I will first summarize what his he presented and than give my reactions to the presentation.
Intro and overview:
The Study of Mathematical Precious Youth (SMPY) a longitudinal study of five cohorts that total about 5000 participants that were recruited from 1972 till-1997. These individuals were identified as high achievers around 13 years old based on their high mathematical achievements. They were in the top 1% of the mathematical reasoning ability and most were scoring at the max of SAT and IQ test at early ages. These students could learn at a faster rate and were different intellectual from the population of people that were outside of the 1% achievement standard.
The research question that he studied and discussed with us was, within these top 1% of achievers were their any differences both intellectually (mathematics, spatial and verbal abilities) and non intellectual attributes (interest and personality).
Findings (I do not recall this in details but invite others who attended to fill the gaps):
1. there was a consistent difference in that all had higher spatial ability that their verbal ability
2. The higher achievers in math tended to have even higher variation in their spatial abilities
There was a graph the he should to represent were STEM students were relative to the spatial ability and other variables (I'm not able to recall in detail). But I think STEM are more aware of objects and things than those in Humanity.
3. In terms of motivation the high achievers worked long hours were willing to work long hour hours than required. They were motivated by the work they preformed.
(Again for those there please add what you recalled, it would be nice to have the presentation emailed to us)
My reactions:
1. HUGE BOUNDARY WORK: In 1972 who was the population of people even prepared to take a test such as the SATs. And now that there is this boundary of 1% how does this help the other 99% of people who a the majority of people in society.
I enjoyed that the message of human capitol trumps the need for inclusiveness and generalizability. What do I mean by this? Well he mentioned also as part of the results that these 1% can be beneficial to society. According to his data these people in general obtain more patents, publish more papers and just produce more in terms of what we measure as achievements today.
He highlighted the need to understand that these 1% may not all be achieving according to these standards of human capital to date. Some maybe in community service projects making societal impacts that can not be quantified by patents and journal publications.
But where is the other 99%. Is he saying that anyone with high spacial ability is capable of having the qualities he identified in the 1%? I was lost there.
2. Again lots of good stuff that I will try to recall. Another great point was the relationship of knowledge acquisition and motivation. I enjoyed the quote he shared by William James (1890) Principles of Psychology: "Millions of items of outward order are present to my senses which never enter into my experience. Why? Because they have no interest for me. My experience is what I agree to attend to. Only those items I notice shape my mine - without selective interest, experience would be utter chaos"
What an interesting quote! If William James can say this in 1980 what implication does that have for students and learners today that have many things pulling their attentions and all in the palm of their hands sometimes. Also what about does who are in low social economic standing and have to be more attentive to dealing with the basic needs of food and shelter. What types of things miss there awareness?
For me I think about my interest in engineering and my experiences and how because I never really understand engineering as a social construct it made some portions of my learning very challenging. But I wonder if there was any other why to learn without those experiences. The help trained by selection of thoughts and reframe my view of engineering.
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