You may have mentioned this in previous posts, but are there particular books/resources on homeschooling philosophy/technique that have been influential for you?
Really interesting read, and a topic I'm thinking about a fair bit re whether to apply it in life or not. A question however. You wrote "Research shows that teachers account, at best, for 10% of the variation in student performance, that intelligence is highly heritable, and that class size makes little difference to outcomes. " -- I was under the impression that the research showed good teachers had much higher variation in performance, and similarly class size I thought had an inverted U curve.
Thanks for reading! Glad you liked it. I think I was wrong to say "at best" but 10% is the average. This Star Slate Codex piece has a good summary. Quote and link below. Also there's a new meta analysis showing an extra year of school raises IQ, but it's still not clear *how*. Link also below. I think the class size U-curve thing comes from Malcolm Gladwell, so I'm not usre how well it holds up. Link also below
"Teacher factors explain somewhere between 5% and 20% of the variance. Other studies seem to agree, usually a little to the lower end. For example, Goldhaber, Brewer, and Anderson (1999) find teachers explain 9% of variance; Nye, Konstantopoulos, and Hedges (2004) find they explain 13% of variance for math and 7% for reading. The American Statistical Association summarizes the research as “teachers account for about 1% to 14% of the variability in test scores”, which seems about right."
The average as 10% makes sense to me. I had avg teachers at best and the results show, bad as it is to look at n=1. I feel this, as with class sizes, is a story of two opposing forces where the good ones have high effects and bad ones negative and they're complex enough that the effects get muddied.
I also generally have a broader worry here. If IQ is highly heritable and is predictive of "success" in life, and school/ teachers/ environment/ classes aren't that effective, I feel we might get a tad nihilistic.?
You may have mentioned this in previous posts, but are there particular books/resources on homeschooling philosophy/technique that have been influential for you?
Not for me... I will ask my wife and reply here if she has anything!
Thank you!
Really interesting read, and a topic I'm thinking about a fair bit re whether to apply it in life or not. A question however. You wrote "Research shows that teachers account, at best, for 10% of the variation in student performance, that intelligence is highly heritable, and that class size makes little difference to outcomes. " -- I was under the impression that the research showed good teachers had much higher variation in performance, and similarly class size I thought had an inverted U curve.
Thanks for reading! Glad you liked it. I think I was wrong to say "at best" but 10% is the average. This Star Slate Codex piece has a good summary. Quote and link below. Also there's a new meta analysis showing an extra year of school raises IQ, but it's still not clear *how*. Link also below. I think the class size U-curve thing comes from Malcolm Gladwell, so I'm not usre how well it holds up. Link also below
"Teacher factors explain somewhere between 5% and 20% of the variance. Other studies seem to agree, usually a little to the lower end. For example, Goldhaber, Brewer, and Anderson (1999) find teachers explain 9% of variance; Nye, Konstantopoulos, and Hedges (2004) find they explain 13% of variance for math and 7% for reading. The American Statistical Association summarizes the research as “teachers account for about 1% to 14% of the variability in test scores”, which seems about right."
https://slatestarcodex.com/2016/05/19/teachers-much-more-than-you-wanted-to-know/
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/06/180621112004.htm
Gladwell: https://edcentral.uk/edblog/this-week-in-edresearch/do-smaller-class-sizes-really-improve-student-outcomes-1
The average as 10% makes sense to me. I had avg teachers at best and the results show, bad as it is to look at n=1. I feel this, as with class sizes, is a story of two opposing forces where the good ones have high effects and bad ones negative and they're complex enough that the effects get muddied.
I also generally have a broader worry here. If IQ is highly heritable and is predictive of "success" in life, and school/ teachers/ environment/ classes aren't that effective, I feel we might get a tad nihilistic.?
It is the best single predictor, but it is not the only factor and not the whole story. Star Slate Codex link is good on this topic, if I remember.
Hello, thanks for letting me know. I'm an RSS fan, too. It's so under rated.