internet group reported an inflated sense of personal knowledge after Internet searches even when its members could not find complete answers to very difficult questions (e.g., “Why is ancient Kushite history more peaceful than Greek history?”) or when they found no answers at all because of Google filters that were used. The cognitive effects of “being in search mode” on the Internet may be so powerful that people still feel smarter even when their online searches reveal nothing, said study co-author Frank Keil, PhD, a psychology professor at Yale.

In another experiment, participants who did online searches thought their brains would be more active than the control group, and they chose magnetic resonance images of a brain with more active areas highlighted as representative of their own brains. This result suggests that the participants searching the Internet believed they had more knowledge in their heads, rather than simply thinking they knew more because they had access to the Internet, Fisher said.

The use of Internet searches, not just access to the Internet, appeared to inflate participants’ sense of personal knowledge. When the Internet group members were given a particular website link to answer questions, they didn’t report higher levels of personal knowledge on the unrelated topics than the control group.

People must be actively engaged in research when they read a book or talk to an expert rather than searching the Internet, Fisher said. “If you don’t know the answer to a question, it’s very apparent to you that you don’t know, and it takes time and effort to find the answer,” he said. “With the Internet, the lines become blurry between what you know and what you think you know.”

The growing use of smartphones may exacerbate this problem because an Internet search is always within reach, Keil said, and the effects may be more pronounced when children who are immersed in the Internet from an early age grow up to be adults.

An inflated sense of personal knowledge also could be dangerous in the political realm or other areas involving high-stakes decisions, Fisher said.

“In cases where decisions have big consequences, it could be important for people to distinguish their own knowledge and not assume they know something when they actually don’t,” he said. “The Internet is an enormous benefit in countless ways, but there may be some tradeoffs that aren’t immediately obvious and this may be one of them. Accurate personal knowledge is difficult to achieve, and the Internet may be making that task even harder.”

Article: “Searching for Explanations: How the Internet Inflates Estimates of Internal Knowledge;” Matthew Fisher, MA, Mariel K. Goddu, BA, and Frank C. Keil, PhD; Yale University; Journal of Experimental Psychology: General; online March 31, 2015.

Matthew Fisher can be contacted by email or by phone at (260) 519-1736.

The American Psychological Association, in Washington, D.C., is the largest scientific and professional organization representing psychology in the United States. APA’s membership includes more than 122,500 researchers, educators, clinicians, consultants and students. Through its divisions in 54 subfields of psychology and affiliations with 60 state, territorial and Canadian provincial associations, APA works to advance the creation, communication and application of psychological knowledge to benefit society and improve people’s lives.

See, Online illusion: Unplugged, we really aren’t that smart  http://news.yale.edu/2015/03/31/online-illusion-unplugged-we-really-aren-t-smart

Technology can be a useful tool and education aid, BUT it is not a cheap way to move the masses through the education system without the guidance and mentoring that a quality human and humane teacher can provide.

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Dallas Independent School District develops three-year high school diploma, savings to go to prekindergarten

23 Jun

As students are prepared for functioning in a 21th century world, the role of schools is evolving. The Future of Children describes high school in the article, Purpose and Outcomes of Today’s High Schools:

Given a common structure, but distinct environments and a still separate and unequal experience for many students, what is the purpose of high school in the twenty-first century? The weight of evidence suggests a growing consensus among both the students who attend the schools and the school districts and states that organize them that regardless of the characteristics of a school or its students, the primary purpose of high school today is to prepare students for college. The secondary functions of workforce preparation, socialization, and community-building remain, but ask a student, parent, school district administrator, or state school official the purpose of high school, and by far the most common response is that the mission of high school is to prepare students for postsecondary schooling.                                                     http://futureofchildren.org/publications/journals/article/index.xml?journalid=30&articleid=35&sectionid=64

Two reports and one article by Diane Ravitch in the Washington Post, which is a reply to the report by the Center for American Progress regarding whether children are learning the skills which are necessary in the 21st-century. These papers highlight the questions of what skills are necessary for children to be successful and whether they are learning these skills in school. Moi discusses the report, Do Schools Challenge our Students? What Student Surveys Tell Us About the State of Education in the U.S. from the Center for American Progress in Report from Center for American Progress report: Kids say school is too easy. https://drwilda.wordpress.com/2012/07/10/report-from-center-for-american-progress-report-kids-say-school-is-too-easy/ In response to the report, Diane Ravitch, a research professor at New York University and author of the bestselling “The Death and Life of the Great American School System” wrote Are U.S. schools too easy?

Sarah D. Sparks has written a good synopsis of the report, Education for Life and Work: Developing Transferable Knowledge and Skills in the 21st Century in the Education Week article, Study: ’21st-Century Learning’ Demands Mix of Abilities. http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/inside-school-research/2012/07/study_deeper_learning_needs_st_1.html

Morgan Smith of The Texas Tribune writes in the article, In Dallas, 3-Year High School Diploma Would Expand Preschool which was published in the New York Times:

Dallas Independent School District, the state’s second largest, is developing a voluntary three-year high school diploma plan that is likely to start in the 2014-15 school year and would funnel cost savings to finance prekindergarten.

A bill passed in the recently concluded legislative session, sponsored by two Dallas Democrats, Representative Eric Johnson and Senator Royce West, will allow the district to use savings that occur when students in the new plan graduate early. Under current Texas law, districts get state funding on a per-pupil basis, and the Dallas I.S.D. would have lost state aid for a senior year for students who graduated early.

“It’s a way to start thinking about the system differently,” said Mike Morath, the Dallas district trustee who promoted the three-year concept. “Do we view education as schools and buildings and first grade and second grade and third grade? Or do we view education as a way to enrich the lives of young people, and do we start taking these institutional blinders off and thinking about it more creatively?”

Advocates of early childhood learning say prekindergarten programs have long-term benefits, including making students less likely to drop out, repeat grades or need remedial course work. In his State of the Union address in February, President Obama set as a priority making “high-quality preschool available to every single child in America.”

The state now pays for half-day preschool programs for children who are learning English or are from homeless, low-income, foster or military families.

In 2011, the Legislature, facing a multibillion-dollar budget shortfall, slashed more than $200 million in grant money that had helped districts extend pre-K programs to a full day. Since then, many districts have been seeking ways to keep full-day prekindergarten without state aid, including charging tuition and, in the case of San Antonio, imposing a city sales tax.

The new legislation authorizes the state to credit the Dallas district for students who graduate under the three-year plan, Mr. Morath said. The district would receive an additional year of state financing for students who finish after what would normally have been the 11th grade.

The plan will enable the district to finance full-day pre-K programs at a rate of two children for every three-year high school graduate, he said. It could also result in savings from what he called a “slightly reduced need” for high school staff members.

Because the program, which must still be approved by the state education commissioner, is in its initial stages, Ann Smisko, the Dallas school district’s chief academic officer, said the district could not predict what the demand might be.

Ms. Smisko said educators would work with middle school students to determine who would enter the new diploma plan. Under the legislation, the district is required to form partnerships with state community colleges and four-year universities to place students who graduate early in some form of postsecondary education. Parents must give their approval for students to participate.

The district is in the midst of developing curriculum requirements for the three-year diploma, which Ms. Smisko said would be geared to “college-ready” standards.

Mr. Morath said an alternative diploma plan would appeal to high-performing students as well as to those eager to start vocational training.

He said the district would determine within five years whether the program was successful. At that point, the Legislature could decide whether to expand it to other school districts in Texas.

The proposal is not intended to be a way to get rid of the senior year of high school, which for many students has value for both social and academic development, Mr. Morath said. “I don’t think anyone thinks the 12th grade is going away,” he said.                                                                            http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/21/us/in-dallas-3-year-high-school-diploma-would-expand-preschool.html?hpw

The three-year diploma is one option for completing high school.

The American Education Guide describes the types of high school programs:

High School Graduation Options

Florida students entering their first year of high school in the 2007-2008 school year
may choose from the following graduation programs:

  • The Traditional 24-credit Program

  • An International Baccalaureate Diploma Program

  • An Advanced International Certificate of Education Diploma Program

  • A three-year, 18-credit college preparatory program

  • A three-year, 18-credit career preparatory program

All of these graduation paths include opportunities to take rigorous academic courses designed to prepare students for their future academic and career choices. All students, regardless of graduation program, must still earn a specific grade point average on a 4.0 scale and achieve passing scores on the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test in order to graduate with a standard diploma. However, the two three-year programs are significantly different from the traditional 24-credit
program.

Traditional 24-Credit Program – It’s a Major Opportunity!

This program requires students to take at least 24 credits in subject areas such as English, mathematics, science, social studies, fine arts, and a physical education course to include the integration of health. Foreign language credit is not required for this program, although it is recommended for community college preparation and is required for admission to Florida’s state universities. This program offers students the chance to take eight elective credits- four credits in a major area of interest and four credits combined to allow for a second major area of interest, a minor area of interest, or elective courses. Major areas of interests will allow students to define their interests and use their high school experience to become better prepared for higher education and/or a career of their choosing.

International Baccalaureate Diploma Program

The International Baccalaureate Diploma Program is a rigorous pre-university course of study leading to internationally standardized tests. The program’s comprehensive two-year curriculum allows its graduates to fulfill requirements of many different nations’ education systems. Students completing IB courses and exams from the six subject groups are eligible for college credit. The award of credit is based on scores achieved on IB exams. Students can earn up to 30 postsecondary semester credits by participating in this program at the high school level. Approximately 45 Florida high schools participate in the IB program. Students in Florida’s public secondary schools who are enrolled in IB courses do not have to pay to take the exams. For information, visit www.ibo.org.

Advanced International Certificate of Education Program

The Advanced International Certificate of Education Program is an international curriculum and examination program modeled on the British pre-college curriculum and “A-Level” exams. Florida’s public community colleges and universities provide college credit for successfully passed exams. Students in Florida’s public secondary schools who are enrolled in AICE courses do not have to pay to take the exams. For information, visit www.cie.org.uk and click on “Qualifications & Diplomas.”

Three-Year, 18-Credit College Preparatory Program

This accelerated graduation program requires fewer credits than the traditional 24-credit program and does not require the student to select a major area of interest. It focuses more on academic courses, which means students take fewer elective courses. Unlike the traditional 24-credit program, the three-year college preparatory program requires students to earn two credits in a foreign language. Students must earn at least six of the 18 required credits in specified rigorous level courses and maintain a cumulative weighted grade point average of a 3.5 on a 4.0 scale with a weighted or non-weighted grade that earns at least a 3.0 or its equivalent in each of the 18 required credits for the college preparatory program. It also requires higher-level mathematics courses than does the 24-credit program and the three-year career preparatory program. The credits required by this program must satisfy the minimum standards for admission into Florida’s state universities.

Three-Year, 18-Credit Career Preparatory Program

This accelerated graduation program requires fewer credits than the traditional 24-credit program and does not require the student to select a major area of interest. It focuses more on academic courses, which means students take fewer elective courses. Unlike the 24-credit program, the three-year career preparatory program requires students to earn specific credits in a single vocational or career education program. It requires students to maintain a cumulative weighted grade point average of a 3.0 on a 4.0 scale with a weighted or non-weighted grade that earns at least a 2.0 or its equivalent in each of the 18 required credits for the career preparatory program. The requirements of the program are designed to prepare students for entrance into a technical center or community college for career preparation or for entrance into the work force.

Choosing a Program

The three-year programs are designed for students who are clear about their future goals, who are mature enough to leave high school, and who are ready to pursue their goals beyond high school in an accelerated manner. To assist students and parents with this task, each school district shall provide each student in grades 6 through 9 and their parents with information concerning the three-year and four-year high school graduation options, including the respective curriculum requirements for those options, so that the students and their parents may select the program that best fits their needs. To select a three-year graduation program, students and their parents must meet with designated school personnel to receive an explanation of the requirements, advantages, and disadvantages of each program option.
Students must also receive the written consent of their parents. Students must select a graduation program prior to the end of ninth grade. Each student and his or her family should select the graduation program that will best prepare the student for his or her postsecondary education or career plan.     http://www.americaseducationguide.com/articles/4-High-School-Graduation-Options

In moi’s opinion, a relevant of the paper is Education for Life and Work: Developing Transferable Knowledge and Skills in the 21st Century because the question of whether there is a skill-set which will help most students be successful. Is an important question. For a contra opinion, see Jay Mathews’ 2009 Washington Post article, The Latest Doomed Pedagogical Fad: 21st-Century Skills. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/01/04/AR2009010401532.html

Schools have to prepare students to think critically and communicate clearly, the label for the skill set is less important than the fact that students must acquire relevant knowledge.

Resources:

High School, Only Shorter: Some Students Cure ‘Senioritis’ by Graduating Early; Trading Prom for Scholarships                 http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304750404577321561583186358.html

Condensing high school to three years                                    http://www.ajc.com/weblogs/get-schooled/2013/jun/22/condensing-high-school-three-years-works-me/

Related:

What the ACT college readiness assessment means                                           https://drwilda.com/2012/08/25/what-the-act-college-readiness-assessment-means/

Study: What skills are needed for ’21st-century learning?’                                   https://drwilda.com/2012/07/11/study-what-skills-are-needed-for-21st-century-learning/

ACT to assess college readiness for 3rd-10th Grades                                        https://drwilda.com/2012/07/04/act-to-assess-college-readiness-for-3rd-10th-grades/

National Center on Education and the Economy report: High schools are not preparing students for community college                    https://drwilda.com/2013/05/14/national-center-on-education-and-the-economy-report-high-schools-are-not-preparing-students-for-community-college/

Where Information Leads to Hope ©     Dr. Wilda.com

Dr. Wilda says this about that ©

Blogs by Dr. Wilda:

COMMENTS FROM AN OLD FART©                           http://drwildaoldfart.wordpress.com/

Dr. Wilda Reviews ©                                                http://drwildareviews.wordpress.com/

Dr. Wilda ©                                                                             https://drwilda.com/

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IQ might not be the best measure of intelligence

29 Dec

Moi wrote about IQ tests in After the Bell Curve: Research starts the conversation about IQ, again:

Cam Soucy has written an excellent summary of IQ tests for the Livestrong site in the article, What Is the Definition of IQ Test?

History

French psychologist Alfred Binet developed the the first IQ-style tests at the beginning of the 20th century. The first tests were designed only to assess the intelligence of children. The U.S. military relied on intelligence testing to assess and place recruits during World Wars I and II. Psychologist David Wechsler used the military IQ tests as a model in devising his own test in 1949. Today, a group of tests derived from Wechsler’s work are the most widely used IQ tests.

Download Free White Paper on assessment and teaching from CTB/McGraw-Hill CTB.com

Tests

The fourth version of the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children, the WISC-IV, was released in 2009. A companion test, the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale, targets people 16 and older. Other frequently used IQ tests include the Stanford-Binet Intelligence Scale, the Das-Naglieri Cognitive Assessment System and the Kaufman Assessment Battery for Children.

Elements

IQ tests commonly assess the taker’s logical reasoning, math ability, spatial-relations skills, short-term memory and problem-solving skills.

Scoring

IQ tests originally were scored by dividing the subject’s “mental age,” as determined by which questions she answered correctly on the test, by her “chronological age,” her actual age in years, then multiplying that quotient by 100. For example, an 8-year-old child with a mental age of 12 would have an IQ of 125, with the calculation being 12/8 = 1.25, and 1.25 x 100 = 125. A person whose mental age precisely matched his actual age would have an IQ of 100, so a 100 IQ was defined as “average.”
Modern IQ tests no longer use such a formula. They simply compare a person’s test results with those of everyone else in the same age group, on a scale where 100 is defined as average intelligence.

Criticism

Criticism of IQ tests focuses on the content of the tests–that is, the type of questions they ask–and their application. Such areas as vocabulary and “logic” can be strongly influenced by culture and socioeconomics. For example, consider a test that asks what word goes best with “cup”: saucer, plate or bowl. The test may intend “saucer” to be the correct answer. However, a test-taker who grew up in a home where tables weren’t set in a formal fashion might not know what a saucer is. He may be just as “intelligent” as the next person, but his score will suffer because of cultural factors. Authors of IQ tests are continually refining tests to address such concerns; some tests have removed verbal elements entirely.
Even test creators argue that the results are only one tool for assessing a person’s abilities, and that “intelligence” in a person is not a fixed quality, but changeable–even from day to day. In reality, however, people and institutions tend to put great weight on IQ scores. Students have been labeled “learning disabled” based on the outcome of IQ tests alone. As authors revise their tests, they also are revising their instructions to stress the tests’ limited application. http://www.livestrong.com/article/130019-definition-iq-test/

Daniel Willingham, cognitive scientist and a psychology professor at the University of Virginia and author of “Why Don’t Students Like School?” His next book, “When Can You Trust The Experts? How to tell good science from bad in education,” will be published in July. He is written an interesting summary of his latest IQ study for the Washington Post.

In IQ: Willingham on the newest thinking, Willingham makes the following comments:

The importance of the environment for IQ is established by the 12 to 18 point increase in IQ observed when children are adopted from working-class to middle-class homes. In most developed countries studied, gains on IQ tests have continued, and they are beginning in the developing world Sex differences in some aspects of intelligence are due partly to biological factors and partly to socialization factors. The IQ gap between blacks and whites in the United States has been reduced by 0.33 standard deviations in recent years. http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/post/iq-willingham-on-the-newest-thinking/2012/05/12/gIQAB9J9JU_blog.html

Here is the citation and abstract of the work Willingham is commenting about:

Nisbett, R. E., Aronson, J., Blair, C., Dickens, W., Flynn, J., Halpern, D. F., & Turkheimer, E.

(2012, January 2). Intelligence: New Findings and Theoretical Developments. American Psychologist. Advance online publication. doi: 10.1037/a0026699

http://scottbarrykaufman.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/Nisbett-et-al.-2012.pdf

We review new findings and new theoretical developmentsin the field of intelligence. New findings include the following:

(a) Heritability of IQ varies significantly by social class. (b) Almost no genetic polymorphisms have been discovered that are consistently associated with variation in IQ in the normal range. (c) Much has been learned about the biological underpinnings of intelligence. (d) “Crystallized” and “fluid” IQ are quite different aspects of intelligence at both the behavioral and biological levels. (e) The importance of the environment for IQ is established by the 12-point to 18-point increase in IQ when children are adopted from working-class to middle-class homes. (f) Even when improvements in IQ produced by the most effective early childhood interventions fail to persist, there can be very marked effects on academic achievement and life outcomes. (g) In most developed countries studied,gains on IQ tests have continued, and they are beginning in the developing world. (h) Sex differences in aspects of intelligence are due partly to identifiable biological factors and partly to socialization factors. (i) The IQ gap between Blacks and Whites has been reduced by 0.33 SD in recent years. We report theorizing concerning (a) the relationship between working memory and intelligence, (b) the apparent contradiction between strong heritability effects on IQ and strong secular effects on IQ, (c) whether a general intelligence factor could arise from initially largely independent cognitive skills, (d) the relation between self-regulation and cognitive skills, and (e) the effects of stress on intelligence. https://drwilda.com/2012/05/13/after-the-bell-curve-research-starts-the-conversation-about-iq-again/

IQ is not a simple concept and this newest research points to more questions than answers.

Michelle Castillo of CBS News reports about IQ in IQ scores not accurate marker of intelligence, study shows:

Could IQ scores be a false indicator of intelligence?

Researchers have determined in the largest online study on the intelligence quotient (IQ) that results from the test may not exactly show how smart someone is.

“When we looked at the data, the bottom line is the whole concept of IQ — or of you having a higher IQ than me — is a myth,” Dr. Adrian Owen, the study’s senior investigator and the Canada Excellence Research Chair in Cognitive Neuroscience and Imaging at the university’s Brain and Mind Institute said to the Toronto Star. “There is no such thing as a single measure of IQ or a measure of general intelligence.”

More than 100,000 participants joined the study and completed 12 online cognitive tests that examined memory, reasoning, attention and planning abilities. They were also asked about their background and lifestyle.

They found that there was not one single test or component that could accurately judge how well a person could perform mental and cognitive tasks. Instead, they determined there are at least three different components that make up intelligence or a “cognitive profile”: short-term memory, reasoning and a verbal component.

Scientists also scanned participants’ brains with a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) machine and saw that different cognitive abilities were related to different circuits in the brain, suggesting that the theory that different areas of the brain control certain abilities may be true.

Researchers also discovered that training one’s brain to help perform better cognitively did not help….

For some reason, people who played video games did better on reasoning and short-term memory portions of the test.

However, aging was associated with a decline on memory and reasoning abilities. Those who smoked did worse on short-term memory and verbal portions, while those with anxiety did badly on short-term memory test components.

“We have shown categorically that you cannot sum up the difference between people in terms of one number, and that is really what is important here,” Owen told the CBC…

The study was published in Neuron on Dec. 20.

Here is the citation:

Neuron, Volume 76, Issue 6, 1225-1237, 20 December 2012
Copyright © 2012 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
10.1016/j.neuron.2012.06.022 

Authors

Adam Hampshiresend email, Roger R. Highfield, Beth L. Parkin, Adrian M. OwenSee Affiliations

  • Highlights
  • We propose that human intelligence is composed of multiple independent components
  • Each behavioral component is associated with a distinct functional brain network
  • The higher-order “g” factor is an artifact of tasks recruiting multiple networks
  • The components of intelligence dissociate when correlated with demographic variables

Summary

What makes one person more intellectually able than another? Can the entire distribution of human intelligence be accounted for by just one general factor? Is intelligence supported by a single neural system? Here, we provide a perspective on human intelligence that takes into account how general abilities or “factors” reflect the functional organization of the brain. By comparing factor models of individual differences in performance with factor models of brain functional organization, we demonstrate that different components of intelligence have their analogs in distinct brain networks. Using simulations based on neuroimaging data, we show that the higher-order factor “g” is accounted for by cognitive tasks corecruiting multiple networks. Finally, we confirm the independence of these components of intelligence by dissociating them using questionnaire variables. We propose that intelligence is an emergent property of anatomically distinct cognitive systems, each of which has its own capacity.

The traditional way of looking at intelligence may be limited.

Sarah D. Sparks has written a good synopsis of the report, Education for Life and Work: Developing Transferable Knowledge and Skills in the 21st Century in the Education Week article, Study: ’21st-Century Learning’ Demands Mix of Abilities:

The committee found these skills generally fall into three categories:

  • Cognitive skills, such as critical thinking and analytic reasoning;

  • Interpersonal skills, such as teamwork and complex communication; and

  • Intrapersonal skills, such as resiliency and conscientiousness (the latter of which has also been strongly associated with good career earnings and healthy lifestyles).

Stanford University education professor Linda Darling-Hammond, who was not part of the report committee, said developing common definitions of 21st-century skills is critical to current education policy discussions, such as around Common Core State Standards.

“Unless we want to have just a lot of hand-waving on 21st-century skills,” Ms. Darling-Hammond said, “we need to get focused and purposeful on how to learn to teach and measure these skills, both in terms of research investments and in terms of the policies and practice that would allow us to develop and measure these skills.” http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/inside-school-research/2012/07/study_deeper_learning_needs_st_1.html

The National Research Council has published the report, Education for Life and Work: Developing Transferable Knowledge and Skills in the 21st Century which looks at transferable knowledge and skills.

The goal is to recognize those who can contribute to society in a positive manner no matter what their raw IQ score happens to be.

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Study: What skills are needed for ’21st-century learning?’

11 Jul

Two reports and one article by Diane Ravitch in the Washington Post, which is a reply to the report by the Center for American Progress regarding whether children are learning the skills which are necessary in the 21st-century. These papers highlight the questions of what skills are necessary for children to be successful and whether they are learning these skills in school. Moi discusses the report, Do Schools Challenge our Students? What Student Surveys Tell Us About the State of Education in the U.S. from the Center for American Progress in Report from Center for American Progress report: Kids say school is too easy. https://drwilda.wordpress.com/2012/07/10/report-from-center-for-american-progress-report-kids-say-school-is-too-easy/ In response to the report, Diane Ravitch, a research professor at New York University and author of the bestselling “The Death and Life of the Great American School System” wrote Are U.S. schools too easy? Ravitch argues:

Let me address a few of the many, many problems with this report.

First, the authors missed multiple opportunities to analyze the data and chose to rely on simple cross-tabulations and frequency counts. Anyone who has taken a Research 101 course can tell you, one of the first important rules is to not make conclusions based on frequency counts. More on the missed opportunities later in this post.

Second, the authors’ conclusion that students are not being challenged in school is based on the results from one question posed to students that asked, “How often do you feel the math work in your math class is too easy?” At the 4th grade level, the authors bemoan the fact that 37% of students thought the math work was “often” or “always or almost always” too easy. At the 8th grade level, the comparable percentage was 29%. The authors continue by arguing that this unchallenging work results in far too few students — 40% at 4th grade and 35% at 8th grade —meeting the NAEP proficiency standard.

This is problematic because (a) the NAEP proficiency standards are an arbitrary score with little or no correlation with any student outcomes (Gerald Bracey and many others have mentioned the flaw in using NAEP proficiency scores to argue low student performance); and, (b) the authors fail to point out that 46% of the 4th grade students reported that math class work was too easy “almost always or always” achieved proficiency as compared to only 33% meeting proficiency who responded that math work was “never or hardly ever too easy.” According to the logic used by the authors, we would increase the percentage of students meeting proficiency by making math work easier….

–the greater the percentage of students reporting that math class was interesting and engaging, the greater the percentage of students reporting that math work was easy;

– the greater the percentage of students reporting that math work was easy, the greater the percentage students reported that they were learning in class. http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/post/are-us-schools-too-easy/2012/07/11/gJQA059HdW_blog.html

The second report asks the question of what skills are need for students to be successful in the 21st-Century.

Sarah D. Sparks has written a good synopsis of the report, Education for Life and Work: Developing Transferable Knowledge and Skills in the 21st Century in the Education Week article, Study: ’21st-Century Learning’ Demands Mix of Abilities:

The committee found these skills generally fall into three categories:

  • Cognitive skills, such as critical thinking and analytic reasoning;
  • Interpersonal skills, such as teamwork and complex communication; and
  • Intrapersonal skills, such as resiliency and conscientiousness (the latter of which has also been strongly associated with good career earnings and healthy lifestyles).

Stanford University education professor Linda Darling-Hammond, who was not part of the report committee, said developing common definitions of 21st-century skills is critical to current education policy discussions, such as around Common Core State Standards.

“Unless we want to have just a lot of hand-waving on 21st-century skills,” Ms. Darling-Hammond said, “we need to get focused and purposeful on how to learn to teach and measure these skills, both in terms of research investments and in terms of the policies and practice that would allow us to develop and measure these skills.”

http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/inside-school-research/2012/07/study_deeper_learning_needs_st_1.html

The National Research Council has published the report, Education for Life and Work: Developing Transferable Knowledge and Skills in the 21st Century

Here is the press release for Education for Life and Work: Developing Transferable Knowledge and Skills in the 21st Century:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Transferable Knowledge and Skills Key to Success in Education and Work; Report Calls for Efforts to Incorporate ‘Deeper Learning’ Into Curriculum

WASHINGTON — Educational and business leaders want today’s students both to master school subjects and to excel in areas such as problem solving, critical thinking, and communication — abilities often referred to by such labels as “deeper learning” and “21st-century skills.”  In contrast to the view that these are general skills that can be applied across a range of tasks in academic, workplace, or family settings, a new report from the National Research Council found that 21st-century skills are specific to content knowledge and performance within a particular subject area.  The report describes how this set of key skills relates to learning mathematics, English, and science as well as to succeeding in education, work, and other areas of life.

Deeper learning is the process through which a person develops the ability to take what was learned in one situation and apply it to new situations, says the report.  Through deeper learning, the person develops transferable knowledge, which includes both expertise in a particular subject area and procedural knowledge of how, why, and when to apply this knowledge to solve unique problems in that subject.  The report refers to this blend of transferable content knowledge and skills as “21st-century competencies.”

The committee that wrote the report identified three broad categories of 21st-century competencies: the cognitive domain, which includes thinking and reasoning skills; the intrapersonal domain, which involves managing one’s behavior and emotions; and the interpersonal domain, which involves expressing ideas and communicating appropriately with others.  Supporting deeper learning and developing the full range of 21st-century competencies within mathematics, English, and science will require systematic instruction and sustained practice, which calls for instructional time and resources beyond what is currently spent on content learning, the report says.

Research has identified features of instruction that support the process of deeper learning and therefore the development of transferable knowledge and skills in a given subject area.  Curricula and instructional programs should be designed with a focus on clear learning goals along with assessments to measure students’ progress toward and attainment of the goals, the report says.  These programs should feature research-based teaching methods such as using multiple and varied representations of concepts, encouraging elaboration and questioning, engaging learners in challenging tasks while also providing guidance and feedback, teaching with examples and cases, connecting topics to students’ lives and interests, and using assessments that monitor students’ progress and provide feedback for adjusting teaching and learning strategies.

Goals for deeper learning and 21st-century competencies are found in the new Common Core State Standards for mathematics and English language arts and the National Research Council’s Framework for K-12 Science Education.  All three disciplines emphasize the development of cognitive competencies such as critical thinking, problem solving, and argumentation, but differ in their interpretation of these competencies.  For example, the rules for constructing an argument and what counts as supporting evidence are different for physics than they are for history or essay writing.  Research and development is needed to create and evaluate new curricula for 21st-century competencies and to more clearly define and develop assessments of cognitive, intrapersonal, and interpersonal competencies, says the report.

Because 21st-century competencies contribute to learning of school subjects, widespread development of those competencies in the K-12 curriculum could potentially reduce disparities in educational attainment and other outcomes, the report suggests.  But the committee found that research to date linking 21st-century competencies to desirable education, career, and health outcomes is limited and primarily correlational and does not show causal effects.

Cognitive competencies, however, show consistent, positive correlations with desirable educational and career outcomes, the committee found.  Among intrapersonal and interpersonal competencies, conscientiousness — being organized, responsible, and hard-working — shows the strongest correlation, while antisocial behavior is negatively correlated with these desirable outcomes.  The committee also found that the total number of years a person spends in school strongly predicts adult earnings, health, and civic engagement, suggesting that schooling develops a poorly understood mix of valuable 21st-century competencies.

The report recommends that state and federal policies and programs support deeper learning and acquisition of 21st-century competencies, including efforts to help teachers and administrators understand the role of these competencies in learning core academic content and create environments that support students’ learning of these skills.

The study was sponsored by Carnegie Corporation of New York, William & Flora Hewlett Foundation, John D. & Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, National Science Foundation, Nellie Mae Education Foundation, Pearson Foundation, Raikes Foundation, SCE, and the Stupski Foundation.  The National Academy of Sciences, National Academy of Engineering, Institute of Medicine, and National Research Council make up the National Academies.  They are private, nonprofit institutions that provide science, technology, and health policy advice under a congressional charter.  The Research Council is the principal operating agency of the National Academy of Sciences and the National Academy of Engineering.  For more information, visit http://national-academies.org.  A committee roster follows.

Contacts: 

Lauren Rugani, Media Relations Officer

Luwam Yeibio, Media Relations Assistant

Office of News and Public Information

202-334-2138; e-mail news@nas.edu

Additional resources:

Report in Brief

Pre-publication copies of Education for Life and Work: Developing Transferable Knowledge and Skills in the 21st Centuryare available from the National Academies Press; tel. 202-334-3313 or 1-800-624-6242 or on the Internet at http://www.nap.edu.  Reporters may obtain a copy from the Office of News and Public Information (contacts listed above).

In moi’s opinion, the most relevant of the papers is Education for Life and Work: Developing Transferable Knowledge and Skills in the 21st Century because the question of whether there is a skill-set which will help most students be successful. Is an important question. For a contra opinion, see Jay Mathews’ 2009 Washington Post article, The Latest Doomed Pedagogical Fad: 21st-Century Skills. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/01/04/AR2009010401532.html

Schools have to prepare students to think critically and communicate clearly, the label for the skill set is less important than the fact that students must acquire relevant knowledge.

Resources:

Partnership for 21st Century Schools                                                     http://www.p21.org/

21st Century Workplace: Skills for Success                             http://www.elcosd.org/hs/CFF/21st%20Century%20Workplace_%20Skills%20for%20Success.pdf

Contemporary Literacy: Essential Skills for the 21st Century http://www.infotoday.com/mmschools/mar03/murray.shtml

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