Toughest Exam Question: What Is the Best Way to Study?
The Wall Street Journal, Oct. 26, 2011 — Here’s a pop quiz: What foods are best to eat before a high-stakes test? When is the best time to review the toughest material? A growing body of research on the best study techniques offers some answers. Chiefly, testing yourself repeatedly before an exam teaches the brain to retrieve and apply knowledge from memory. The method is more effective than re-reading a textbook, says Jeffrey Karpicke, an assistant professor of psychological sciences at Purdue University. If you are facing a test on the digestive system, he says, practice explaining how it works from start to finish, rather than studying a list of its parts. In his junior
Brain scans support findings that IQ can rise or fall significantly during adolescence
Wellcome Trust (October 20, 2011) — IQ, the standard measure of intelligence, can increase or fall significantly during our teenage years, according to research funded by the Wellcome Trust, and these changes are associated with changes to the structure of our brains. The findings may have implications for testing and streaming of children during their school years. Across our lifetime, our intellectual ability is considered to be stable, with intelligence quotient (IQ) scores taken at one point in time used to predict educational achievement and employment prospects later in life. However, in a study published today in the journal ‘Nature’, researchers at the Wellcome Trust Centre for Neuroimaging at UCL (University College London) and the Centre
Women Aren't Becoming Engineers Because of Confidence Issues, Study Suggests
ScienceDaily (Oct. 25, 2011) — Women are less likely than men to stay in engineering majors and to become engineers because they want to have families and are more insecure about their math abilities, right? Not necessarily, suggests a new study in the October issue of the American Sociological Review. The study found that the real issue for female engineering students is their lack of “professional role confidence.” Among other things, this term encompasses people’s faith in their ability to go out into the world and be professional engineers and their belief that engineering fits their interests and values, which the study authors refer to as “expertise confidence” and “career-fit confidence,” respectively.
First Physical Evidence: Bilingualism Delays Onset of Alzheimer's Symptoms
ScienceDaily (Oct. 13, 2011) — Researchers at St. Michael’s Hospital have found that people who speak more than one language have twice as much brain damage as unilingual people before they exhibit symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease. It’s the first physical evidence that bilingualism delays the onset of the disease.
The minds of creative geniuses, like Steve Jobs, remain a scientific mystery
The minds of creative people are different, but scientists do not why. A report from Anne McIlroy of the Toronto Globe and Mail describes what we do know.
RAND Corporation Reports on Summer Learning
RAND Education, in a study sponsored by The Wallace Foundation, surveys the research to spell out the benefits of extending the learning calendar. The think-tank finds summer learning is especially useful for students who need more time to master a subject in Making Summer Count: How Summer Programs Can Boost Children's Learning. Here's a link to the full report in PDF format. The Wallace Foundation provides additional information online at Summer and Extended Learning Time. Learn more about The Student Connection here.
