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"Don?t go around saying the world owes you a living. The world owes you nothing. It was here first." Mark Twain (1835?1910)
1 February 2014
Despite competing priorities, leaders need to focus on creating a culture in which teaching and learning are truly a priority, according to the think piece - Leading Learning in Further Education - by the 157 Group and CfBT Education Trust (May 2011).
The effective leadership of learning appears to involve four areas of practice:
- Investing time and resources to promote the professional development of staff.
- Having a close involvement in the management of the teaching programme.
- Setting clear directions for the organisation, including the centrality of teaching and learning.
- Establishing a culture that respects the professionalism of teachers and empowers them to innovate.
The report also recommends the use of supported experiments - an action learning approach in which staff are involved in identifying areas that need to be improved and investigate new approaches for making these improvements.
Source
1 February 2014
An online entrepreneur says that poor spelling is costing the UK millions of pounds in lost revenue for internet businesses.
Charles Duncombe says an analysis of website figures shows a single spelling mistake can cut online sales in half.
He says the big problem for online firms isn?t technology but finding staff who can spell.
The concerns were echoed by the CBI whose head of education and skills warned that too many employers were having to invest in remedial literacy lessons for their staff.
Source
1 February 2014
All schools in England should offer university scholarships to their poorest pupils.
The deputy Liberal Democrat leader Simon Hughes said that linking scholarships directly to schools and colleges would motivate children and this would end the situation where some schools sent no pupils to university.
This was one of 30 recommendations made in his final report as champion of university access.
Source
1 February 2014
"The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes." Marcel Proust (1871?1922)
1 February 2014
People who live to 95 or older are no more virtuous than the rest of us in terms of their diet, exercise routine or smoking and drinking habits, according to researchers at Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University.
Their findings suggests that nature (in the form of protective longevity genes) may be more important than nurture (lifestyle behaviours) when it comes to living an exceptionally long life.
The research did find, however, that overweight centenarians tended to have lower rates of obesity than the control group. Although male and female centenarians were just as likely to be overweight as their counterparts in the general population, the centenarians were significantly less likely to become obese: only 4.5 per cent of male centenarians were obese versus 12.1 per cent of controls; and for women, 9.6 per cent of centenarians were obese versus 16.2 per cent of controls. Both of these differences are statistically significant.
Although this study demonstrates that centenarians can be obese, smoke and avoid exercise, those lifestyle habits are not good choices for most of us who do not have a family history of longevity.
Most of the study?s participants did not attribute their advanced age to lifestyle factors. One-third reported a history of family longevity, while 20 per cent believed that physical activity also played a role in their lifespan. Other factors included positive attitude (19 per cent), busy or active life (12 per cent), less smoking and drinking (15 per cent), good luck (8 per cent), and religion or spirituality (6 per cent).
Source
1 February 2014
"Share your knowledge. It?s a way to achieve immortality." Dalai Lama (1935?)
1 February 2014
Monday 15 August - Assumption (a holiday in many Roman Catholic regions)
Sunday 22 August - Moon, last quarter 21:54 UT
Source
1 February 2014
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