December 2016

Education Ministry Drafts Action Plan To Deal With Declining STEM Students

Malaysian Digest | Twitter

Kuala Lumpur: The Education Ministry is drafting the 2017-2025 National Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) Action Plan to overcome the declining number of students joining the stream.

Deputy Education Minister Datuk P Kamalanathan said, the action plan to be implemented through the ministry’s cooperation with the Higher Education Ministry and Science, Technology, and Innovation Ministry, focuses on eight key areas, including basic teaching and learning policies and facilities.

“The plan also focuses on awareness programme, career, strategic cooperation, data and research, commercialisation and innovation,” he told the Dewan Rakyat sitting today.

He was replying to Datuk Takiyuddin Hassan (PAS-Kota Bharu) on the cause behind the declining ratio of students in the STEM stream.

To read more visit Malaysian Digest

Mansfield school district approves pre-k, STEM campuses

Amanda Rogers | Star-Telegram | Twitter

The Mansfield school district has some big plans for some little students and some scientific ones.

On Nov. 15, district trustees voted 6-0 to build a new $14.9 million early childhood literacy center next to Della Icehower Intermediate School for 3- and 4-year-old pre-kindergartners and Preschool Program for Children with Disabilities (PPCD) students. The school board also voted 6-0 to allocate $5.6 million to renovate the annex behind Wester Middle School for a STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) Academy. Trustee Michael Evans was absent.

“One of our guiding principles is that students be reading on grade level by the third grade,” said Holly Teague, the district’s associate superintendent of curriculum, instruction, and accountability. “Having pre-kindergarten gives them a head start.”

To read more visit the Star-Telegram

Minnesota High School Students Learn to Program Robots

U.S. News | Twitter

It is a message known all too well by seventh- and eighth-grade students in Stephen Larson’s computer programming course at St. John’s Preparatory School, the St. Cloud Times (https://on.sctimes.com/2gkdCHa ) reported.

Larson, who has spent the past five years at St. John’s Prep, has encouraged his students in the trial and error art of computer programming and robotics.

“I think technology is helping kids understand programming quicker and faster,” he said. “And more kids are becoming involved as it becomes easier to do.”

Over the course of a semester, Larson’s students learn the basics of programming language on iPads before applying their skills to programming Arduino robotic units.

To read more visit U.S. News

President’s Message to President-Elect

Scott Jaschik | Inside Higher Ed | Twitter

One hundred and ten college and university presidents have issued a joint letter to President-elect Donald Trump urging him to forcefully “condemn and work to prevent the harassment, hate and acts of violence that are being perpetrated across our nation, sometimes in your name, which is now synonymous with our nation’s highest office.”

This action is needed, the presidents write, because of the incidents taking place nationwide, including many on college campuses. “In our schools, on job sites and college campuses, on public streets and in coffee shops, members of our communities, our children, our families, our neighbors, our students and our employees are facing very real threats, and are frightened.”

The full text of the letter and the signatories may be found at the end of this article. (UPDATE: An additional 19 presidents who signed since the letter was first circulated may be found below the original list, and a second group was added on Monday.) News coverage of some of the incidents on college campuses may be found here and here and here. (More than 450 professors at the University of Pennsylvania, Trump’s alma mater, have issued an open letter calling on the president-elect to “immediately and publicly denounce” the way three people in Oklahoma signed up black freshmen at Penn to receive text messages with images of violence against black people and racial slurs from someone called “Daddy Trump” or “Heil Trump.”)

To read more visit Inside Higher Ed

The ‘suck it up, buttercup’ bill: Iowa lawmaker targets post-election campus ‘hysteria

Samantha Schmidt | The Washington Post | Twitter

In the days following the election, university campuses across the country erupted in rallies and marches. College counselors offered “healing spaces” and meditation sessions to help students cope with postelection trauma. Some professors even canceled classes or allowed students to opt out of tests.

One lawmaker in Iowa says he finds this “whole hysteria to be incredibly annoying.”

Bobby Kaufmann, a Republican, plans to introduce a bill that echoes the eye-rolling frustration expressed by many who think colleges are “coddling” their students.

He’s referring to the piece of legislation as the “suck it up, buttercup” bill and he hopes to introduce it when the legislature resumes in January, the Des Moines Register reported.

To read more visit The Washington Post

Most Students Don’t Know When News Is Fake, Stanford Study Finds

Sue Shellenbarger | The Wall Street Journal | Twitter

Preteens and teens may appear dazzlingly fluent, flitting among social-media sites, uploading selfies and texting friends. But they’re often clueless about evaluating the accuracy and trustworthiness of what they find.

Some 82% of middle-schoolers couldn’t distinguish between an ad labeled “sponsored content” and a real news story on a website, according to a Stanford University study of 7,804 students from middle school through college. The study, set for release Tuesday, is the biggest so far on how teens evaluate the information they find online. Many students judged the credibility of newsy tweets based on how much detail they contained or whether a large photo was attached, rather than on the source.

More than two out of three middle-schoolers couldn’t see any valid reason to mistrust a post written by a bank executive arguing that young adults need more financial-planning help. And nearly four in 10 high-school students believed, based on the headline, that a photo of deformed daisies on a photo-sharing site provided strong evidence of toxic conditions near the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant in Japan, even though no source or location was given for the photo.

To read more visit The Wall Street Journal

The Hidden Danger of Social Media: Fake News

Elizabeth Osborne | edCircuit | Twitter

Social media, for better or worse, is a part of 21st-century culture. And for America’s youth, it’s deeply ingrained in their experiences and viewpoints. They don’t know a world without Instagram, SnapChat, and Google. It’s simply their reality.

Social media connects users across the world, allowing them to share ideas, thoughts, and content. While the dangers of social media are prominent in teachings to youth, the entire spectrum of what exactly is dangerous may not be covered. Students are warned of sexual predators online and the consequences of posting scandalous photos or inappropriate comments. But what have we taught them about being able to discern what’s true and what’s false?

Social media has become a source of news, especially with today’s youth. This generation doesn’t buy newspapers or even visit news websites. Most metrics show that visits to the home pages of mainstream news are down considerably. Content that is shared on social media platforms, whether it is from other individual users or the media, has become the bulk of what many in our society consider news. The Pew Research Center has determined that 62 percent of adults receive the majority of news via social media. This has become the norm. So do social media platforms have a responsibility to debunk fake news? And how can educators equip students with the right skills to distinguish between truth and fiction?

To read more visit edCircuit

InformED Report is brought to you in cooperation with American ED TV and MindRocket Media Group

Girls outscore boys on inaugural national test of technology, engineering skills

Emma Brown | The Washington Post | Twitter

Girls outperformed boys on a national test of technology and engineering literacy that the federal government administered for the first time in 2014, according to results made public Tuesday.

Among eighth-grade students in public and private schools, 45 percent of girls and 42 percent of boys scored proficient on the exam, the National Assessment of Educational Progress, or NAEP. Overall, 43 percent of all students were proficient.

The test was designed to measure students’ abilities in areas such as understanding technological principles, designing solutions and communicating and collaborating. Girls were particularly strong in the latter.

There also were large racial and socioeconomic achievement gaps, mirroring results on standardized tests in other subjects. Just 25 percent of students who received free and reduced-price lunch scored proficient, compared to 59 percent of more affluent students. Eighteen percent of black students and 28 percent of Latino students scored proficient, for example, compared to 56 percent of white and Asian students.

To read more visit The Washington Post

Gender pay gap to remain until 2060, report says

BBC News

The gender pay gap in the UK will not close until 2069 based on current salary progression, research suggests.

Accountancy firm Deloitte said the hourly pay gap between men and women of 9.4%, or about £1.30, was narrowing by just two-and-a-half pence a year.

It also found men were paid more than women at the start of their careers.

It said more women should be encouraged into science and technology jobs, where salaries are more balanced but women make up just 14.4% of the workforce.

The Deloitte analysis, based on data from the Office for National Statistics, found women earn an average of 8% less in graduate starting salaries than their male counterparts across all science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) subjects combined.

To read more visit BBC News

Camp hopes to close tech-industry gender gap by teaching girls to code

Perry Stein | The Washington Post

To read more visit The Washington Post

Why we should bring back vocational training

Starre Vartan | MNN | Twitter

It used to be that everybody learned both academic and vocational subjects as part of their education. High school students would learn English literature and basic carpentry, physics and how to cook a well-balanced meal. Then, for a time, students were split into tracks by ability; the college-bound would take only academic subjects, and the others would take basic English, math and science classes plus shop class or home economics.

But because poorer or minority students were often pointed down the latter path, some parents objected, pointing out that just because their kids were working-class didn’t mean they shouldn’t get a shot at college. Which brings us to today, where most kids are on the college-prep path.

College isn’t for everyone. As of 2014, 66 percent of high school students enrolled in college. Data from previous years show that of the students who applied, were accepted and enrolled in college, only 60 percent graduated in six years. That means out of a theoretical high school class of 100, 33 people never went to college in the first place, and of the 66 who did, 26 didn’t graduate. That’s 59 out of 100 students whose high school program (or life situations) didn’t prepare them for the type of work they’ll be doing for the rest of their lives.

To read more visit MNN

Why We Desperately Need To Bring Back Vocational Training In Schools

Nicholas Wyman | Forbes | Twitter

Throughout most of U.S. history, American high school students were routinely taught vocational and job-ready skills along with the three Rs: reading, writing, and arithmetic. Indeed readers of a certain age are likely to have fond memories of huddling over wooden workbenches learning a craft such as woodwork or maybe metal work, or any one of the hands-on projects that characterized the once-ubiquitous shop class.

But in the 1950s, a different philosophy emerged: the theory that students should follow separate educational tracks according to ability. The idea was that the college-bound would take traditional academic courses (Latin, creative writing, science, math) and received no vocational training. Those students not headed for college would take basic academic courses, along with vocational training, or “shop.”

To read more visit Forbes

High school students face soaring cost of higher education

Natalie Martinez | KTXS | Twitter

Stephen Ford is one of many high school seniors with anxiety about college. He’s applied to several universities in the area but fears he won’t be able to afford them.

“It’s stressful because I’ve never really had anyone in my immediate family go to college,” Ford said. “I don’t know what to do, and they don’t know what to do, so we’re just trying to figure it out.”

Higher education costs are soaring–according to the Texas Tribune, they’re up 147 percent since 2002 at public universities in Texas.

We took a look at tuition rates of the three private universities in Abilene for 2016 and compared the costs listed on each of their websites to last year’s totals from college tuition compare.com.

Abilene Christian University is up to $32,020 compared to last year at $30,830; McMurry University is $26,100 compared to last year’s $25,763; Hardin-Simmons University is at $25,830 compared to last year $24,500. Figures were not available to compare the growth from 2002 with public schools in Texas.

The Abilene Education Program places college advisors at each Abilene ISD high school as a part of the COOL program, which helps students apply for higher education institutions and find an affordable path to attend school.

To read more visit KTXS

Action Needed To Boost College Enrollment Of Low-Income Students

Harold O. Levy | Forbes | Twitter

American colleges and universities do a good job helping the sons and daughters of middle and upper-income parents get the education they need for career success and economic security. But they do too little to help low-income students gain admission and graduate.

Colleges are supposed to be engines of upward mobility. They are designed to enable the poor and working class to develop their talents and work their way into the middle class and higher.

The land grant colleges and the state universities have this as an explicit part of their mission. Even the Ivy League schools profess to be about the business of helping the downtrodden. Yet the actions of colleges and universities, particularly those at the top, fail to live up to their lofty rhetoric.

To read more visit Forbes

InformED Report is brought to you in cooperation with American ED TV and MindRocket Media Group