Education Week – Sarah D. Sparks
“Albert Einstein once described intuition as “a feeling for the order lying behind the appearance.” That ability to make useful connections among disparate bits of knowledge is one of the most sought-after of the so-called 21st century skills, but also remains one of the most challenging to impart to students. Kenneth J. Kurtz, an associate professor of psychology at Binghamton University, is developing a more advanced version of a child’s sorting game to help kickstart students’ ability to draw out the underlying connections among different problems. In a series of experiments supported by the Institute of Education Sciences, Kurtz and co-principal investigator Andy Cavagnetto…found students are better able to transfer their understanding of science concepts to new situations when they learn the concept by categorizing examples.”(more)