Sylvia Libow Martinez's Blog, page 12

Tweets from the pre-conference and day one of the FabLearn 2015 conference at Stanford University, September 24-27, 2015.[View the story “FabLearn 2015 – Stanford University Sept 25-27” on Storify]

More thoughts on Ahmed and his clock. (Previous post: Ahmed and his clock come to your school, what would happen?)

I think there were other factors at play there, perhaps equally as possible as racism/islamophobia. “Commitment bias” is when a person becomes increasingly committed to a position as they have to explain the reasons publicly. It’s a combination of human nature (in for a penny, in for a pound), peer pressure, and feeling there is no way to back down. Every adult called on the scen...

On Monday in Irving, Texas, 14-year-old Ahmed Mohamed came to school with a digital clock he had built.He showed his Engineering teacher, who told him not to show it to other teachers. In English class the clock beeped and the teacher asked what it was. He showed her and she confiscated it.

Sometime later that day, Ahmed was called to the principal’s office, where he was questioned by police, arrested, and taken out of school in handcuffs. He was not allowed to call his parents.

They thought...

A recent piece at Medium.com supports my argument that the “girls-in-STEM-issue” is more complex than just getting more girls to like science in school. “If you think women in tech is just apipeline problem, you haven’t beenpaying attention”

It’s a very smart piece about this complex topic. I think the only thing I faintly disagree with is saying that “..leaders have to get rid of employees who engage in sexist or racist behavior” – I think that’s too late. It will be perceived as unfair and...

Milton Glaser on Art, Technology, and the Secret of Life

This video interview with Milton Glaser is really interesting – considered “the greatest graphic designer alive”. It’s well worth watching. He talks about art, making, teaching, and life. The section that starts around minute 12 shows the power that teachers have to change lives. How even the smallest personal gestures really matter to kids.

His words:

When I was in junior high school, I had the opportunity to take the entrance examina...

The New York Hall of Science (NYSCI) has just released a set of apps called Noticing Tools.

Size Wise app lets you explore ratios and proportions

The suite of five apps gives educators and parents a new option for inspiring kids to want to learn math and science by using technology as a tool for creativity and collaborative exploration on topics ranging from ratios and proportion to fractions, physics, angular momentum, surface area and volume.

Stories in the newslike this drive me crazy:Kids have three times too much homework, study finds; what’s the cost?

It starts out:

Nothing quite stresses out students and parents about the beginning of the school year as the return to homework, which for many households means nightly battles centered around completing after-school assignments.

Now a new study may help explain some of that stress.

The study, published Wednesday inThe American Journal of Family Therapy, found students in the ear...

When I was a kid, back to school meant Labor Day in early September, and for most of the U.S. before the 1990s, that was true. But no more.

Data from MDR(a school data and marketing company)shows that “…roughly 25% of schools open sometime between Aug. 1 and Aug. 15 and another 25% beforeAug. 31. Though every state has a number of early and late opening schools, early openings are concentrated largely in the South (AL, GA, KY, LA, MS, TN) and Midwest (IN, MO, OK, NE) along with AZ, HI, NM an...

We all want girls (and all young people) to have equal opportunity and to be whatever they want to be. But the reality is grim. Women are discriminated against in the workforce. They are paid less than men, promoted less, and listened to less. It’s not “perception” – it’s the hard truth. (See the research here.) And it’s worse in many STEM careers, especially in engineering and programming. In college, women are discriminated against in courses, grading, and in getting mentorships that are so...

People ask me often how I got involved with education. In part, my interest in learning stems from thinking about my own learning journey, and taking lessons from that path.

In school I did pretty well in every subject. Getting good grades was just expected. I was a solid B+ student in all subjects from kindergarten on. When I took Algebra 1 in ninth grade, though, that changed unexpectedly. Suddenly I knew everything the teacher was going to say before he said it. I always had time to do all...