Sprouts

We share information, innovation and best practices on learning and development with the goal to change education in Thailand for the better.

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We’re showing dramatic gains in middle school and later for kids who come in at a very low baseline. The idea that children cannot compensate for disadvantages they face early in life is “a compelling narrative, but it’s not true.

Angrist

http://www.technologyreview.com/article/508381/the-natural-experimenter/

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The older the students the smaller the classes!

Angrist and economist Victor Lavy used a policy quirk to shed light on the issue of class size, publishing the results in a 1999 paper. In Israel, classes are capped at 40 students. If one school has 38 fourth-graders, those children will all have one teacher, while in an otherwise similar school that has 42 fourth-graders, the children will be split into two classes with an average size of 21 students. Examining 1991 test scores of students from more than 4,000 fourth- and fifth-grade classes in Israel. The result of his study can be summerized with the following quote: Smaller class sizes generated “significant and substantial” gains in math and reading achievement among the fifth-graders and smaller gains in reading among the fourth-graders. 

http://www.technologyreview.com/article/508381/the-natural-experimenter/

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Doug Lemov, Managing Director of the Uncommen Schools and author of the highly popular book "Teach Like a Champion", talks about accountability, high failure rates among teachers and achievement gabs we have to cross.

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Class Dojo

Teachers, try ClassDojo! Students love the positive feedback and learn much faster. Plus, now you can instantly message with parents!

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Bridge International

A good article on Bridge, a low cost for profit that is now teaching over 100,000 kids in Kenya for 5 dollar tuition a month. 

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Reform Multiple Choice !!!

Most standard multiple choice questions are terrible wrong in that sense that they don't allow kids to be honest in case they don't know an answer. Shouldn't we allow kids to learnt to say "I don't know”, isn't that one of the most important tools to learn and produce good feedback. We think Multiple Choice exams should track and grate "I don't know" different and give half the point for students who decide to be honest, when they don't know.

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The CNA Speaking Exchange connects British grannies with young learners in emerging markets. 

[poethica]

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MinuteLabs.io is an extension of what MinutePhysics and MinuteEarth do, but instead of YouTube videos, it’s a grab bag of text, images, audio, video, interactive simulations, games, and more. Check it out http://minutelabs.io

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If you are bored, get out!

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Any Fool can know. The point is to understand.

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The Studio School is a new concept in education, which seeks to address the growing gap between the skills and knowledge that young people require to succeed, and those that the current education system provides. Studio Schools pioneer a bold new approach to learning which includes teaching through enterprise projects and real work. This approach ensures students' learning in is rooted in the real world and helps them to develop the skills they need to flourish in life.

They are designed for 14-19 year olds of all abilities. They are small (for around 300 students); and with year-round opening and a 9-5 working day, they feel more like a workplace than a school. Working closely with local employers, they will offer a range of academic and vocational qualifications including GCSEs in English, Maths and Science, as well as paid work placements linked directly to employment opportunities in the local area.

Learn more at: http://www.studioschoolstrust.org/

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Visit Original Link

Daphne Koller of Coursera talks with EconTalk host Russ Roberts about online educational website Coursera and the future of education both online and via bricks-and-mortar. Koller, co-founder of Coursera with Andrew Ng, explains how Coursera partners with universities, how they try to create community and interaction, and the likely impact of widespread digital education on universities and those who want to learn. The conversation includes a discussion of why Koller left a chaired position in computer science at Stanford University to run a for-profit start-up in a crowded field.

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When you want to teach writing, you really want to teach editing. You want to teach students to critique each other and then maybe they'll get good at editing their own work.

Russ Roberts, EconTalk

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In the peer grading mechanism that we've put in place, you can go back and assess your own work using the same set of criteria; and say, 'Huh. I could have done that better.' And so it's something that we are constantly told by our learners is one of the most interesting components of their learning experience, participating in the feedback process.

Daphne Koller, CEO Coursera 

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Education is Feedback

Arnold Kling on Econtalk

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4 Ways to Learn Better by Will Stern

Drown your way to swimming

- Don't start at the bottom, start at the top. Find the very best person in the field and follow what they say. If you don't understand their words because they're over your head, listen to them more - google their terminologies - until you do understand the world they live in. Compare your work to the best on earth, not to your peers.

- Put yourself in a place that's way over your head. Apply for a job that you probably won't get...the failed interview will provide invaluable information as to what people value on the playing field you want to be on.

- "Play with the big boys" any chance you get. Get addicted to the feeling of being the worst on the team. If you become the best, find a new place to work where you aren't anymore.

Refuse to learn without doing. 

- Don't read a blog on how to code without hand-coding/copying every example. 

- If you listen to a lecture, take unnecessarily complex notes - this will lock in information. Research shows that taking more selective notes causes you to process the information and retain it better: Taking Notes by Hand Benefits Recall, Researchers Find

Start a blog.

- Disseminate the valuable information you're learning to others. The simple act of teaching will cause you to process the knowledge to a level of simplicity that greatly increases your understanding. Plus, any human interaction surrounding the knowledge - comments, arguments, corrections, will cause it to lock-in deeper into your memory.

Practice shorter, but more frequently rather than longer, but less frequently

- A guitar student who practices 10 minutes every day will do far better than one who plays 2 hours once a week. The latter will simply keep re-learning much of the same thing each week, forgetting it by the next week. Your brain remembers the first and last things the most, so make sure to recap each "learning session" with the most important things you want to remember.

About the author: Will Stern has been the web development industry for 16 years and had to learn countless new technologies. He was also a guitar, graphic design & video editing teacher for the better part of 2 decades. As a result, he has learned some very efficient ways to help people learn new things quickly:

source: http://www.quora.com/What-learning-strategies-do-people-who-are-quick-learners-follow