Reflection Post: Dr. David Lubinski Seminar: Study of Mathematical Precious Youth (SMPY)

Last Thursday I was able to hear a seminar by Dr. David Lubinski. He is an American Psychologist at Vanderbilt University. I was very impressed by his presentation in terms of his research question and delivery of his "message" aka findings.

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.

Incomplete thoughts on what is education

Introduction

Education serves to transition knowledge with a purpose in mind. There are objectives for both the institutions of education, the policy makers, the students and parents. Noddings helps to provide an over view of the phisolophies of education historically and how it still influences the traditions in education today. In providing some of the history of philosophy she demonstrates also how influential they are in shaping today’s system of education in the United States.

Who should be educated? The answer has a strong relationship to what people believe is the aim of education

Noddings points out that most people believe that everyone should be educated. However, this question is not simple to answer without taking into account the aims of education. One example is the message where “strong students in math and science” should be educated to be science and engineering focused professions. This indirectly predetermines who gets encouraged or "educated" as an engineer or scientist. The weaker students maybe weaker because of lack of interest, motivation, misinterpretations, or the existing teaching methods?

Should education differ according to the natural interest and abilities of the student? what implications does this have to the current structure today?

What are other aspect of knowing?

Abla explores this point by examining ontology, the theory of how we become, in the contents of learning. This also informs the decision of policy makers influencing who gets admission into a educational program based standards of what they define to be part of being successful at that institution or in the related field.

How should people be educated? Should we only examine the epistemology of education and what role does ontology play in the learning and teaching practice.

The philosophies of Socrates and Plato resonate most to me when think back on the policies and practices in place today. (Trying to relate and find quotes of)

How is the learner than informed on what he or she should know and how can they apply what they have learned. Is teaching what we know overshadowing the need to understand and teach who we “become” who we are?

If we are to fully understand a knowing within various forms of professional practice, we must understand the being of those who know- Alba pg 35

The gap in teaching and practice: When did this gap or divide occur/became more apparent?

The apprenticeship system, developed in the late middle ages between 1307- 1485, was a system where students would study a trade under an expert in the craft, an apprentice). Than there was a change in society that required a system where more students could study a trade and in less time. (There is and always will be social-economic influences in educational practices)

What role should policy makers play in education?

How should stake holders be informed and understand the philosophies of education? How do you change someone's views without making them feel offended? Especially when their practices are normal to the academic society they are work? And the system of reward is not their to encourage adaptive teaching techniques.

Dall'Alba, G. (2009). "Learning Professional Ways of Being." Educational Philosophy and Theory 41(1): 3445.

Noddings, N. (2007). Philosophy of Education. Boulder, Westview Press.

Reflection: Influence of Social Capital on Under-Represented Engineering Students’ Academic and Career Decisions

Social Cap Facebook Site (Click Here)

I'm going to do my best to summarize this talk I was able to attend last week, by Dr. Julie Martin Trenor (Clemson University) , on social capital. It relates to engineering education in my opinion as another form of including diversity. I know in the US there is a big role of "who you know" and how it helps to determine the mobility of your career. I never thought of it in terms of my decision to choose engineering as major.

In Nigeria, as I have said before, there is a bit of a taboo on not choosing to pursue a degrees within engineering, law or medicine. Ironically there were not many people who knew what engineering was and for me I don't think there were any immediate members in my network employed as an engineer. Growing up most people were doing something in the medical field or law. I recall being asked several times by some family friends when would I expect to complete my nursing degree during my undergraduate education.

But I guess having that taboo gave me some social influence from the Nigerian community we lived in to pursue engineering. I also had my parents , teachers who made science fun and a family friend who help me to complete my first science project in seventh grade: The effect of light intensity on plant growth.

For those who were unable to come maybe you too can reflect on the social capital you had in influencing your decision to become a engineer.

It was a very interesting talk and I am glad I was able to participate. Most of the information below was provided in the Facebook site I highlighted above.

What is social capital:

Social capital is defined in this work as “an additional pool of resources embedded in the social networks of individuals, which can help to achieve individual goals in conjunction with, or instead of, personal resources” (Van Der Gaag, 2005).(1)

There can be strong and week ties:

Strong Ties: Are people you have a close relationship with and are probable in regular contact with

Weak Ties: Are individuals that you interact with and exchange information with but do not form any personal bonds too.

Both types can be considered an asset to an individuals social capitol.

Questions that she had us review:

1. List the tope three people who were influential in your decision to become an engineer and how long have you known them.

2. If you think further can you think of incident where someone was helpful to helping with at engineering concept, getting related material etc.

These questions where given to us to help us understand what types of individuals were influential in helping people understand engineering and deciding to become engineers. The second question is to probe further to see if there are additional individuals that do not immediately come to mind with asked to list people who immediately come to mind with the first question.

Why understand this:

"The specific goals of this project are to (1) build a conceptual model for understanding how engineering undergraduates develop, access and activate social capital in making academic and career decisions, (2) identify and characterize the potentially distinct mechanisms by which under-represented students utilize social ties that link them to resources related to engineering studies and (3) implement an education plan that provides research-to-practice training for university engineering outreach, recruitment, and retention practitioners using webinars and workshops as learning forums" (2)

(1) van der Gaag, M. (2005). Measurement of individual social capital, F&N Boekservices.

(2) WEBSITE: http://en-gb.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=126058257445533

Creating the Wikipedia Page

It was interesting for me since I have never used google docs before or created a Wikipedia site. One day and I was able to add to my experience two new items.

I worked with Hadi to understand the definition of engineering education research, I was unable to come up with a concise definition. But there were two options that I looked into, neither made it to the final page because of time constraints. Both were an attempt to summarize the Journal of Engineering Education Special Reports:

The first was Robins and Felder, where they stated that "engineering education involves the engineering professional and society it serves, educational institutions , educators and students...It is an organization that focus on building a culture of innovation and continual learning and emphasize the importance of systems thinking, dialogue and reflective practice"(1)

The other option was to summarize the research agenda.

I think I have my own impressions of engineering education research. Some of my impressions are captured in the quote above. I hope that it becomes a practice within engineering that serves as an engagement tool to align engineering faculty and students with the non-traditional methods in cognitive theory of how people learn, design problem solving process and other tools that are highlighted in the research agenda. These tools should be developed to engage theory with engineering practice and with industry to develop more innovate strategies for building and applying knowledge in practice.

Overall this experience was a great kick off to thinking about writing the essay and working with classmates collectively to create a public place for future discussions on what is engineering education research. I am looking forward to the updates from others outside of our class and hopefully outside of Purdue and the US.

(1)Robin S Adams, R. M. F. (2008). "Reframing Professional Development: A Systems Approach to Preparing Engineering Education to Educate Tommorrow's Engineers." Journal of Engineering Education Special Guest Editorial.

Educational models are influenced and built into institutional structures and social practices

Athenian society in 300BC was that citizens separated into economic and social class structure. For example, the ruling class included rich members and descendents of rulers in authority and a slave who was in Athenian society were not given the same rights and educational privileges as a member of the ruling class. Therefore in an Athenian society the learner would be someone in a higher social class and would be trained to be a competent soldier, ruler or artisan. The soldier would be thought philosophy and physical training and the ruler philosophy, math, literature and history. This demonstrates how the educational model was influenced and built into the Athenian society.

Another example is the social practice of “the role of women before the 20^th Century”, in my model, if the learner was a woman; she was most likely trained to be a competent homemaker and wife. For Rousseau the learner Sophia, should be educated relative to men, i.e. to please him, be useful to him. (Noddings)(pg17) Nolddings also points out that some philosophers later excused him for his misogyny; “After all, Rousseau is –as is everyone – was a product of a particular time and place” (Noddings) (pg 18). I believe that is can be extended to not just people/learner but the functional model of education. This model is a dynamic function of the particular time and place it exist in (i.e. the particular elements that include the operational norms of a society, social taboos).

The examples above highlight how ideas and philosophies most dominate within a society influence the engagement of the learner and the aim of educations. They shape what is included as part of the learners education and how the learner is thought.

Noddings, N. (2007). Philosophy of Education. Boulder, Westview Press.

Building boundaries with Tosin and Nikitha

Last week, Tosin, Nikitha, and I, recorded a dialogue about the essay and the boundaries we have been talking along the class.

Here is a "short" edition of what we talked...