Making Minds Matter with Bill Costello » Teacher Training

America’s Shanghai Surprise

Bill Costello — Sat, 18 Dec 2010 05:51:48 +0000

American students are lagging significantly behind their peers from several countries in Europe and Asia according to new results from a key international assessment. They are the furthest behind students from the Chinese city of Shanghai, who received the top international test scores in math, science, and reading.

“We have to see this as a wake-up [...]

Sleep Deprivation Impairs Learning

Bill Costello — Sun, 28 Mar 2010 00:46:41 +0000

The Washington Post reports that the 80-hour-a-week cap placed on U.S. medical residents since 2003 could be changed to a 60-hour-a-week cap if the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education approves the proposal at the end of April. The new hours would take effect in July 2011.

While I’m a big believer that education school programs [...]

Yonsei University College of Sciences in Education

Bill Costello — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 01:02:17 +0000

Yonsei University, one of South Korea’s top-ranked universities, is the 151st best university in the world according to the Times Higher Education-QS World University Rankings 2009. It was founded by Christian missionaries in 1885. Yonsei University has roughly 30,000 students and 400,000 alumni. The motto of the university is, “The truth will set you free,” which is taken [...]

Korea University College of Education

Bill Costello — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 02:00:49 +0000

Korea University (KU), one of South Korea’s top-ranked universities, is the 211th best university in the world according to the Times Higher Education-QS World University Rankings 2009. Roughly 25 percent of Korean politicians and CEOs are alumni, including South Korean President Lee Myung-bak and world champion figure skater Kim Yu-na. More than 35,000 students attend KU. The College of [...]

Seoul National University College of Education

Bill Costello — Sun, 31 Jan 2010 00:49:08 +0000

Seoul National University (SNU), South Korea’s top-ranked university, is the 47th best university in the world according to the Times Higher Education-QS World University Rankings 2009. It only accepts incoming freshmen who score in the top 2.5 percent of those who take the National University Entrance Examination. The College of Education at SNU has trained roughly 20,000 [...]

McKinsey Report, Part IX

Bill Costello — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 01:02:49 +0000

This is the ninth part in a series I’ve been writing over the past two weeks about the report, How the World’s Best-Performing School Systems Come Out on Top, which is an analysis of the world’s school systems to find out why some schools succeed and others do not.

Today, my focus is on the section of the report that [...]

McKinsey Report, Part VIII

Bill Costello — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 04:47:56 +0000

This is the eighth part in a series I’ve been writing over the past two weeks about the report, How the World’s Best-Performing School Systems Come Out on Top, which is an analysis of the world’s school systems to find out why some schools succeed and others do not.

Today, my focus is on the section of the report that [...]

McKinsey Report, Part V

Bill Costello — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 02:27:50 +0000

This is the fifth part in a series I’ve been writing this week about the report, How the World’s Best-Performing School Systems Come Out on Top, which is an analysis of the world’s school systems to find out why some schools succeed and others do not.

Today, my focus is on the section of the report that explains the [...]

McKinsey Report, Part IV

Bill Costello — Sat, 14 Nov 2009 04:19:16 +0000

This is the fourth part in a series I’ve been writing this week about the report, How the World’s Best-Performing School Systems Come Out on Top, which is an analysis of the world’s school systems to find out why some schools succeed and others do not.

Today, my focus is on the section of the report that explains how [...]

Training Teachers Like Surgeons

Bill Costello — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 01:42:22 +0000

Susan Engel, director of the teaching program at Williams College, suggests that education school programs train teachers the same way that medical school programs train surgeons.

A change is definitely needed. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan recently described most education school programs as “mediocre.” In a four-year study, Arthur Levine, president of the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation and [...]

Education Schools Failing to Prepare Teachers

Bill Costello — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 01:52:23 +0000

Hundreds of teachers have complained to Education Secretary Arne Duncan about the inadequate training they’ve received from education school programs. Specifically, teachers are not being prepared to deal with classroom behaviors.

I’m not surprised. While earning my Master of Education degree, the only training we received in the area of classroom behaviors was a brief class wherein [...]

Taiwanese Boys Lag Behind Girls in Reading

Bill Costello — Sat, 24 Oct 2009 04:28:08 +0000

A major problem facing Taiwan is that boys there do not perform nearly as well as girls in reading. As an educational researcher, I have been trying to understand why.

Taiwanese students earn scores among the highest in the world in science and math, though they do not perform as well, as a whole, in reading. [...]