Note summarising Spain's results in the PISA 2012 problem solving assessment.

Note summarising the United States' results in the PISA 2012 problem solving assessment.

Note summarising the performance of 15-year-old students in Singapore in the PISA 2012 assessment of problem solving.

Note summarising the performance of 15-year-olds in Japan in the PISA 2012 assessment of problem solving.

Note summarising the performance of German 15-year-old students in the PISA 2012 assessment of problem solving.

Students from Singapore and Korea have performed best in the first OECD PISA assessment of creative problem-solving. Students in these countries are quick learners, highly inquisitive and able to solve unstructured problems in unfamiliar contexts.

Some 37% of students in the Netherlands reported that they often worry that mathematics classes will be difficult for them. In Argentina, 80% of students reported the same worry.

On average across OECD countries, students’ belief that they can solve mathematics problems (mathematics self-efficacy) is associated with a difference of 49 score points in mathematics – the equivalent of one year of school.

The education sector performs well for information and communication technology (ICT) and problem-solving skills, although it still lags behind the professional, scientific and technical activities sector.

If one were to ask ministers of education what they consider to be the most important factor determining the quality of their education systems, the odds are high that they would refer to the quality of the teaching work force.

Traditional economics measure the benefits of education and skills in its economic gains in employment or earnings.

A recently published OECD publication, The Nature of Problem Solving: Using Research to Inspire 21st Century Learning, explores the concept of problem solving in great depth.

For the first time, the 2015 round of PISA collected data on students’ exposure to bullying. These data show that bullying is widespread. On average across OECD countries, around 11% of students reported that they are frequently (at least a few times per month) made fun of, 8% reported that they are frequently the object of nasty rumours in school, and 7% reported that they are frequently left out of things.

The assessment examines students’ ability to work with two or more people to try to solve a problem. The report highlights how students’ gender, socio-economic status and immigrant background are related to their performance in the assessment and to their attitudes towards collaboration in general.

Girls are much better than boys at working together to solve problems, according to the first OECD PISA assessment of collaborative problem solving.

This month’s PISA in Focus provides an overview of the assessment’s results and shows that collaborative problem-solving performance is positively related to performance in the core PISA subjects (science, reading and mathematics). The results also show, among other findings, that girls perform significantly better than boys in collaborative problem solving in every country and economy that participated in the assessment.

with Andreas Schleicher - Director for the Directorate of Education and Skills (November 21, 2017)

Do today’s students really know how to work well together? For the first time ever, the Programme for International Student Assessment 2015 (otherwise known as PISA) examined students’ ability to collaborate to solve problems and the necessary social skills involved in that process.

The issue of parental authority to resort to corporeal punishment on children is a matter still hotly debated in large sections of our society writes Shankar Jaganathan.

Unworkable policies conjured up in the guise of 'necessity' and 'national interest' merely perpetuate the discrimination women and girls endure, says Kalpana Sharma.

Gynaecologists have noticed a sharp spike in cases of menstrual complications among young women who are repeatedly using OTC EC and abortion pills.

Gymnasts all around the world are making the best of things as they try to keep fit while gyms are closed due to the coronavirus and Italy is no exception.

The way JavaScript handles Unicode is… surprising, to say the least. This write-up explains the pain points associated with Unicode in JavaScript, provides solutions for common problems, and explains how the ECMAScript 6 standard improves the situation.

Kandula, an 8-year-old male Asian elephant at the Smithsonian’s National Zoo, recently demonstrated to researchers for the first time that elephants are capable of insightful problem solving.

The post A first: National Zoo elephant shows insightful problem solving appeared first on Smithsonian Insider.

As American power and population grew in the 19th century, the United States gradually rejected the main principle of treaty-making—that tribes were self-governing nations—and initiated […]

The post The “Indian Problem” appeared first on Smithsonian Insider.

A team of scientists, including several from the Smithsonian Institution, discovered that leaves of flowering plants in the world's first rainforests had more veins per unit area than leaves ever had before.

The post First rainforests arose when plants solved their plumbing problem appeared first on Smithsonian Insider.

Quaternion methods for obtaining solutions to the problem of finding global rotations that optimally align pairs of corresponding lists of 3D spatial and/or orientation data are critically studied. The existence of multiple literatures and historical contexts is pointed out, and the algebraic solutions of the quaternion approach to the classic 3D spatial problem are emphasized. The treatment is extended to novel quaternion-based solutions to the alignment problems for 4D translation and orientation data.

More targeted aircraft testing and simulation should be conducted to uncover design characteristics in new flight control systems that -- in rare circumstances -- may mislead pilots and result in unstable or dangerous flight conditions, says a new report by a National Research Council committee.

Scientific evidence links mold and other factors related to damp conditions in homes and buildings to asthma symptoms in some people with the chronic disorder, as well as to coughing, wheezing, and upper respiratory tract symptoms in otherwise healthy people, says a new report from the Institute of Medicine of the National Academies.

Evidence exists that people who lived or worked at Camp Lejeune Marine Base in North Carolina between the 1950s and 1985 were exposed to the industrial solvents tricholorethylene (TCE) or perchloroethylene (PCE) in their water supply, but strong scientific evidence is not available to determine whether health problems among those exposed are due to the contaminants, says a new report from the National Research Council.

An analysis of more than 1,000 research articles concluded that few health problems are caused by or clearly associated with vaccines.

A new report from the Institute of Medicine and National Research Council proposes priorities for a research agenda to improve understanding of the public health aspects of gun-related violence, including its causes, health burden, and possible interventions.

The latest and final in a series of congressionally mandated biennial reviews of the evidence of health problems that may be linked to exposure to Agent Orange and other herbicides used during the Vietnam War changed the categorization of health outcomes for bladder cancer, hypothyroidism, and spina bifida and clarified the breadth of the previous finding for Parkinson’s disease.

It is possible to end the transmission of hepatitis B and C and prevent further sickness and deaths from the diseases, but time, considerable resources, and attention to various barriers will be required, says a new report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine.

Bullying is a serious public health problem, with significant short- and long-term psychological consequences for both the targets and perpetrators of such behavior, and requires a commitment to developing preventive and interventional policies and practices that could make a tangible difference in the lives of many children, says a new report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine.

Mary Ann de Lares Norris is Chief Operating Officer of Oblong Industries. She brings her dog LouLou to Oblong's downtown LA headquarters.; Credit: Brian Watt/KPCC

KPCC recently reported on the tech world’s diversity problem. Technology firms face challenges in hiring diverse staffs of its coders, web developers and software engineers.

It’s also a challenge at nonprofits such as Southern California Public Radio,  parent of 89.3 KPCC, which has always sought to build a staff that reflects the region it serves. The section of that staff that develops the KPCC app and makes its website run is all white and mostly male.

But a small talent pool means the diversity challenge is even greater for nonprofits and even smaller tech firms.

“The first problem is that all of the people working for me are male,” says Alex Schaffert, the one female on KPCC’s tech team.  “I’m kind of focusing on maybe getting another girl into the mix.”

Schaffert can use the term “girl” because she happens to be the leader of the tech team:  KPCC’s Managing Director of Digital Strategy and Innovation. 

Why diversity is important

Schaffert recently launched the topic of diversity – or lack thereof – at a weekly meeting of her team. She expected a “stilted and awkward” discussion from the five white men on her team, but a few of them didn’t hold back.  

“Not having diversity represented on the team leaves us more susceptible to circular thinking and everyone sort of verifying each other's assumptions,” said Joel Withrow,  who was serving at the time as KPCC’s Product Manager. “It impacts the work. It limits what you’re able to build.”

Sean Dillingham, KPCC’s Design and Development Manager, said living in a diverse community is what attracted him to Los Angeles, and he wants diversity in his immediate work team, too.

“When I look at other tech companies, I will often go to their ‘about us’ page, where they’ll have a page of photos of everyone, and I am immediately turned off when I just see just a sea of white dudes, or even just a sea of dudes,” Dillingham said.

Big competition, small talent pool

Dillingham and Schaffert are currently recruiting heavily to fill two tech-savvy positions. When a reporter or editor job opens up at KPCC, Schaffert says close to 100 resumes come in.

"But if you post a programmer job, and you get three or four resumes, you may not get lucky among those resumes," she says. "There may not be a woman in there. There may not be a person of color in there."

In other words, the talent pool is already small, and the diversity challenge makes it even smaller. KPCC is competing for talent with Google and Yahoo and all the start-ups on L.A.’s Silicon Beach. 

Schaffert’s being proactive, mining LinkedIn and staging networking events to attract potential candidates. She’s also trying to make sure KPCC’s job descriptions don’t sound like some she's seen in the tech world.

"If you read between the lines, they’re really looking for someone who is male and is somewhere between 25-30 years old and likes foosball tables and free energy drinks in the refrigerator," Schaffert says. “So you read between lines, and you know that they’re not talking about me, a mother of two kids who also has a demanding career. They're talking about someone different.”

Pay vs. passion

Schaffert's challenges and approaches to dealing with them are similar to those of Mary Ann de Lares Norris, the Chief Operating Officer at Oblong Industries. Based in downtown Los Angeles and founded in 2006, the company designs operating platforms for businesses that allow teams to collaborate in real time on digital parts of a project.

“I think technology and diversity is tough,” Norris told KPCC.  She’s proud her company’s management ranks are diverse, but says only 12 percent of its engineers are female. “Pretty standard in the tech industry, but it’s not great,” Norris says. “We really strive to increase that number, and all of the other companies are also, and it's really hard.”

Like Schaffert at KPCC, Norris works hard fine-tuning job descriptions and communicating that her company values diversity and work-life balance. But sometimes, it just boils down to money.

"We have to put out offers that have competitive salaries,” Norris says, adding that she can’t compete with the major tech firms. "The Googles and the Facebooks of the world can always pay more than we can. So we attract people who are passionate about coming to work for Oblong.  And, of course, we also offer stock options."

KPCC doesn’t have the  stock options, but we’ve got plenty of passion. Could that be the secret recruiting weapon for both small tech companies and nonprofits?  

LinkedIn recently surveyed engineers about what they look for in an employer. Good pay and work-life balance were the two top draws. Slightly more women prioritized work-life balance and slightly more men chose the big bucks. 

Clinical Entrepreneurship professor Adlai Wertman says that, historically, nonprofits and small businesses actually had the upper hand over big companies in recruiting minorities and women.

"There’s a feeling that they’re safer, more caring environments, less killer environments, and we know that corporate America has been the bastion of white males," said Wertman. 

But Wertman says that advantage disappears in the tech world because of the "supply-and-demand" problem with talent. When big firms decide to focus on diversity – as some have recently — they have plenty of resources.

"They’re always going to be able to pay more, and in truth they’re getting access to students coming out of these schools in ways that we as nonprofits and small companies never will," said Wertman. 

Wertman worked 18 years as an investment banker on Wall Street, then left to head a nonprofit on L.A.’s skid row. Now he heads the Brittingham Social Enterprise Lab Enterprise Lab at USC’s Marshall School of Business. He believes that, early on, the big companies have the best shot attracting diverse tech talent. But in the long run, much of that talent will turn back to smaller firms and nonprofits.

"I think ultimately people vote with where they’re most comfortable, where 'my values align with my employer's values, and if I don’t feel those values align, then I’m going to leave,'" Wertman said. "Ultimately, I think, for a lot of women and minorities, there’s a lot of value alignment within communities that are doing good in the world." 

This content is from Southern California Public Radio. View the original story at SCPR.org.