What should children in K-12 be learning today?
Anna Padte: I am giving a talk next week on Education in the 21st Century. When parents think about their child’s education, K-12, it is often focused on the goal of getting to a good if not excellent college. In updating my research for this talk, I dug deep into the future of American higher education and came upon some gait-stopping ideas.
Continue reading… “Will “going to college” become obsolete?”
Google holds a doodling contest for kids every year.
Google has a yearly doodling contest for kids ages k-12. Why shouldn’t teachers encourage kids to doodle while in class? Well, there seems to be a method for this madness and educational researchers from three Australian universities have shared their studies in the August 26, 2011 journal Science.
Continue reading… “Doodling may help students learn science”
A sophomore at Burlington High School in Burlington, Mass checks out his iPad.
At western Connecticut’s suburban Brookfield High School, incoming freshman will soon be tossing out the heavy textbooks. They will soon be flipping electronic pages on a glossy iPad tablet computer.
Continue reading… “U.S. high schools will add iPads while moving away from textbooks”
What’s the Big Idea? What if the world’s greatest thinkers and leading practitioners all taught at the same school? What if anyone, anywhere could enroll in this school? This fall, Big Think is proud to announce the launch of The Floating University, a new educational media venture that creates and distributes online multimedia curricula featuring the best experts, scholars and professionals that the world has to offer.
Continue reading… “Big Think launches the Floating University e-learning platform”
Cohabitation plays a different role in the lives of adults with and without college degrees.
In the United States cohabitation is an increasingly prevalent lifestyle. The number of 30- to 44-year-olds living as unmarried couples has more than doubled since the mid-1990s. Adults with lower levels of education — without college degrees — are twice as likely to cohabit as those with college degrees.
Continue reading… “The economics of living together without getting married”
Most Americans (64%) say that parents are not putting enough pressure on their children to do well in school as U.S. students are underperforming on international tests. By contrast, 68% of the Chinese public take the opposite position and say that parents in their country are putting too much pressure on their children to succeed academically.
Continue reading… “64% of Americans say parents do not put enough pressure on students”
Fifty percent of all women who have graduated from a four-year college give the U.S. higher education system excellent or good marks for the value it provides given the money spent by students and their families but only 37% of male graduates agree. Also, women who have graduated from college are more likely than men to say their education helped them to grow both personally and intellectually. These results of a nationwide Pew Research Center survey come at a time when women surpass men by record numbers in college enrollment and completion.
Continue reading… “50% of female graduates see value and benefits of college”
Since 1999 outstanding student loan debt has grown by more than 511 percent.
“I still have student loans,” David Guard, a graduate of Gettysburg College and American University, told Fox News recently, as lawmakers and the White House bickered over the debt ceiling. “I could see an increase in those interest rates.”
Continue reading… “Will student loan debt be America’s next big bubble?”
Two girls practice handstands before a diving training session at the centre of China’s State Physical Training Administration.
Mia Wang, a freshman at Tsinghua University has confidence to spare. Asked what her home city of Benxi in China’s far northeastern tip is famous for, she flashes a cool smile and says: “Producing excellence. Like me.”
Continue reading… “China’s one-child policy a boon for Chinese girls”
Creativity has decreased among American children in recent years.
A creativity researcher scoured 300,000 creativity tests going back to the 1970s and found that kids these days are narrow-minded and just not as creative as they used to be.
Continue reading… “Kids today not as creative as they used to be”
Smaller companies will hire a pilot without a college degree if they have enough logged flight time and aircraft knowledge.
Going to college used to be a nearly sure way of getting a steady job. A sure way of getting a steady job was getting a college degree. But many recent college graduates will tell you this is no longer the case.
Continue reading… “Top 10 high paying jobs that only require a high school degree”
Straight-A students live longer.
Straight A students may live longer, according to the Wisconsin Longitudinal Study. The Wisconsin Longitudinal Study has been following more than 10,000 people who graduated from Wisconsin high schools in 1957. Those students who finished in the top 25 percent of their high school class were healthier, decades later, than the ones who finished in the bottom quarter.
Continue reading… “Straight-A students live longer: study”
By delving into the futuring techniques of Futurist Thomas Frey, you’ll embark on an enlightening journey.
Learn More about this exciting program.