This Springer open-access book is one of the first to be published, or even the first, discussing the results of PISA 2018. It analyses how ten different countries have evolved and what makes countries change.
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FIC.A
Dia 17 de Outubro, estarei no FIC.A pelas 14h nos Jardins do Palácio do Marquês de Pombal, para uma conferência sobre a importância da ciência para a educação e sobre o modo como pode informar as práticas educativas, contribuindo para melhorar a educação. Aberto a todos os que tiverem interesse.
Evento: Discussão do livro Tareas pendientes: Aciertos y errores de 31 exministros para pensar el futuro de la educación | 7 de Outubro | 17h
7 de Outubro | 17h Inscrição online necessária.
Panel @CratoNuno, @Otto2025 y @vidalgloria dialogarán con @Agustinporres sobre su libro, un conjunto de entrevistas a quienes han sido responsables en la política educativa de 27 países. Modera: Claudia Romero. Presentan: @eduardoyeyati y @CeciliaCalero. https://bit.ly/3okmuy
Les link de discusión: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DendvA2Ct3Q
EVENT
Glad to Present at ResearchED National Conference 2021, Saturday Sept 4 / Session 1 – 10:05 – 10:45.
“After the longest year, we are delighted to be able to announce that one of the education calendar’s highlights is back in action. We can hardly believe it ourselves. We’ve loved using online platforms like researchED Home to keep teachers connected with evidence and research, but we’ve missed face-to-face, and we know lots of people have too.
That’s why we’re thrilled and honoured to announce that we’ll hold the national conference 2021 on September the 4th, with what we know will be the usual extraordinary list of extraordinary voices and minds.”
Tickets:Book tickets through Eventbrite
Five questions to ask if you think teaching problem-solving works. By John Sweller
Every few decades there is a campaign to include general problem-solving and thinking skills in school curricula. The motivation is understandable. Everyone would like our schools to enhance students’ critical thinking and problem-solving skills. Because it is so obviously important for students to have such skills, these campaigns are frequently successful in including thinking and problem-solving skill modules in the curriculum. Unfortunately, success in introducing thinking and problem-solving into curricula has not been matched by successful educational outcomes. Across the world, there is a consistent failure to actually improve problem-solving performance. We now know enough about human cognition to know why attempts to teach general cognitive skills such as problem-solving will always fail. Here are a few questions that those advocating for the curriculum to include problem solving in areas such as mathematics might want to consider.
- What sophisticated, learnable and teachable problem-solving strategies do you personally use when solving a novel problem? If you cannot describe the strategies you use, what hope do you have of teaching them? At least consider the possibility that there are no learnable and teachable general problem-solving strategies.
- Ignoring the problem that no novel, general problem-solving strategies have ever been devised, what evidence is there from randomised, controlled trials that teaching general problem-solving strategies improves problem-solving performance? If, after dozens of years attempting to find a body of evidence for the efficacy of teaching general problem-solving strategies, no such bodies of evidence exist, we must at least consider the possibility that they will never exist.
- The relevant randomised controlled trials have been run. Within a cognitive load theory context (Lovell, 2020; Garnett, 2020; Sweller, Ayres and Kalyuga, 2011) dozens of experiments from around the globe have compared learners solving classroom problems as opposed to studying a worked example demonstrating the solution. For novice learners in an area, the results overwhelmingly indicate improved performance by the worked-example group over the problem-solving group. Why? Humans are amongst the very few species that have evolved to obtain information from other members of the species. We are very good at it. We can obtain information by problem solving but it is a slow, inefficient technique. If available, novel, complex information always should be obtained from others during instruction rather than attempting to generate it ourselves.
- There is evidence that problem solving can be superior to studying solutions but it only occurs when students are already knowledgeable in the area. They need to practice problem solving. There is no evidence that knowledgeable students are better at solving novel problems outside of their areas of knowledge. Why does practice at solving problems only become effective once we become reasonably knowledgeable in the relevant curriculum area? Cognitive load theory provides an answer that is beyond the scope of this statement (see also Martin and Evans, 2018 ).
- Ignoring the lack of evidence from randomised, controlled trials, why do correlational studies on data from international tests consistently demonstrate that the less guidance learners are given when learning, the less they learn? (Note, problem solving is associated with minimal guidance.) (Oliver, McConney and Woods-McConney, 2019; Jerrim, Oliver and Sims, 2019)
As indicated above, cognitive load theory provides one answer to this set of questions. The theory uses our knowledge of human cognition and evolutionary psychology to devise novel instructional procedures. It explains why (a) when dealing with novel, complex problems, studying worked examples is superior to solving the equivalent problems, (b) why solving problems is superior to studying worked examples when levels of expertise have increased in a particular domain, and (c) why attempting to teach non-existent problem-solving strategies, by taking time away from teaching subject matter, reduces students’ performance on international tests.
So, how can we increase problem-solving skill? By increasing domain-specific knowledge. Expecting anyone to engage in sophisticated problem solving and critical thinking in areas where they have minimal knowledge is futile. Lots of domain knowledge allows critical thinking and effective problem solving to occur naturally and automatically. Attempting to teach general problem-solving skills rather than knowledge, does not.
John Sweller is the emeritus professor of educational psychology in the School of Education at UNSW.
This article was originally published on EduResearch Matters. Read the original article.
Event: Economia Viva. Nova SBE
Teaching in the digital age.
Economia Viva is a cycle of conferences in which the most diverse topics of global interest are discussed. It is organized every year in a partnership between the Nova Economics Club (NEC) and the Nova Students’ Union (Nova SU), taking place at Nova School of Business and Economics. Ever since its first edition, in 2016, Economia Viva has covered a vast range of topics and presented students and guests with a wide variety of opinions – aiming to achieve a truly open-minded debate.
Register here and join us tomorrow, 6 April, at 6pm.
Evento 6 de Abril: “A Educação…aos Olhos de um Professor”
Organizado pelo ISEG, este evento é direccionado a todos os Professores do Ensino Secundário.
Junte-se a nós através do Link: https://videoconf-colibri.zoom.us/j/86391139305?pwd=U1cxR1hjL0ovSUhVN3Nkc2RCbzR0QT09
Webinar March 2, 8:00 GMT
What it takes to improve education? Raising knowledge and skills’ standards, improving teaching, setting up assessment. Glad to address the International Conference at Eszterházy Károly University.
Join Us next March 2 at 8:00 GMT : https://uni-eszterhazy.hu/en/ekf-college/incoming-staff/international-week-2021/c/international-week-2021
La Grande Illusion – A Grande Ilusão
Nuno Crato | Cemapre – REM, ISEG, Universidade de Lisboa
Resumo
A recente pandemia tornou evidentes para quase todos nós as grandes vantagens do ensino presencial e as grandes limitações do ensino remoto. Mas vale a pena revisitar um pouco as ilusões que estavam por detrás de alguma encomiástica defesa do ensino remoto, pois esse debate, que hoje encontra suporte em dados científicos, pode levar-nos a melhorar tanto o ensino presencial como a minorar inconvenientes do ensino remoto. Essa melhoria é tanto mais importante quanto a pandemia nos trouxe atrasos ou mesmo retrocessos no esforço educativo. Com base em investigação científica muito recente, defende-se neste artigo que a resposta aos inconvenientes da pandemia não pode ser apenas manter os estudantes ocupados e em contacto com a escola e a aprendizagem. A resposta deve ser acelerar o ritmo e a qualidade da educação. Para o fazer, é ainda mais importante prosseguir um currículo exigente e ambicioso e proceder a uma avaliação de resultados frequente e rigorosa. Os meios remotos podem ser um complemento valioso do ensino presencial.
Abstract
The pandemic made visible both the great advantages of face-to-face teaching and the great disadvantages of remote learning. It is nevertheless interesting to revisit a few illusions behind some hagiographic defence of remote learning. Today, this debate can be supported by scientific evidence and it can lead to improvements both in the face-to-face teaching and in the remote teaching drawbacks. These improvements are more than necessary at this moment, as the pandemic brought about serious delays in the learning processes. With support on recent scientific research, this paper sustains that the answer to the pandemic cannot be to just keep students in contact with school activities. The answer ought to be to accelerate the educational pace and to improve the educational quality. In order to do so, we need an ambitious and rigorous curriculum and frequent and reliable student evaluations. Remote learning should not be separated from the general learning process but integrated in it and seen as a complement to face-to-face schooling.
TIMSS results
In antecipation of TIMSS results release 8 Dec, it may be informative to read our book chapter on what PISA and TIMSS measure and how: Read here.
O Eclipse da Relatividade
Revista da Ciência Elementar, Outubro 2019.
Nuno Crato e Luis Tirapicos
Há na história da ciência algumas datas que marcam revoluções no nosso conhecimento do Universo. O ano de 1666 constitui, certamente, uma dessas datas. Foi então que Isaac Newton, na altura com 23 anos, criou o cálculo integral e diferencial, a teoria da gravitação universal e a teoria das cores. O ano de 1905, em que Einstein publicou quatro trabalhos revolucionários, constitui uma outra dessas datas-chave. E deve-se a este físico ainda uma outra data-chave: o ano de 1915, em que formulou a teoria da relatividade geral, por vezes considerada a criação científica mais fabulosa da mente humana.
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