On a Scale

On a Scale
Author: Norbert Elliot
Publisher: Peter Lang
Total Pages: 434
Release: 2005
Genre: Education
ISBN: 9780820427782

Fear and Trembling? Shock and Awe? Which set of statements best describes the emotions surrounding the assessment of writing ability in educational settings? This book - the first historical study of its kind - begins with Harvard University's 1874 requirement that first-year student applicants submit a short composition as part of the admissions process; the book concludes with the College Board's 2005 requirement for an essay to be submitted as part of the new SAT(R) Reasoning Test. Intended for teachers who must prepare students to submit their writing for formal assessment, administrators who must make critical decisions based on test scores, and policy makers who must allocate resources based on evaluation systems, On a Scale provides a much-needed historical and conceptual background to questions arising from national attention to student writing ability.

Grasp

Grasp
Author: Sanjay Sarma
Publisher: Anchor
Total Pages: 353
Release: 2021-08-10
Genre: Science
ISBN: 110197415X

How do we learn? And how can we learn better? In this groundbreaking look at the science of learning, Sanjay Sarma, head of Open Learning at MIT, shows how we can harness this knowledge to discover our true potential. Drawing from his own experience as an educator as well as the work of researchers and innovators at MIT and beyond, in Grasp, Sarma explores the history of modern education, tracing the way in which traditional classroom methods—lecture, homework, test, repeat—became the norm and showing why things needs to change. The book takes readers across multiple frontiers, from fundamental neuroscience to cognitive psychology and beyond, as it considers the future of learning. It introduces scientists who study forgetting, exposing it not as a simple failure of memory but as a critical weapon in our learning arsenal. It examines the role curiosity plays in promoting a state of “readiness to learn” in the brain (and its troublesome twin, “unreadiness to learn”). And it reveals how such ideas are being put into practice in the real world, such as at unorthodox new programs like Ad Astra, located on the SpaceX campus. Along the way, Grasp debunks long-held views such as the noxious idea of “learning styles,” equipping readers with practical tools for absorbing and retaining information across a lifetime of learning.

Positivism in Psychology

Positivism in Psychology
Author: Charles W. Tolman
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
Total Pages: 228
Release: 2012-12-06
Genre: Psychology
ISBN: 1461244021

Positivism needs further scrutiny. In recent years, there has been little consensus about the nature of positivism or about the precise forms its influence has taken on psychological theory. One symptom of this lack of clarity has been that ostensibly anti-positivist psychological theorizing is frequently found reproducing one or more distinctively positivist assumptions. The contributors to this volume believe that, while virtually every theoretically engaged psychologist today openly rejects positivism in both its 19th century and 20th century forms, it is indispensable to look at positivism from all sides and to appraise its role and importance in order to make possible the further development of psychological theory.

An Elusive Science

An Elusive Science
Author: Ellen Condliffe Lagemann
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Total Pages: 324
Release: 2000
Genre: Education
ISBN: 9780226467733

Since its beginnings at the turn of the 20th century, the science of education has been regarded as a poor relation, reluctantly tolerated at the margins of academe. In this history of education research, Condliffe explains how this came to be.

Merit

Merit
Author: Joseph Kett
Publisher: Cornell University Press
Total Pages: 345
Release: 2013-01-15
Genre: History
ISBN: 0801467667

The idea that citizens' advancement should depend exclusively on merit, on qualities that deserve reward rather than on bloodlines or wire-pulling, was among the Founding ideals of the American republic, Joseph F. Kett argues in this provocative and engaging book. Merit's history, he contends, is best understood within the context of its often conflicting interaction with the other ideals of the Founding, equal rights and government by consent. Merit implies difference; equality suggests sameness. By sanctioning selection of those lower down by those higher up, merit potentially conflicts with the republican ideal that citizens consent to the decisions that affect their lives.In Merit, which traces the history of its subject over three centuries, Kett asserts that Americans have reconciled merit with other principles of the Founding in ways that have shaped their distinctive approach to the grading of public schools, report cards, the forging of workplace hierarchies, employee rating forms, merit systems in government, the selection of officers for the armed forces, and standardized testing for intelligence, character, and vocational interests. Today, the concept of merit is most commonly associated with measures by which it is quantified.Viewing their merit as an element of their selfhood—essential merit—members of the Founding generation showed no interest in quantitative measurements. Rather, they equated merit with an inner quality that accounted for their achievements and that was best measured by their reputations among their peers. In a republic based on equal rights and consent of the people, however, it became important to establish that merit-based rewards were within the grasp of ordinary Americans. In response, Americans embraced institutional merit in the form of procedures focused on drawing small distinctions among average people. They also developed a penchant for increasing the number of winners in competitions—what Kett calls "selection in" rather than "selection out"—in order to satisfy popular aspirations. Kett argues that values rooted in the Founding of the republic continue to influence Americans’ approach to controversies, including those surrounding affirmative action, which involve the ideal of merit.

Fifty Major Thinkers on Education

Fifty Major Thinkers on Education
Author: Joy Palmer
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 272
Release: 2002-09-11
Genre: Education
ISBN: 1134735952

In this unique work some of today's greatest educators present concise, accessible summaries of the great educators of the past. Covering a time-span from 500 BC to the early twentieth century each essay gives key biographical information, an outline of the individual's principal achievements and activities, an assessment of their impact and influence, a list of their major writings and suggested further reading. Together with Fifty Modern Thinkers on Education, this book provides a unique reference guide for all students of education.

Beyond Separate Spheres

Beyond Separate Spheres
Author: Rosalind Rosenberg
Publisher: Yale University Press
Total Pages: 316
Release: 1982-01-01
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 9780300030921

Examines the lives of female social scientists in the nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries, their difficulties in gaining acceptance, and their pioneering studies of the differences between the sexes

International Conference of the Learning Sciences

International Conference of the Learning Sciences
Author: Barry J. Fishman
Publisher: Psychology Press
Total Pages: 401
Release: 2013-04-15
Genre: Psychology
ISBN: 1134998139

The field of the learning sciences is concerned with educational research from the dual perspectives of human cognition and computing technologies, and the application of this research in three integrated areas: *Design: Design of learning and teaching environments, tools, or media, including innovative curricula, multimedia, artificial intelligence, telecommunications technologies, visualization, modeling, and design theories and activity structures for supporting learning and teaching. *Cognition: Models of the structures and processes of learning and teaching by which knowledge, skills, and understanding are developed, including the psychological foundations of the field, learning in content areas, professional learning, and the study of learning enabled by tools or social structures. *Social Context: The social, organizational, and cultural dynamics of learning and teaching across the range of formal and informal settings, including schools, museums, homes, families, and professional settings. Investigations in the learning sciences approach these issues from an interdisciplinary stance combining the traditional disciplines of computer science, cognitive science, and education. This book documents the proceedings of the Fourth International Conference on the Learning Sciences (ICLS 2000), which brought together experts from academia, industry, and education to discuss the application of theoretical and empirical knowledge from learning sciences research to practice in K-12 or higher education, corporate training, and learning in the home or other informal settings.