質の高い教育を低所得層まで市民に幅広く平等に行き渡らせる。市民に質の高い教育を与えることは、民主主義を維持し育てるのに必要不可欠。だからネットやＴＶなど様々な手法が論議される。日本とは教育の内容が違うとすれば、民主主義を議題にした教材が日本では極端に少ないことだろう。
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Why the Online-Education Craze Will Leave Many Students Behind
Free classes from elite colleges like Princeton and Harvard have generated excitement, but they could actually widen the learning gap
By Noliwe M. Rooks | July 30, 2012 | Ｔｉｍｅ誌
You have probably heard some of the hoopla about elite universities offering free online courses through Coursera, a new Silicon Valley start-up founded by Stanford University computer-science professors Daphne Koller and Andrew Ng. In just the past few weeks, Coursera has added has added 12 universities to its lineup, bringing its total to 16, including Princeton, the University of Pennsylvania, Duke and Johns Hopkins.
The company’s website says its goal is to “give everyone access to the world-class education that has so far been available only to a select few,” and, accordingly, much of the news coverage has focused on how this will democratize learning. Two weeks after Coursera announced its initial round of partnerships, Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology announced a plan to invest $60 million in a similar course platform called edX, and then a third company, Udacity, announced that it too would join the fray.
Despite near universal enthusiasm for such projects, it’s important to take a few steps back. First, although the content is free now, it’s unlikely that it will remain that way for long. According to an analysis of one of Coursera’s contracts, both the company and the schools plan to make a profit — they just haven’t figured out the best way to do that yet. But more important, I am concerned that computer-aided instruction will actually widen the gap between the financially and educationally privileged and everyone else, instead of close it.
This is what has been happening in K-12 public schools. Over the past 10 years, public school districts have invested millions of dollars in various types of online and computer-aided learning and instruction programs, yet few are able to show the educational benefit of their expenditures for a majority of students. Those who benefit most are already well organized and highly motivated. Other students struggle, and may even lose ground.
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In terms of learning on the college level, the Department of Education looked at thousands of research studies from 1996 to 2008 and found that in higher education, students rarely learned as much from online courses as they did in traditional classes. In fact, the report found that the biggest benefit of online instruction came from a blended learning environment that combined technology with traditional methods, but warned that the uptick had more to do with the increased amount of individualized instruction students got in that environment, not the presence of technology. For all but the brightest, the more time students spend with traditional instruction, the better they seem to do.
Supporters of online learning say that all anyone needs to access a great education is a stable Internet connection. But only 35% of households earning less than $25,000 have broadband access to the Internet, compared with 94% of households with income in excess of $100,000. In addition, according to the 2010 Pew Report on Mobile Access, only half of black and Latino homes have Internet connections at all, compared with almost 65% of white households. Perhaps most significant, many blacks and Latinos primarily use their cell phones to access the Internet, a much more expensive and less-than-ideal method for taking part in online education. In short, the explosion of this type of educational instruction, though free now, may leave behind the students who need education the most.
It’s not hard to understand why the chance to watch lectures, pass tests and even get a formal certificate from an elite school would stir excitement. Until now, most students would never have the opportunity to experience any part of what happens on these elite campuses. But as the recently released Pew report on the American Dream makes clear, a four-year college degree is the only type of educational intervention that promotes upward mobility from the lower-middle class. If we really want to democratize education, finding creative ways to realistically open up colleges to different communities will do more to help than a model that, despite its stated intentions, is more beneficial for students who are already wealthy, academically prepared and highly motivated. We ought to make sure that everyone has access to the same opportunities, or we will further widen the opportunity gaps we mean to close.
Rooks is an associate professor at Cornell University. The views expressed are solely her own.
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日本と瓜二つのアメリカの韓国人移民の教育熱心。
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Korean students, parents do their pre-college homework
An Ivy League school? Or one in the UC system? Thousands of people of Korean heritage swarm the 2012 College Fair in Irvine, hoping to find the
By Anh Do, Los Angeles Times September 16, 2012, 9:42 p.m.
He's only 11. Still, BJ Bae blended in with the thousands of people of Korean heritage who swarmed an Orange County college fair this weekend. He stopped to sign up for a concentration test so "I can know what job might be good for me."
Angela Kim, 10, headed straight for the Stanford University table, then UC Berkeley, then Columbia University. "We have lots of choices," she said confidently.
The mothers of both children tagged along, stuffing handbooks into their bags, promising to review them together when they get home.
"I'm just stunned by how early the parents are preparing their kids," said Jay Tsai, a recruiter for Yale University, as he surveyed the crowd at the 2012 College Fair in Irvine. The event, sponsored by the Korea Daily newspaper, drew more than 4,000 people — even in 100-degree heat.
Koreans and other Asians placing a premium on academic achievement and college preparation is not new. But to Tsai, the intense interest and the young age of some of those at the event seemed to signal something that is new.
"This tells me it's getting more competitive than ever before," he said.
Ed Johnson, a veteran admissions officer for the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, called it an "amazing gathering." He was eyeing students with top-notch SAT scores and "a motivation to serve," he said. "And, in fact, Korean families have so much motivation. They raise the standard."
Around him, participants were crossing off checklists, consulting a map of the event included in the Korean paper's 100-page guide and trying to figure out where to go. They fanned across the campus of Bethel Korean Church to chapel rooms, lecture halls and the gym, learning the nitty-gritty of financial planning and what's required by Ivy League schools as opposed to University of California campuses.
Private tutors and consultants tried to lure them with their services, including how to get college application essays exactly right.
"We give that extra push. Sometimes, kids have the grades already, but they're confused when they sit down to express their feelings," said Gina Kim, operations analyst for Flex College Prep, which has offices in Arcadia, Irvine and L.A.'s Koreatown. Buyers snapped up $10 copies of a guide written by her firm's chief executive: "Getting In: Insider Tips on College Admissions for Immigrant Families."
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"A lot of Korean families want the brand-name school," Kim said. "We actually try to listen to the student's opinion. We want the student to thrive."
Anna Seok, who manages Admission Masters Educational Consulting Group, offers prep packages from $450 to $4,500. Among them: GPA management. Students and instructors can talk weekly and chart progress.
Students can join clubs devoted to subjects ranging from speech and debate to robotics and NASA — the kinds of extracurricular activities appealing to recruiters.
"We help Korean families find out what type of learner their child is," Seok said, "and from there we work with them to succeed."
Among those working the crowd was an overseas television crew taping a one-hour special on the fair, now in its seventh year. It's one of four such events in the nation.
"This is very important for Korean American society," said Jeongkie Kim, director of EBS America, an education channel. "While many people can be here, many more people can't be here, and parents from Korea aim to send their children to college in the U.S. That is the big goal."
In the cafeteria, Sukha Kim and his son, Ryan, ate $2 ramen sold by the Irvine Korean Parents Assn. "I want my son to have a broad knowledge of everything," said Kim, of Los Angeles. Ryan, a freshman at John Marshall High School near Griffith Park, said he does mental exercises between classes to refresh his memory. He also reads the New York Times, looking for words his doesn't fully understand. "I write it down on index cards to study," he said.
Outside, David Hong, a junior at Tesoro High in Mission Viejo, waited to meet celebrity guest Victor Kim, winner of "America's Best Dance Crew" on MTV. "It's hard to meet our parents' expectations," he said, "but I try my best." He has a 4.0 grade-point average and is tutored in biology, Spanish and pre-calculus. For college, he's leaning toward a chemistry major — or something in sports. "Not as a player," he said, "but analysis or commentary. My dad might like that better."
BJ Bae, the 11-year-old from Plaza Vista School in Irvine, said he handles homework on his own because his mother, Mina Yoon, is busy with her 3-year-old. "We came here to understand how college works," she said.
Michael Chen, visiting from Seoul, heard about it and made time to attend. His mission: Comparing music programs at Yale and Stanford. His daughter began playing the cello at age 5.
"Wherever she desires to go to school," he said, "we want to get her there."
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Yamanaka wins Nobel Prize / 19th Japanese laureate honored for developing iPS cells
(Oct. 8, 2012)The Yomiuri Shimbun
Shinya Yamanaka, who developed induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells, has won the 2012 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, which he shared with a British scientist, the Swedish Karolinska Institute announced Monday.
Yamanaka, 50, won the prize for developing and establishing reprogramming technology that can revert somatic cells to their undifferentiated, or embryonic, state.
The British scientist, Sir John Gurdon, 79, is known for successfully cloning frogs in 1962.
Yamanaka, the 19th Japanese Nobel laureate, will receive half of the 8 million Swedish kronor (about 95 million yen) prize money during a ceremony in Stockholm on Dec. 10.
Using a method of introducing certain types of genes into mouse skin cells, Yamanaka in 2006 developed iPS cells that rejuvenated to a state close to that of fertilized ova from mature adult cells. He successfully generated human iPS cells in 2007.
His groundbreaking work opens up possibilities in a wide range of fields, such as the development of regenerative medicine and treatments for intractable diseases.
iPS cells are highly versatile, and able to replenish every type of body cell except for those in the placenta.
Their capacity to multiply almost indefinitely has led to expectations they could have a number of practical applications.
It is hoped they will assist the development of regenerative medicine to replace tissue damaged through injury, such as damage to the spinal cord, or through illness, such as diabetes or Parkinson's disease.
They might also help clarify mechanisms that bring about the onset of intractable diseases and assist in the development of treatments for such illnesses.
Yamanaka is the second Japanese recipient of the physiology or medicine prize. The first was Susumu Tonegawa, a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, in 1987.
Yamanaka was born in Osaka Prefecture in September 1962.
After graduating from Kobe University School of Medicine, Yamanaka became an assistant at Osaka City University Medical School, then a professor at Nara Institute of Science and Technology.
Authoritative Parenting versus Authoritarian Parenting
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Authoritative parenting is very different from authoritarian parenting. While authoritarian parenting can often have adverse consequences for a child, authoritative parenting is often considered by experts to be the best method of parenting.
What is Authoritative Parenting
Authoritative parenting is a parenting method in which you clearly establish yourself as an authority to be respected, but in which you are also responsive to your child’s needs and maintain a nurturing home in which your child feels comfortable making mistakes and questioning rules.
Authoritative parents set clear guidelines and rules for their children. However, these rules are set with their child’s needs in mind. Children are encouraged to question the rules in order to fully understand them, and arbitrary rules do not exist. Disagreements are handled respectfully, and children believe that punishments- when handed out- are fair and understand that their parents are enforcing the rules because they love them.
What is Authoritarian Parenting
Authoritarian parents, like authoritative parents, establish themselves as an authority. However, the key difference is that authoritarian parents are not responsive to their children’s needs. Rules are rigidly enforced, and punishment is often harsh and may include physical punishment such as spankings.
Children of authoritarian parents do not usually feel free to question or challenge, as unquestioned obedience is often required in an authoritarian home. Furthermore, authoritarian parents often set unreasonable expectations and children may begin to feel that they need to be perfect or fulfill these expectations in order to be loved.
Being Authoritative versus Authoritarian
It can be difficult to walk the fine line between being authoritative and authoritarian. The key is in the way you relate to your child. Authoritative parents lead by example, and hold themselves to the same standards as they hold their children. They speak respectfully to their children at all times and expect, rather than demand, the same in return.
Instead of trying to instill rote obedience, as authoritarian parents do, authoritative parents attempt to raise children who can think for themselves and make the proper decision. Like authoritarian parents, they set clear boundaries and rules and children understand that they must exist within these boundaries. However authoritarian parents may set rules ‘because I said so,’ while authoritative parents take the time to talk to their children, explaining rules, and rewarding positive behavior.
Authoritative parents too have high expectations for their children, but they work with their children to achieve these expectations instead of simply getting angry when a child falls short of the measure. This primary difference, between responsiveness and rigidity, is the key distinction between authoritative and authoritarian parents and can make all the difference in a child’s upbringing. http://www.superpages.com/supertips/authoritative-parenting.html
