Fernweh Magazine

Ontsnap. Steeds vaker. En verder..!

J. Stevens

Basisschoolleerlinge ontdekt bijzonder molecuul [video]

Basisschoolleerlinge ontdekt bijzonder molecuul [video]

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Niet elk kind kan met recht zeggen dat het al op de basisschool een artikel in een wetenschappelijk vakblad op het gebied van theoretische scheikunde heeft gepubliceerd. Clara Lazen kan dat wel met trots zeggen en dat nog wel vóórdat ze de middelbare schoolleeftijd bereikt heeft.
Tijdens een scheikunde-project, op de Montessori-school waar de tienjarige Clara leerlinge is, wist zij een (model van een) molecuul samen te stellen dat een doorbraak in de wereld van de scheikunde zal betekenen, in het bijzonder als  militaire toepassing. Dat laatste is minder mooi, vinden wij. Maar de vraag is sowieso nog of er iemand is die het molecuul in werkelijkheid weet te fabriceren. Het molecuul zal bijzondere eigenschappen hebben qua energie-opslag. Dankzij Clara is het theoretische model en de publicatie daarvan in een wetenschappelijk vaktijdschrift in ieder geval al een feit (zie filmpje).

 

Meer weten? Zie de site van de Huffington Post

The Hole in the Wall Project and the Power of Self-Organized Learning

The Hole in the Wall Project and the Power of Self-Organized Learning

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When working in groups, children do not need to be “taught” how to use computers. They can teach themselves. Their ability to do so seems to be independent of educational background, literacy level, social or economic status, ethnicity and place of origin, gender, geographic location (i.e., city, town or village, or intelligence.)

Using the Hole in the Wall setup with a single PC, children can learn to do most or all of the following tasks in approximately three months:

1. basic computer navigation functions, such as click, drag, open, close, resize, minimize and menu selection
2. drawing and painting pictures on the computer
3. loading and saving files
4. downloading and playing games
5. running educational software and other programs
6. playing music and videos, and viewing photos and pictures
7. surfing the Internet, if a broadband connection is available
8. setting up email accounts
9. sending and receiving email
10. using social networking programs, such as chat rooms (AIM, Google Chat, etc.), Skype and Facebook
11. simple troubleshooting, such as fixing speakers that aren’t playing sound
12. downloading and playing streaming media

In addition, local teachers and field observers noted that the children demonstrated improvements in enrollment, attendance and performance on school examinations, particularly in subjects that deal with computing skills; English vocabulary and usage; concentration, attention span and problem-solving skills; and working cooperatively and self-regulation.

 

I believe that MLE should be an important part of every school’s curricula.

View Sugata Mitra’s TED Talk

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Study: Class size doesn’t matter

Study: Class size doesn’t matter

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Two Harvard researchers looked at the factors that actually improve student achievement and those that don’t. In a new paper for the National Bureau of Economic Research, Will Dobbie and Roland Freyer analyzed 35 charter schools, which generally have greater flexibility in terms of school structure and strategy. They found that traditionally emphasized factors such as class size made little difference, compared with some new criteria

We find that traditionally collected input measures — class size, per pupil expenditure, the fraction of teachers with no certification, and the fraction of teachers with an advanced degree — are not correlated with school effectiveness. In stark contrast, we show that an index of five policies suggested by over forty years of qualitative research — frequent teacher feedback, the use of data to guide instruction, high-dosage tutoring, increased instructional time, and high expectations — explains approximately 50 percent of the variation in school effectiveness.

“Data-driven instruction” may be the least familiar policy of the bunch. Dobbie and Fryer explain: “We attempt to understand how schools use data through the frequency of interim assessments, whether teachers meet with a school leader to discuss student data, how often teachers receive reports on student results, and how often data from interim assessments are used to adjust tutoring groups, assign remediation, modify instruction, or create individualized student goals.”

Source: https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/post/study-class-size-doesnt-m…

– No Copyright Infringement Intended.
Via: Timothy Lomauro Ph.D.

Mondo Leone’s version van The Rumble in the Jungle + Bonus

Mondo Leone’s version van The Rumble in the Jungle + Bonus

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Al jaren volg ik met een bovengemiddelde interesse de creatieve, inspirerende en artistieke verrichtingen van Mondo Leone (Leon Giesen). Hieronder staat een door hem gemaakt filmpje met bijpassende prachtige muziek. Enjoy!

 

TIP: Als je de kans hebt, bezoek dan eens een voorstelling van hem! Echt te gek!


BONUSFILMPJE MONDO LEONE

Een van Mondo Leone’s favorieten is het huisje waarop een portret van Jimi Hendrix geschilderd is, langs het spoor tussen Utrecht en Den Bosch. Het is ’s zomers niet zo goed te zien
omdat er bladeren aan de bomen zitten en… er riet voor staat die je, als treinreiziger, het zich erop ontneemt.
Voel je je buitengesloten? Genegeerd worden, zelfs door een onbekende, doet pijn

Voel je je buitengesloten? Genegeerd worden, zelfs door een onbekende, doet pijn

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Feeling Left Out? Being Ignored Hurts, Even By A Stranger

Feeling like you’re part of the gang is crucial to the human experience. All people get stressed out when we’re left out. A new study published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, finds that a feeling of inclusion can come from something as simple as eye contact from a stranger.Psychologists already know that humans have to feel connected to each other to be happy. A knitting circle, a church choir, or a friendly neighbor can all feed that need for connection. Eric D. Wesselmann of Purdue University wanted to know just how small a cue could help someone feel connected. He cowrote the study with Florencia D. Cardoso of the Universidad Nacional de Mar del Plata in Argentina, Samantha Slater of Ohio University, and Kipling D. Williams of Purdue. “Some of my coauthors have found, for example, that people have reported that they felt bothered sometimes even when a stranger hasn’t acknowledged them,” Wesselmann says. He and his authors came up with an experiment to test that.

 

The study was carried out with the cooperation of people on campus at Purdue University. A research assistant walked along a well-populated path, picked a subject, and either met that person’s eyes, met their eyes and smiled, or looked in the direction of the person’s eyes, but past them – past an ear, for example, “looking at them as if they were air,” Wesselmann says. When the assistant had passed the person, he or she gave a thumbs-up behind the back to indicate that another experimenter should stop that person. The second experimenter asked, “Within the last minute, how disconnected do you feel from others?”

People who had gotten eye contact from the research assistant, with or without a smile, felt less disconnected than people who had been looked at as if they weren’t there.

“These are people that you don’t know, just walking by you, but them looking at you or giving you the air gaze – looking through you – seemed to have at least momentary effect,” Wesselmann says. Other research has found that even being ostracized by a group you want nothing to do with, like the Ku Klux Klan, can make people feel left out, so it’s not surprising that being pointedly ignored can have the same effect. “What we find so interesting about this is that now we can further speak to the power of human social connection,” Wesselmann says. “It seems to be a very strong phenomenon.”

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Association for Psychological Science. “Feeling Left Out? Being Ignored Hurts, Even By A Stranger.“ Medical News Today. MediLexicon, Intl., 27 Jan. 2012. Web.
27 Jan. 2012.

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Verder lezen?
Zie ook deze column die ik schreef voor De OrganisatieActivist d.d. juni 2009: ‘Indelen uitsluiten?‘
Kun je aan de woordkeuze van medewerkers horen of een bedrijf slecht draait?

Kun je aan de woordkeuze van medewerkers horen of een bedrijf slecht draait?

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Als medewerkers verwijzen naar hun werk met: ‘het bedrijf’, ‘de zaak’ of ‘dat bedrijf’ en naar collega’s verwijzen met de aanduiding ‘zij’ is het waarschijnlijk dat ze bij bedrijven werken waar de sfeer slecht is en het verloop hoog. Als medewerkers over ‘ons kantoor’ en ‘onze onderneming’ praten dan is het waarschijnlijker dat het verloop onder medewerkers laag is. Zij werken dan waarschijnlijk harder en voelen voldoening van hun werk. In de woorden van James Pennebaker, schrijver van het boek The Secret Life of Pronouns: What Our Words Say About Us:

Management consultants sometimes distinguish among I-companies, we-companies, and they-companies. To get a rough idea of an organization’s climate, they ask employees to talk about their typical workday. If employees refer to “my office” or “my company,” the atmosphere of the workplace is usually fine. People working in these I-companies are reasonably happy but not particularly wedded to the company itself. However, if they refer to “our office” or “our company,” pay special attention. Those in we-companies have embraced their workplace as part of their own identities. This sense of we-ness may explain why they work harder, have lower employee turnover, and have a greater sense of fulfillment about their work lives. And be very concerned if an organization’s employees start calling it “the company” or, worse, “that company” and referring to their co-workers as “they.” They-companies can be nightmares because workers are proclaiming that their work identity has nothing to do with them. No wonder consultants report that they-companies have unhappy workers and high turnover.
 

The Secret Life of Pronouns James W Pennebaker - Fernweh Magazine

Het boek van James Pennebaker waaruit geciteerd werd.