Monthly Archives: March 2020

Understanding emotions is nearly as important as IQ for students’ academic success

Understanding emotions is nearly as important as IQ for students’ academic success

The ability to understand emotions contributes almost as much to students’ grades as their IQ. Past studies show two personal qualities are important for student academic success – intelligence and conscientiousness. IQ scores explain about 15% of the differences between students’ grades. Conscientiousness, such as having the diligence to do enough study, explains about 5%. Our recent research has found […] … learn more→

Writing advice – caveat emptor

Writing advice – caveat emptor

Advice. Loads of it. Coming out of our ears.  And on every possible topic, including research and writing. Advice needs readers. But we readers also need to be, as Ernest Hemingway put it, “crap detectors”. Howard Rheingold has worked up this idea, using Hemingway’s terminology. Rheingold has developed a little protocol that can be used to […] … learn more→

Librarians could be jailed and fined under a proposed censorship law

Librarians could be jailed and fined under a proposed censorship law

A bill pending in Missouri’s legislature takes aim at libraries and librarians who are making “age-inappropriate sexual material” available to children. The measure, championed by Ben Baker, a Republican lawmaker, calls for establishing review boards who would determine whether materials in libraries contain or promote “nudity, sexuality, sexual conduct, sexual excitement, or sadomasochistic abuse.” In addition, […] … learn more→