Good students partner up on social media that is used in classroom learning.Peter Power/The Globe and Mail
The best of the web on education from kindergarten to postsecondary, as chosen daily by Globe and Mail education editor Simona Chiose.
Social media networks can predict grades
The increase in online collaboration in university courses could help good students become better and possibly hinder poor students from advancing. That's because both those dedicated to studying and those less devoted were found to partner up on social networks with the quality of their connections able to predict their grades.
University too late to push science
The idea of removing financial disincentives to pursuing degrees in occupations in demand, particularly STEM disciplines, is a growing topic of debate. Now, an engineering professor argues that tuition differentials can be justified on several strong grounds. If graduating salaries are not enough to persuade arts and humanities students to switch to science, cheaper tuition won't do the trick either. The key point, however, as proponents of lowering science and engineering tuition also recognize, is that a love of science can't be bought. It's got to be inculcated, starting in elementary school.
Poem about Lanza leads to suspension
A school in San Francisco has suspended a 17-year-old who wrote a dark poem about Adam Lanza. The poem was not for a class assignment, but found by a teacher in a journal written by 17-year-old Courtni Webb.
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