Music Tuition for Children: Is it worth it? | Digital Journal - Press Release

"Amanda Michell investigates a pioneering new technique." summarizes Digital Journal - Press Release. 

 

Photo: GraphicStock.com

Parents spend a lot of time and money investing in activities that will broaden their child's horizons, giving them opportunities of new experiences that will enhance their education. Music lessons have long been a popular choice, but is it worthwhile?

You may be surprised to learn that music lessons help to enhance academic ability in other subjects, as well as promote good coordination and even encourage self discipline. Music is like learning another language, and learning this language helps to stimulate the brain.

Learning an instrument requires lots of practice and motivation which can only be fed by enthusiasm and enjoyment from the pupil. A lack of enthusiasm and enjoyment is the single biggest reason for a child abandoning their music lessons, not a lack of ability. So if this is the big problem, what’s the solution?

The only way to encourage children to continue music lessons is to create enthusiasm: something that traditional tuition methods no longer do. However, there are now innovative approaches to music education that aim to tackle this problem. One such method is pioneered by the Arts Academy.

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Source: Digital Journal - Press Release.

Math Equations Are Beautiful, Here's Why | Chris Brandt, UniversityHerald Reporter

Here's another interesting article from UNIVERSITY HERALD published by Chris Brandt, UniversityHerald Reporter below.

The brain activity when people listen to great music or look at beautiful art is the same in mathematicians who look at math as a beauty.
Photo : Peter Macdiarmid/Getty Images

When you say math is beautiful, a lot of people will disagree with raised eyebrows. How can you find beauty in a sea of numbers and the seemingly endless formulas? Yet Nobel laureate Paul Dirac proved otherwise when he described beauty in many ways using the quantum theory and gravity. 

Math is beautiful not in how its symbols appear but in the power and elegance of its formula and arguments. Perhaps, no one can explain this beauty much better than Oxford mathematician Vicky Neale who compared math with music.

She said that when you listen to Mozart, you become enthralled by the beauty of his music. However, you don't print a page of that music and hang it on your wall. It's the same way with math - it's not about how it looks but about the underlying process.

The Most Beautiful Equation in Math 


Sir Michael Atiyah, an honorary professor of mathematics at Edinburgh University, agrees with her. He said that the brain responds to the beauty of math the same way it responds to the beauty of arts and music. Brain scans of mathematicians who perceives a certain formula beautiful has brain activity in the same emotional region when people appreciate art and music.

When you ask them what is the most beautiful equation in math, they will agree that it is the simple and short formula made by Swiss mathematician, Leonhard Euler: eiπ+1 = 0. The next one is Einsten's equation E=mc2.

What makes these two beautiful is the simplicity and compactness of the formula but packed with depth to those who truly understand them. In Euler's formula, circles, imaginary numbers, and exponentials converge while Einsten's marries the ideas of mass and energy, concepts that had seemed impossible to converge before Einstein put it in that simple equation.
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Source: University Herald and Carnegie Mellon University Channel (YouTube)

Learning Musical Instruments Can Boost you Brain Power, Research Suggests | University Herald

"Do you know how to play at least one musical instrument? Did you play one when you were growing up? According to neuroscientists, musical training offers more benefits to the brain development of a child." according to Audri Taylors, UniversityHerald Reporter.

Learning musical instrument is actually more beneficial than most people realize, as studies suggest that it can boost a person's brain power, here's how.
Photo : Chung Sung-Jun / Staff)

Even children who did not have any experience of playing musical instruments have shown a significant boosted connections right after 9 months of practice. According to research, musical training can even help in the treatment of certain brain development conditions such as autism.

How playing an instrument benefits your brain - Anita Collins 
 

This is the focus of the study of the researchers from the Hospital Infantil de México Federico Gómez in Mexico City. They conducted a study among children aged 5 to 6 six years old with no musical training. Each of them was given a brain scan using a so-called DTI (diffusion tensor imaging) to scan the brain's white matter, called axons. Axons are the nerves that connect with the other regions of the brain.

Dr. Pilar Dies-Suarez, lead author of the study, said: "Experiencing music at an early age can contribute to better brain development, optimizing the creation and establishment of neural networks, and stimulating the existing brain tracts."

These children were given nine months to learn musical instruments before they went through another DTI scan. After the scans, it was found that there was an improvement in the movement of the water molecules in the child's brain, and an improvement in the length of the fibers. The movement of water molecules along the brain fibers can help indicate whether the child has brain development problems.
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Source: University Herald and TED-Ed Channel (YouTube)

Online learning, travel opportunities showcased in Onsted | The Daily Telegram

Follow on Twitter as @lenaweecherry

"ONSTED — For some, learning happens beyond the classroom walls." according to Dan Cherry, Daily Telegram Staff Writer.

Photo: GraphicStock.com

Three members of Onsted Community Schools high school staff spent an hour at Monday’s board of education meeting updating the board about educational initiatives for those who learn best in nontraditional settings, including online and onsite.

Online learning instructor Dan Terryberry said several dozen students are on monitored self-scheduled or at-home online agreements. The Onsted Virtual Learning program assists those with special circumstances, need credit recovery, have social anxiety or in-class limitations.

Terryberry said there are currently 64 students between the online course program or a seat-time waiver agreement, where students work around work schedules or apprenticeships. The agreement between students, parents and the school allow the student to be flexible with their schedule, but the student must stay on track and a mentor log is submitted to the state to monitor progress.

Terryberry said students also are taking 14 Advanced Placement courses not available in the classroom setting. Additionally, 61 students are taking credit-recovery classes to catch up where they have fallen behind.

Terryberry said the options help the students in more comfortable or convenient environments that maximize learning, but still require structured education.

‘These students still want to graduate from Onsted and we feel this is a great thing we’ve started,” he said. “It’s more than clicking through a few online pages. We want the best for our students and the best for our school.”

Interim Superintendent Brad Hamilton said online teaching and learning, despite being somewhat nontraditional, is “not a scary thing.” 

“Online learning is another arm of personalized education,” he said.

Several high school students will have the chance to watch, in-person, President-elect Donald Trump inauguration on Jan. 20 in Washington, D.C.

Social sciences teacher Brian Draper said as of Monday, eight high school students financially committed to a Project Close-Up travel program to attend the presidential inauguration.
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Source: The Daily Telegram

African online market ‘interests UK universities’ due to Brexit | Times Higher Education (THE)

Follow on Twitter as @MatthewReiszTHE

"A vast market provides opportunities for institutions worried about future outside EU, says head of online platform operating on continent." summarizes Matthew Reisz, reporter and features writer.

Unicaf students in Malawi

British universities are showing an increased interest in developing their online provision in Africa since the UK voted to leave the European Union. 

That is the view of Nicos Nicolaou, chief executive officer of Unicaf, which partners with Western universities to offer business and professional degrees across sub-Saharan Africa through its mobile-friendly platform. It forms part of the Edex Educational Excellence Corporation, which runs the University of Nicosia, the largest on Cyprus.

As of now, Unicaf has signed up over 8,000 students for degrees accredited by the University of South Wales, the University of Marymount in Virginia and its own University of Nicosia. It has set up learning centres in a number of African countries, explained Dr Nicolaou, with “a digital library, a computer lab, internet, a generator, so it’s a place for students to get application documents, pay their fees, sit and access our platform – we give them free tablets.

“These students have very limited facilities, no internet, no electricity, no computer [at home]. They have the option of studying fully online or using the learning centres [in countries where they are available] and having some face-to-face sessions approved by partner institutions on a blended-learning model.”  

There are at least two reasons why Dr Nicolaou foresees rapid expansion. One is the sheer size of the market: “Our only constraint is our capacity to process applications in a continent of 1.2 billion people, with half of them below 19. Nigeria [alone] has 1.2 million high school graduates every year and 500,000 university places.” Many would-be students are unable to afford the fees in Western institutions, even if they can obtain visas, but are keen to gain their qualifications at greatly reduced prices.
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Source: Times Higher Education (THE)

For Truly Personalized Learning, I Had to Try, Try Again | RealClearEducation

RCEd Commentary
This piece is the 16th in a series of monthly pieces by teachers participating in the Opportunity Culture initiative, a movement launched in 2011 by education policy and consulting firm Public Impact. Pilot schools in Charlotte-Mecklenburg and Cabarrus County, N.C,; Nashville, Tenn.; Syracuse, N.Y.; Big Spring, Texas; and Indianapolis are using Public Impact’s new job models and career paths. These “Opportunity Culture” models are aimed at improving the quality of education by extending the reach of excellent teachers and their teams, to encourage teacher selectivity, increase opportunities for teachers to advance in their careers without leaving the classroom, promote on-the-job learning, and boost teacher pay -- all within regular budgets.

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"After 26 years of teaching, I was the model of a traditional teacher." reports Lori Treiber, RealClearEducation.

Biology teacher Lori Treiber uses her blended-learning in-class days partly to focus on lab time, such as this introductory gel-electrophoresis lab.
Photo courtesy Jon'Nae Williams.

Class began with review, then new material and cooperative or independent work, then closure. But two years ago, intrigued by my district’s request that I pioneer an Opportunity Culture biology blended-learning class, extending my reach to more students (and for more pay), I took the challenge: Could I learn some new tricks?

Yes. Just not the way I expected.

For the first semester in fall 2015, I extended my reach by seeing one group of students every other day, teaching a second group on the first group’s “off” days—nearly doubling my student load for this period to 46. I planned to cover two days of material during each face-to-face day—through labs and activities with minimal lecturing—while students worked online in the classroom on off days.

To “flip” the classroom, I recorded my usual lectures that summer, using PowerPoints and animations. I embedded questions in the videos to help students stay on track, and gathered remediation and enrichment resources.

I divided my students three ways: half met with me for half the period, while half worked online next door, then switched; half met with me for the whole period, switching the next day; or all 46 met together in a large room.  I could design each day to best fit students’ needs and each topic’s objectives.

I also gave students personal choice and some freedoms. I broke the assignments into 80 percent “basic work” and 20 percent “uPicks,” letting students select from an assignment list. Students got all assignments at the beginning of the topic and could set their pace. Basic work was due daily, uPicks any time before the test. Freedom, right?

I had thought through everything as best I could, but I had never taken an online course. What did I really know from the students’ perspective?

In fall 2015, I started with a semester-long honors biology course and immediately hit a big bump. Students provided their own devices, so I had to be a technology expert, trouble-shooting everything. What a nightmare.

Worse, students resisted. They complained about the workload and blamed the blending. I needed to convince them that it was hard just because it was biology—but this also made me take a step back: Was I really giving them choice and personalized learning?

After surveying my students after every topic to see what was and wasn’t working, I realized I had to change to truly personalize my spring course.
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Source: RealClearEducation

4 steps towards innovative professional development | Learning & Development Professional

"How you can dramatically impact the effectiveness of blended learning through professional development." notes L&D.

Photo: Learning & Development Professional

An article recently published in Edsurge by Stepan Mekhitarian, Blended Learning and Data Coordinator for the Los Angeles Unified School District, outlined the importance of understanding blended learning through innovative professional development. 

It suggested that as more educators begin to see the “tremendous impact” that blended learning can have on student learning and engagement, school leaders have begun scrambling to train teachers on how to utilise technology to enhance instruction.
 
“This has proven to be challenging since many current administrators have limited experience with blended learning given the relative newness of the approach,” the article stated.
 
It pointed to two common practices used during professional development sessions that are limited in their applicability and effectiveness:
 
“First, teachers learn about multiple sites or tools they can use in their classrooms and are given time to experiment with them,” the article stated.
 
“Second, teachers discuss instructional practice for application in a traditional classroom, but are then expected to apply it in a blended setting.” 

The issue, it went on to say, was that “neither of these practices melds effective pedagogical practice with educational technology to train teachers on how to offer individualised differentiation and constructivist learning opportunities for students.”
Instead, the author suggested a different approach, which it outlined below:
 
Start with a pedagogical concept such as questioning or grouping that applies to all teachers.  

If your school has access to teacher performance data as it relates to specific pedagogical practices, such as performance reflections using the Danielson Framework, you may consider using it to inform your planning. The objective for professional development should be to improve instructional practice, not to introduce a blended learning resource.
 
Decide how blended learning can enhance teacher learning during professional development. 

As you plan the session, identify an appropriate point in the instruction in which a blended learning tool can be introduced to further advance learning and progress toward the objective.
 
For example, if the professional development session focuses on questioning, you can use an online collaborative site such as Google Docs to have participants work together to construct answers to given questions and then brainstorm ways to increase the rigor of the questions to result in even stronger responses. 
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Source: Learning & Development Professional

Authors Debate Charles Darwin’s Theories, Work in New Book | Chicago Tonight | WTTW

Photo: Charles Darwin

"More than 150 years after Charles Darwin published "On the Origin of Species," the man and his theories continue to generate controversy and debate." inform Paul Caine. 

Authors Debate Charles Darwin’s Theories, Work in New Book
 
Even scholars steeped in the great scientist's work can't seem to agree on some aspects of Darwin's landmark conclusions and the influences that led to his findings.

That academic battle plays out in a new book titled "Debating Darwin."

The two authors who present their contrasting ideas in the book Robert J. Richards, professor in History of Science and Medicine at the University of Chicago, and Michael Ruse, director of the Program in the History and Philosophy of Science at Florida State University, join us on Chicago Tonight.

Below, an excerpt from the book.
Read more...

Additional resources
 

Debating Darwin Hardcover – September 10, 2016

Amazon writes, "Charles Darwin is easily the most famous scientist of the modern age, and his theory of evolution is constantly referenced in many contexts by scientists and nonscientists alike."
 
Debating Darwin seeks to change that, bringing together two leading Darwin scholars—Robert J. Richards and Michael Ruse—to engage in a spirited and insightful dialogue, offering their interpretations of Darwin and their critiques of each other’s thinking.
Debating Darwin Hardcover – September 10, 2016

Source: Chicago Tonight | WTTW

Mumbai schools scanning fingerprints to assess aptitude of students | Hindustan Times

Follow on Twitter as @pujapednekar88

"From analysing the ridges and undulations on children’s fingerprints to activating their ‘mid-brain’, some schools in Mumbai are opting for unconventional tests to assess children’s aptitude and skills." according to Puja Pednekar, Hindustan Times, Mumbai. 

Based on the fingerprint pattern, a computer-generated assessment of the child’s learning styles and intelligence potential is mapped.
Photo: (Rep pic/AFP)

While, schools are asking parents to choose whether to allow children to take these tests, educationists and mental health professionals have questioned the veracity of these methods.

Rizvi Springfield School, (SSC and CBSE )Bandra has recently introduced Dermatoglyphics Multiple Intelligences Testing (DMIT)-a computer-generated assessment of the child’s learning styles and intelligence potential, based on their fingerprint pattern. This is coupled with homeopathy consultation and career counselling.

Explaining how it works, Dr Trupti Barchha, consulting homeopath and DMIT consultant and analyst, who has partnered with the school for the project, said, “There are codes on each line on our fingers. When we feed the codes into the software we generate a report on the inborn intelligence, learning styles , creativity and emotional quotient of the student.”

The school said that they will offer the facility to interested students. “The tests will help in identifying the personality of the students. You can determine whether they will become an engineer or a doctor,” said Savita Suvarna, principal of the school’s SSC section. Those registering for it will be charged Rs3,750 to Rs4,125, according to the registration form.
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Source: Hindustan Times

New AI algorithm taught by humans learns beyond its training | Science Daily

"Researchers have designed an algorithm that learns directly from human instructions, rather than an existing set of examples, and outperformed conventional methods of training neural networks by 160 per cent." summarizes ScienceDaily. 

Hey Siri, how's my hair?
 

This figure compares a traditionally trained algorithm to Aarabi and Guo's heuristically trained neural net. The left and centre columns show an aggressive and conservative image-recognition algorithm trained to recognized human hair, compared to the more precise heuristically trained algorithm at right.
Photo: Courtesy - IEEE Trans NN & LS

Your smartphone may soon be able to give you an honest answer, thanks to a new machine learning algorithm designed by U of T Engineering researchers Parham Aarabi and Wenzhi Guo.

The team designed an algorithm that learns directly from human instructions, rather than an existing set of examples, and outperformed conventional methods of training neural networks by 160 per cent.

But more surprisingly, their algorithm also outperformed its own training by nine per cent -- it learned to recognize hair in pictures with greater reliability than that enabled by the training, marking a significant leap forward for artificial intelligence.

Aarabi and Guo trained their algorithm to identify people's hair in photographs -- a much more challenging task for computers than it is for humans.

"Our algorithm learned to correctly classify difficult, borderline cases -- distinguishing the texture of hair versus the texture of the background," says Aarabi. "What we saw was like a teacher instructing a child, and the child learning beyond what the teacher taught her initially."

Humans "teach" neural networks -- computer networks that learn dynamically -- by providing a set of labeled data and asking the neural network to make decisions based on the samples it's seen. For example, you could train a neural network to identify sky in a photograph by showing it hundreds of pictures with the sky labeled.

This algorithm is different: it learns directly from human trainers. With this model, called heuristic training, humans provide direct instructions that are used to pre-classify training samples rather than a set of fixed examples. Trainers program the algorithm with guidelines such as "Sky is likely to be varying shades of blue," and "Pixels near the top of the image are more likely to be sky than pixels at the bottom."

Their work is published in the journal IEEE Transactions on Neural Networks and Learning Systems.
Read more...

Additional resources
Journal Reference:

1. Wenzhangzhi Guo, Parham Aarabi.Hair Segmentation Using Heuristically-Trained Neural Networks. IEEE Transactions on Neural Networks and Learning Systems, 2016; 1 DOI: 10.1109/TNNLS.2016.2614653

Source: ScienceDaily