The Scientific Practices project, was focused on engaging middle school students in scientific and engineering practices (such as developing and using models, constructing explanations of phenomena, and analyzing and interpreting data). As part of this longitudinal project, we carried out field experiments to understand the impact of specific features of the curriculum. In this paper published …
These researchers, from Stanford, Northwestern, and the University of Florida, analyze a large population of twins and siblings (~24k twins and ~300k children in total, born 1994-2002 in Florida). They find no evidence of SES (Socio-Economic Status) moderation of genetic influence on test scores (i.e., cognitive ability). The figure above shows the usual pattern of lower pairwise …
For background on this subject, see How to beat online exam proctoring. It is easy for clever students to beat existing security systems for online exams. Enterprising students could even set up “cheating rooms” that make it easy for test takers to cheat. Judging by the amount of traffic this old post gets, cheating on …
I sometimes get email from people asking, in one way or another, whether our long-term evolution experiment (LTEE) with E. coli provides evidence of evolution writ large – new species, new information, or something of that sort. I try to answer these questions by providing some examples of what we’ve seen change, and by putting …
This is consistent with my experience as a parent and educator: my guess is that number sense is a cognitive module, at least somewhat distinct from general intelligence, and somewhat hardwired. Number sense in infancy predicts mathematical abilities in childhood (PNAS) Abstract: Human infants in the first year of life possess an intuitive sense of …
I had a terrific visit to Scotland last week. The graduate students in the Institute of Evolutionary Biology at the University of Edinburgh invited me to speak there. Thanks especially to Manon Ragonnet and Sam Lewis for organizing and hosting my visit. It seems a bit extravagant to fly overseas for a one-hour lecture. But …
I just looked at my Google Scholar page this afternoon. I find it useful to see who has been citing our research. (And, I admit, it is kind of fun to see those h-indices tick up. I will also admit that I liked baseball statistics when I was a kid. Just yesterday, I was recounting …
Lately I have been looking at tools used to teach young people how to program. That includes environments and languages like Scratch, Turtle Graphics (in Python), Alice, Greenfoot, etc. It also includes full curriculum programs like Girls Who Code, Black Girls Code and online programs through the Khan Academy and Coursera. I’m hitting a wall …
I was recently introduced to Tuckman’s stages of group development, and I’m having one of those how-have-I-never-seen-this-before-? moments. As far as models go, Tuckman’s does not seem particularly revolutionary. What it is, however, is universal. All different types of groups – sports team, research labs, small project teams in elementary school – go through this …
I want to spend some time writing about major topics that pertain to assessment. If you’re new to assessment or if you’re looking for ideas for how to do really good evaluation of educational interventions, then this is definitely something you should read. Today’s topic is validity. What is validity? Validity refers to the accuracy …