Students

Get them while they’re young: A baby forms 700 new neural connections per second.By Peter CoyBrain science and economics show that intervening to help children when they’re very young is more cost-effective than waiting until they’re in school. That’s the conclusion of a new report from the Bridgespan Group and the Pritzker Children’s Initiative. The report’s lead author, J.B. Pritzker, is an entrepreneur and philanthropist; his sister, Penny, is the U.S. secretary of commerce.

Angela Maiers has been a leading educator and voice for students for over 26 years. Her breakout TEDx Talk launched her second act and provided the platform to build Choose2Matter, challenging and inspiring students all around the world. Her new book, “An Interactive Guide to Liberating Genius in the Classroom,” gives teachers a “how to” approach to genius hour. Maiers took time to discuss the importance of Connected Educator Month and shared her perspective on public-private-partnerships in US education.Angela Maiers has been creating and leading change in education and enterprise for 26 years, teaching every level of school from kindergarten to graduate school and consulting with companies around the world. Angela is the founder of Choose2Matter, a global movement that challenges and inspires students to work collaboratively to develop innovative solutions to social problems. She is an alumna of The University of Iowa, where she earned her Bachelor’s in Education and her Master’s in Educational Supervision and Reading. 

Hoping to offer more alternatives, particularly to low-income students considering substandard for-profit colleges, the Education Department is unveiling a pilot program on Wednesday to allow students to use federal loans and grants for nontraditional education like boot camp software coding programs and MOOCs, or massive open online courses.

The ups and downs of gentrification have been chronicled thoroughly, but one of its consequences hasn’t been widely addressed: the effect on neighborhood schools when a critical mass of well-educated, well-off people move in. Gentrification usually brings some benefits with it to a neighborhood, such as more attention from the city—as Spike Lee noted, suddenly the trash gets picked up! But does an influx of children from wealthier families make a positive difference to local public schools?

Senior capstone project ideas explained: how schools structure them, what the reports show and do not show, and what to settle before starting.

Ron Turiello’s daughter, Grace, seemed unusually alert even as a newborn.At 7 months or so, she showed an interest in categorizing objects: She’d take a drawing of an elephant in a picture book, say, and match it to a stuffed elephant and a realistic plastic elephant.At 5 or 6 years old, when snorkeling with her family in Hawaii, she identified a passing fish correctly as a Heller’s barracuda, then added, “Where are the rest? They usually travel in schools.

B urck Smith, CEO at Straighterline, discusses his approach to solving the skyrocketing cost of college with low-cost online courses built to transfer to over 90 accredited colleges.  Smith, along with nearly 900 participants, including some 250 global education companies, was in New York for the BMO Capital Markets 15th Annual Back to School Education Conference. Dr. Berger, in collaboration with MindRocket Media Group and edCircuit captured views from business leaders to investors taking a look behind the scenes of investment in education and technology.

Today’s college freshmen have never known life without Wi-Fi, smartphones, or Harry Potter. For them, the Internet isn’t innovation—it’s oxygen.

K aren Mahon, Ed.D joined Dr. Berger to discuss educational apps and lessons for the industry. Mahon is the founder of Balefire Labs that has reviewed nearly 5,000 apps in education. Balefire Labs utilizes a research-based set of criteria to review apps in the areas of instructional and usability design. Karen L. Mahon Ed.D is an Educational Psychologist and Instructional Designer with more than 15 years’ experience in education technology. Mahon was Principal Investigator and Research Scientist at Praxis, Inc., a Waltham (MA) ed tech startup that produced instructional software for children with severe and profound disabilities. While at Praxis, Mahon successfully generated National Institutes of Health Small Business Innovation Research grants totaling close to $4M.Other previous appointments have included Global Senior Manager of Learning Sciences at Mimio Interactive Teaching Technologies and Research Assistant Professor at the University of Kansas. Karen received her Ed.D. and M.A. in Educational Psychology from West Virginia University, her Product Management Certificate from the University of California, Berkeley, Haas School of Business, and her B.A. in Psychology from the University of California, San Diego.