Intelligence tests are great; they do a darn good job predicting which students will succeed in school. But an article just published in the journal Intelligence wonders how much these IQ-like academic subjects and the tests that measure them continue to matter in the real world. In addition or as an alternative to traditional intelligence tests, the article evaluates measures of complex problem solving.
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An article published last week in the journal Child Development shows that not only are girls as young as six prone to subconscious biases that can hurt their math ability, but this bias can be wiped clean, leaving attitudes and skills functioning at their fullest.
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High school junior, Zarin Rahman, from Brookings High School in South Dakota took home top prize in the Behavioral and Social Sciences category at last week’s ISEF, for her study of how screen time and sleep affect mood, memory and cognition. Here GeekDad chats with Rahman about her work and her love of science.
Continue ReadingPraise used to be a good thing — the praised child builds self-esteem! Now, as all of us enlightened GeekDad parents know, it’s a bad thing — the praised child loses the drive to struggle and succeed! So which is it? Is praise good or bad? A study published in the Journal of Experimental Psychology shows that praising process trumps praising product.
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A new study in the journal Child Development shows that after kindergarten, the learning trajectories of the best readers tend to flatten and the trajectories of the worst readers tend to climb. Blame genetics? Blame school? You be the judge, but in either case, parenting practices play second fiddle.
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Contrary to popular misconception, kids start as skeptics, then parents and culture trick kids into belief, and then canny kids find disbelief. But what of the kids who continue to believe in dragons into the middle grades? Are these fantasy kids slow? Are they dumb? Studies suggest the opposite: it takes a nimble mind to buffer belief from the whisperings of reality and the evidence of doubters.
Continue ReadingThere are games that are fairly basic like chess, Othello and mahjong. And then there’s Old Maid. At my house, we’ve been playing some serious Maid and when I play, I play to win. Which is why I need your …
Continue ReadingThis week’s thought experiment proved much more problematic than I thought. I have to admit: I thought it was a fun question and didn’t really pre-plan the answer ahead of time.
Continue ReadingAs Leif and I were sling-shot toward our demise on Ghostrider, here were my thoughts in no particular order: 1) “I’m going to die in an immediate and bloody fashion,” 2) “If I survive, Kristi will kill me. And then …
Continue ReadingIt’s not too late to livestream Brooke Raboutou this weekend at the American Bouldering Series Youth National Championships! This week’s puzzle asked you to help Brooke get to the top of an indoor wall — like a maze. Refer to …
Continue ReadingI don’t multitask. Or, I do it so badly that I end up dropping everything in a massive tangle of badness with me standing baffled at its center. This frustrates my wife to no end. She can balance on a …
Continue ReadingAdreon opens A Dance With Shadows by describing a Seattle shooting gallery where a 14-year-old girl asks him to pass the rig. He writes that his “lingering morality pressed hard against the person I had become.” Like my remembrance of …
Continue ReadingFirst Luke had to survive the surface run. Then he had to survive long enough in the trench with Vader on his tail to get off a clean shot. Then he had to pull the trigger within the very short …
Continue ReadingThe Death Star has been all the rage lately, from the White House petition to the recent Kickstarter. So I thought it would be worth taking a look at the fate of the DS-1 Orbital Battle Station. Specifically, what was …
Continue ReadingBy far the best solution to this week’s puzzle was to let the Labradors eat the guinea pig bedding and Templeton (said guinea pig) eat the kale, and then simply buy new kale or admit that kale is something purchased …
Continue ReadingTempleton the guinea pig eats kale. In fact, if Templeton is left in the house alone, she will find all the kale and eat it. We also have two Labradors. They do not eat kale. But they would happily eat …
Continue ReadingIn 2005 at week 37 of their pregnancy, Sean Hanish and his wife Kiley discovered their child had lost his heartbeat. Norbert was born still. Sean’s written the experience into what’s likely the most beautiful screenplay I’ve ever read — …
Continue ReadingIt seems that a notable frequent solver of the puzzle forgot that the removed block would leave new, interior edges that would technically now be “perimeter,” in addition to removing the edges that were once there. You know who you …
Continue ReadingTo calculate the perimeter of a square, you multiply a side by four. To calculate the perimeter of a cube, you multiply a side by 12. But what, now, are the possible perimeters of my family’s irregularly shaped Rubik’s Cube …
Continue ReadingHere’s a test: did you analyze your way to this week’s solution, scrolling through possible answers in an organized way while trying to match possibilities to the three starting terms? Or did you sit tight and wait for the whallop …
Continue ReadingHave you ever been hit in the head with a frying pan? Neither have I. But that’s the way folks describe the experience of insight, perhaps without the resultant need for a head CT. Test your insight on the following …
Continue ReadingIt turns out my kids are experts at determining expected value: the size, weight and number of presents under the tree have now been precisely determined and weighed against each other to determine fairness, which, it also turns out, is …
Continue ReadingImagine a row of seven presents. Their values are $1, $2, $3, $4, $5, $6 and $40. You don’t know what’s inside and so don’t know which present matches each value. It costs $7 to pick a present at random. …
Continue ReadingThere are only 56 days until Groundhogs Day and so time is running short to secure the extra funding of $50 from ThinkGeek, available every week by playing the puzzle. This week’s puzzle was won by a 10yo.
Continue ReadingIt quickly became apparent that the only thing limiting the use of Atoms was my lack of imagination. See, Atoms are sensors and motors — you make something and an Atom makes it go.
Continue ReadingSolve the puzzle of the week for your chance at a $50 ThinkGeek gift certificate. This week, survive a single present. Only 315 days until Columbus Day!
Continue ReadingThere are things we know to be true, including the impending Mayan end of the world and the fact that kids are increasingly getting too little sleep. However, at least the second appears to hold less thruthiness than we doomsday …
Continue ReadingIs it Thursday already? Oh man, that was some strong Thanksgiving brew. Now that I’ve Rip Van Winkled back to the land of the living, it seems past time to announce the winner of last week’s GeekDad puzzle.
Continue ReadingLast week while baking muffins with my son’s preschool class, I set fire to the school. Okay, technically I didn’t set it on fire—it was only butter smoke from the tin that set off the alarm, necessitating the entire school …
Continue ReadingOur parents taught us to open our mouths to say thank you and now that we’re parents ourselves, society has taught us to open our wallets to do the same. Yes, it’s that time of year again: the season of …
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