Professor Elam

Weekend March 2 2014

Here is a link to Tom Friedman's How to Get A Job at Google. It also includes a link to an earlier interview with Google and how theyuse Big Data. The upshot is that Google has decided test scores and GPAs mean little in terms of predicting success at Google. The CPA test for exampe is a test or your memorization of various rules and problem solving techniques. It is not a test of how you would solve a problem. Google has concluded this is far more important. 

This weekend I am reading The Smartest Kids in the World and How they Got that Way. 

Amanda Ripley examines the experiences of American students who live for a year in South Korea, Finland, and Poland. She also explains the Program for nInternational Student Assessment PISA. This test was concerived as a way to test advanced communication and thinking skills. After administering the test around the world the conclusion was that Finland had the best and the brightest. 

The author outlines what each country did to revamp its education system. Most did this in the span of a few years. Finland made it much more difficult to become a teacher, requiring a mastery of the subject top be taught. Attend out graduation and you will see that most teachers decider rather to major in educaiton. 

I will have more on this as I finish the book. But I was struck by the Google conclusionand the PISA difference in testing. One has to have a college education to sit for most certified exams. a result more of the college lobby than any correlation between a college education and becoming say a forensic auditor.