Items to Share: 12 January 2014

Education Focus

• What Components Make Group Work Successful? | Faculty Focus  'There’s lots of research documenting the positive effects of group experiences on learning outcomes. Less is known about the specific aspects of group experiences that contribute to their overall positive impact. Thomas Tomcho and Rob Foels decided to explore this question by looking at the research on group learning in the field of psychology, as reported in the journal Teaching of Psychology.' 

• BBC News - Long gaps during revision 'better than cramming' 'There is bad news for anyone relying on last-minute exam cramming, as psychologists publish research showing that learning is much more effective when spaced out over stretches of time.' 

• Pick one thing | Teaching In Higher Ed 'One piece of guidance I gave at the start of almost every gathering was to not to try to implement every good idea that participants heard about, but rather to pick one thing at each meeting that would be of most benefit...'.

• The classroom walkthrough and student achievement - Daniel Willingham '[...]time spent on instructional leadership was NOT associated with student learning outcomes. But once "instructional leadership" was made more fine-grained, the picture changed. Time spent coaching teachers--especially in math--was associated with better student outcomes. So was time spent evaluating teachers and curriculum.'

Other Business

• Doctor Grumpy in the House: Medical research 'The British Medical Journal recently contributed an important piece of literature to answer an age-old nurses' station question: "Who the hell ate the chocolate?"'

• The Closing of the Scientific Mind Commentary Magazine 'The huge cultural authority science has acquired over the past century imposes large duties on every scientist. Scientists have acquired the power to impress and intimidate every time they open their mouths, and it is their responsibility to keep this power in mind no matter what they say or do. Too many have forgotten their obligation to approach with due respect the scholarly, artistic, religious, humanistic work that has always been mankind’s main spiritual support.'

• Just Because You Give Someone Cleaner Technology Doesn’t Mean They’ll Use It | Motherboard 'If you want to build an effective solution, you have to identify the real problem first'. A salutary tale of unintended consequences. (via Andrew Sullivan)

• Period Piece | The Weekly Standard The theory and meaning of our own hieroglyphics. 

• How to Live: Lessons from Montaigne, Godfather of Blogging | Brain Pickings 'What separated Montaigne from other memoirists of his day was that he didn’t write about his daily deeds and his achievements — rather, he contemplated the meaning of life from all possible angles, and in the process popularized the essay as a form. [...] The 107 essays he penned range across the entire spectrum of human concerns — from the grandly existential, like death and the art of living, to the universally human, like fear and friendship and sadness and love, to the seemingly trivial, like the customs of dress. Above all, however, he was interested in the simple yet infinitely profound question of how to live...'