Increased Education for Women NOT Delaying First Child Birth in Malawi

The age at first birth in Malawi has remained constant from 1992 to 2010, despite expanded access to education for girls. Social demographer Monica Grant explores this finding in a new Population Development and Review paper, noting that it does not imply that women would have been better off in the absence of recent education policies.

Dr. Grant notes that young women in Malawi will hopefully be able to translate their expanded educational opportunities into improved health and well-being for their children, even without a rise in the age at first birth.

link.

Extraordinary Claim: More Computer Use in School Doesn't Improve Student Learning

Investing heavily in school computers and classroom technology does not improve pupils' performance, says a global study from the OECD.

The think tank says frequent use of computers in schools is more likely to be associated with lower results.

link.

Is Educational Success Inheritable?

The high heritability of educational achievement reflects many genetically influenced traits, not just intelligence

Authors:

Krapohi et al

Abstract:

Because educational achievement at the end of compulsory schooling represents a major tipping point in life, understanding its causes and correlates is important for individual children, their families, and society. Here we identify the general ingredients of educational achievement using a multivariate design that goes beyond intelligence to consider a wide range of predictors, such as self-efficacy, personality, and behavior problems, to assess their independent and joint contributions to educational achievement. We use a genetically sensitive design to address the question of why educational achievement is so highly heritable. We focus on the results of a United Kingdom-wide examination, the General Certificate of Secondary Education (GCSE), which is administered at the end of compulsory education at age 16. GCSE scores were obtained for 13,306 twins at age 16, whom we also assessed contemporaneously on 83 scales that were condensed to nine broad psychological domains, including intelligence, self-efficacy, personality, well-being, and behavior problems. The mean of GCSE core subjects (English, mathematics, science) is more heritable (62%) than the nine predictor domains (35–58%). Each of the domains correlates significantly with GCSE results, and these correlations are largely mediated genetically. The main finding is that, although intelligence accounts for more of the heritability of GCSE than any other single domain, the other domains collectively account for about as much GCSE heritability as intelligence. Together with intelligence, these domains account for 75% of the heritability of GCSE. We conclude that the high heritability of educational achievement reflects many genetically influenced traits, not just intelligence.

A 2nd Call to Reform Russian Universities

Russian universities need change of tack

Author:

Renad Zhdanov

Exert:

Of the factors contributing to Russia's poor scientific performance (see, for example, A. Gorobets Nature 503, 39; 2013), the plight of the country's university professors stands out.

These professors are poorly paid; most are forced to supplement their earnings with other employment. Their typical annual teaching load of up to 1,000 hours is three to five times higher than that in universities elsewhere, leaving them little time for research or writing up their work. On top of this, professors are now under pressure from Russia's Ministry of Education and Science to publish two or three papers a year in international journals to help their universities to reach the top 200 in global rankings.

Math Geeking!

Engineering America

Books

I picked up a few more books for The Mischief. They're not for fun reading, though, alas. However, I am not grumbling at all for expanding my knowledge.

There were two more programming books. The first was Principles of Real-Time Software Engineering since I've not had a real time software engineering specific reading (or project. hacking, yes, coding, yes, debugging, yes, but never a real SWE PoV). The second book is a copy of Real-Time Systems Development. I wanted to refine a little more on what I remember and what I have been cramming in since November. I am hoping this one helps.

The next one really ought to throw some of you for a loop. It's An Introduction to Celestial Mechanics. I've monkeyed with the equations and such before, but never had a formal reading or class in it. As for how this relates to anything else? Just wait and see. When the website's ready (oy) more will be clear.

Romney: Link college aid to occupation

Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney said Wednesday that he would like to link financial aid for college students to the jobs they pursue after graduation.

Romney offered no specifics on what careers would warrant more money for a student during their undergraduate years, such as whether a future lawyer, doctor, teacher or social worker would receive more aid than a future economist or engineer.

"I like the idea of linking the level of support that we're able to provide to young people going to college to the contributions they're going to make to our society," Romney told more than 200 people at a campaign event at a Davenport hotel.

Now that's a good idea.

In truth, I have been particularly hostile to the english, art, and communications departments of various universities. Why in the world should there be free rides for such individuals that are financed through the regular financial aid pool? There are lots of people that are struggling that are engineers and scientists that are in that same pool. If the department has endowments for scholarships, but all means...otherwise, IMAAO, let the individual pay for their own way. Most of the time, I my experience at least, the english et al majors never actually work in their field.

Not endorsing the candidate here, BTW, just the idea that he espoused has merit. If you're afraid of it, don't worry: he'll change his mind.

Cribbing My Own Work

I have this post up on alt.history.future, but there's not a lot of traffic there any more with the impending heat death of usenet, so I'll CnP here:

I have been trying to ponder some ways to improve the educational process here in the States. At one point - from 1992 through 1997 - I was actively involved as a volunteer at the local high school teaching computer programming, science, and some technical writing. It struck me then - and it still doesn't seem to be a lot better now! - that the educational system needed a very serious overhaul. Now, i came out of a school system that was considered a much better than average one: Los Alamos (New Mexico) Public Schools. Yes, /that/ Los Alamos and not every school system can be as good, but I think that there was even serious room for improvement there: a lot of the quality of the education had to do with the almost unique culture of the place[1].

Often times when we Americans start discussing education we start talking about either raising salaries of teachers[2] or accountability. Another talking point that gets raised is that of student teacher ratios. Also the suggestion that we provide vouchers so that kids can be moved from bad schools to good ones is another that keeps coming up: introduce a market structure basically. The first is desirable, but must be done carefully. The second has produced a case where they don't teach generally, but rather they teach The Test here in California even in the good schools. The last often gets tripped up in budgets and the perception that its a jobs program for teachers without really improving the quality of the education. The last is...very politically charged and will end up leaving a lot of students behind, IMO, simply because schools can only accept so many students.

I get the impression though from being exposed to other cultures and their methods of teaching - and performance from it - that there must be others ways that we can attack this problem than just the above few ways. Some real reform seems like its necessary. I guess what I am seeking here is from you all are a some ideas as to what the possible changes might be. I have a few and I'll share them and I am hoping that you all will critique them and add some of your own.

The first idea is that we need to push students more, sooner. One experience I had when I was attending school that I originally was falling behind at the California public schools. My folks as a desperation measure enrolled me in a private school for a year to try to help me: I was headed to special education unless they did something and they did. Even though they really couldn't afford it. It helped. Not only did it help, but I accelerated up to and past my cohorts in public school. If my folks could have kept me there, I'd have been much further along. Possibly even doing algebra by the time I was 10 based on the progress I was making in math and reading. The keys here were low student teacher ratios: 10 kids to one teacher with assistant /and/ the fact that we were pushed big time and not in a boot camp sort of way. This requires more one on one time and lower teacher ratios as well as the willingness to make
individualized study plans.

Second way is a deeper linking between universities and the high schools through project related teaching. I was involved in the New Mexico Supercomputing Challenge (now Adventures in Supercomputing Challenge, iirc) where students would learn to code and make science projects through access to Crays and whatnot. Often times this REALLY helped kids when they found mentors that were really interested in teaching. They would pick the project - it'd be rescoped by the mentor if it was too ambitious - and then the mentor would teach the necessary math, programming, and science to get them able to do the project. This worked wonderfully even after the kids stopped participating because they GOT why they needed to know x, y, or z subjects and made the process of learning interesting. If this was the rule much earlier like say in the 6th grade rather than the voluntary or semivoluntary exception this might make a big impact. However it requires very knowledgeable and broad-based individuals to teach to this style.

Finally, not because its my last idea, but because I have to run, perhaps we need to consider that since the volume of knowledge we are expected to absorb between the ages of 6 and 18 has greatly increased - or should have - perhaps school hours ought to be from 8 until 5 rather than at least around here 8:30 to 3ish. This always daily teaching in all courses as well as nontrivial block based classes for ones that need that time (like Chem Labs).

An honorable mention is to Carlos' everyone with a 3 year premed degree as I cram this in as I run off to an appointment.

Any other thoughts?

Will

1. When something like 40% of adults have PhDs...

2. Something that does need to be done there, but I have met so many frakkin useless teachers: "I don't understand war, so I am not going to teach about [the First World War]. Read your book. Test on Friday."

Education is one of those areas where I have strong opinions and think we need to seriously overhaul. The world has changed since the 1960s. Let's update our educational system for crying out loud!