Sleep affects math performance more

https://www.sciencenews.org/article/sleep-deprivation-hits-some-brain-areas-hard?utm_source=Society+for+Science+Newsletters&utm_campaign=376a7c876e-editors_picks_week_of_0808168_13_2016&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_a4c415a67f-376a7c876e-104582405

Math teachers in particular may have noticed a decline in the abilities of children and stood somewhat bemused as the 'Math Wars' raged in academia (usually waged, it has be said, by people who spent little time in the trenches).  I think most of us recognized that often the most pressing problem with a student who was struggling in maths was the fact that they hadn't eaten breakfast and had gone to bed at 3 in the morning.

Standardized Testing

Standardized Testing does not have to be a bland multiple choice test. In fact some standardization is only fair, when high school results often get students into universities. Some might argue that in  fact standardization is ever more crucial in an increasingly globalised world. Quite why the United States has fixated on dreary multiple choice tests can only be explained by one rationale ; cost. But done properly standardized Testing can be a useful tool. Like all tools, it's effectiveness depends on its appropriate use ; use a claw hammer for removing haemorrids instead of banging in nails and the results are likely to be eye-wateringly bad. Standardized Testing could be a useful diagnostic instead of a judgement on individuals or organizations.

The PISA tests and international rankings

The agonizing over a countries rankings in the PISA tests has always slightly bemused me. How come IQ tests have been largely debunked yet these PISA tests remain so revered?

Few seem to have asked the crucial questions ; who writes the tests, and how valid really are they as a measure of a country's general educational level?

It is painful to see administrators cooking up bureaucratic and unproven ways to raise results when the most effective remains the simplest ; small classes. Hire more teachers and assistants in the actual classroom and watch standards rise inexorably with the most value for money.

learning styles and mutiple intelligences

image wikipedia

Gardner's theory of multiple intelligences  has a problematic history in teaching. For decades teachers have been told to adapt their teaching style to suit the audio, visual or kinesthetic preference of the learner in the belief that this will enhance their understanding. The belief has become deeply entrenched, almost a dogma in teaching. Yet I would suggest any dogma should be resisted, particularly in a profession that should be centred around critical thinking !  

The truth is that Gardner's theory has never been rigorously tested or proven to enhance understanding. At the most, it has been shown to help student engagement, and there is considerable evidence to show that actually students do not grow intellectually if they do not test their other learning preferences. The available evidence suggests all learning styles, if they exist, should be challenged by a variety of teaching methods, much as students should grow by trying and testing different skills.  Spend your school time avoiding listening because you don't do well with audio learning, and you never will be a decent listener. Gardner himself denied that his work should be interpreted so as to mean students should be taught according to their own individual learning style. Somehow his theory of multiple intelligences was adopted by the teaching profession to become a dogma around learning styles and how they should be catered to. Historically there has been a problematic disconnect between teaching and psychology, and psychology itself is undergoing a crisis as many of its theories fail the reproducability test of science rigour.

Ultimately perhaps all teachers should aim to incorporate a mix of teaching styles to challenge all students in all learning styles,  rather than differentiate according to Gardner's theory, or rather the interpretation of Gardner's theory. Gardner himself suggested teaching important material in multiple ways, ( again, where is the evidence for this ? ) yet confusingly also advocated  'indivisualising the teaching style '. Actually evidence suggests  differentiating according to learning style preference may have inadvertently contributed to a lack of challenge, and ultimately a lack of growth in many of today's students. Have we avoided student's weaknesses rather than try to rectify them ? If a student is a weak visual learner and has a preference for kinesthetic learning,  we should really be more concerned with rectifying their weakness rather than pandering to their preferences. We owe it to them.

This approach of pandering to student preference can be appealing because it raises engagement, a good thing in itself, and it appeals to the modern sense of the individual customer getting what they need. However like all teaching theories, it should have been subjected to much more rigorous scrutiny before it became accepted practice in the profession. In the case of learning styles, it seems an unproven theory of multiple intelligences was not only adopted by the teaching profession but even misunderstood and applied without evidence of effectiveness. In such an important profession, with limited resources, this is a practice which must change. Mounting evidence suggests the style of teaching should fit the subject ; e.g.  in French students should speak, read, and write, in Science they should hypothesise, observe and test, etc,

More reading here :  
http://steinhardtapps.es.its.nyu.edu/create/courses/2174/reading/Pashler_et_al_PSPI_9_3.pdf
link : http://steinhardtapps.es.its.nyu.edu/create/courses/2174/reading/Pashler_et_al_PSPI_9_3.pdf