Too much help with homework can hinder your child’s learning progress

Parents are often guilty of helping their child a bit too much with their homework. Sometimes the homework battle can be made that little bit easier if you just tell your child what to do, or simply do it for them. At least it’s been done, you think.

Teachers have spoken of parents writing their children’s assignments, taking on the homework responsibility and emailing teachers out of hours, or, as in one case, turning up at a teacher’s home on the weekend to ask about the homework that was set.

But research shows that giving your child too much help could actually hinder their skills development and lead them to feel incompetent.

Help with homework can be filled with tension or create pressure to succeed for the child.

That’s not to say that parents shouldn’t get involved, as research shows this is an important factor in academic success. But parents need to know when it’s appropriate to do this, and when to step back.

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What does our attention span mean?

Coming back to work after a holiday break presents many challenges. We need to reset our circadian rhythms to get up early, remember the password on the computer, and try to focus on a task for longer than 30 seconds before another random thought pops into our heads.

Trying to focus on a task involves attention control – the ability to maintain concentration, or focus, on something over a period of time. What exactly is an attention span? Does it relate to intelligence? Can it change?

We can consider attention in two ways – in terms of space: where do you focus, what is the size of the focus, and how many objects can you process at the same time? And in terms of time – for how long can you concentrate on a task before distraction kicks in?

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10 Great Websites For Learning Programming

The best way to learn to program is through trial and error by working on projects that interest you. There's no substitute for solving problems mostly on your own, and for seeking out help only when necessary. The DIY approach makes concepts real and memorable because you've implemented them, rather than reading material that may be forgotten.

To do so, you need a foundation, some level of familiarity with the syntax and patterns in whatever programming language or framework you've chosen. Before you can begin making progress on your own, you need some sense of basic programing concepts and the scope of possibilities.

The Web, a labyrinth of code, is full of educational resources that can help you lay that foundation. In many cases, no money is necessary -- free tutorials and help forums abound -- but a bit of cash can accelerate the process and help you achieve the technical competency to exercise your programming abilities on your own terms.

In building up a modest knowledge of Python, Lua, JavaScript, HTML, and CSS, I've experimented with a handful of online programming courses. I can't tell you which is right for you. People learn in different ways and have different needs. But if you look some of the options that follow, perhaps you'll find a few that fit. And if not, new coding resources appear daily, or so it seems.

It's worth making a distinction here between beginner-to-intermediate programming, a level useful to individuals and businesses and attainable through personal inquiry, and advanced programming that requires a solid foundation in mathematics, computer science, or other specialized fields. If you want to create your own browser, programming language, or machine learning system, you'll probably be better off enrolling in a reputable computer science program than trying to cobble the necessary skillset together through online tutorials.

I taught myself BASIC in the 1980s but decided in college that I liked writing for people better than writing for machines. Following the advent of the iPhone, I decided to get back into programming in 2009 using Corona SDK, a Lua-based game development framework. I chose it because it allowed me to write apps that could be built for both iOS and Android devices.

A few years later, I tried a Python course at Marakana, a San Francisco-based training company subsequently bought by Twitter. But it wasn't until I started practicing on a more regular basis with Codecademy and Learn Python the Hard Way that I felt I was making progress.

Since then, I've tried Thinkful, Code School, Coursera, General Assembly's Dash, and Udacity. Treehouse is next on my list. And I have high hopes for CheckiO's Empire of Code, a real-time strategy game based on coding.

What follows are a few of what, in my opinion, are the best educational options out there to reach a moderate level of skill as a programmer. Feel free to tell us about others you'd recommend in the comments section below.

Thomas Claburn has been writing about business and technology since 1996, for publications such as New Architect, PC Computing, InformationWeek, Salon, Wired, and Ziff Davis Smart Business. Before that, he worked in film and television, having earned a not particularly useful ...

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The 10 stuff-ups we all make when interpreting research

UNDERSTANDING RESEARCH: What do we actually mean by research and how does it help inform our understanding of things? Understanding what’s being said in any new research can be challenging and there are some common mistakes that people make.

Have you ever tried to interpret some new research to work out what the study means in the grand scheme of things?

Well maybe you’re smart and didn’t make any mistakes – but more likely you’re like most humans and accidentally made one of these 10 stuff ups.

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10 secrets of Silicon Valley that every entrepreneur should know

Fifth edition of TechSparks, India’s largest entrepreneurship event culminated yesterday, at The Leela Palace, Bangalore. The grand finale event had all the elements in it to be thought of as the ’Oscars of startups’. Likes of Nandan Nilekani, Ellen Petry Leanse, Ramesh Srivats, Ravi Venkatesan, Arunabh Kumar and other visionaries shared their success secrets with the young entrepreneurs. The heroes of the show, Tech30 companies received massive appreciation and recognition for their promising future.

The stage was perfectly set for the guest of honor, Ellen Petry Leanse, to share some of the secrets of Silicon Valley with the fullhouse buzzing with Indian entrepreneurs. Here’s everything you would like to know about ‘What makes Silicon Valley, what it is today’?

n their book ‘What makes Silicon Valley tick?’, Tapan Munroe and Mark Westwind explained,

“Silicon Valley has been an ecology of innovation, where research universities, entrepreneurs, investors, a talented workforce, social and professional networks, a vibrant business environment, and the quality of life; help transform ideas into new products and services.”

Vivek Wadhwa, the well known Indian-American technology entrepreneur and academic, once mentioned,

An open-minded and diverse population that readily shares information, encourages experimentation, accepts failure and dispenses with formality and hierarchy is what makes Silicon Valley the successful.

Things you should know about Silicon Valley

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Seven reasons why my first Startup failed

We started our journey in wrong direction and we failed to change direction with time.

Startups are hot talk these days and everyone want to start their own company. People read success stories but ignore the fact that more than 90% companies fail within 3 years of operation. Our startup SchoolGennie is one of R.I.P startup which we founded in 2013 but got shutdown in 2014.

Let me share top reasons of our failure.

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From Infosys to Snapdeal: 25 years of startup wisdom

The recent Times LitFest, Bangalore, featured over 60 speakers, 24 panels, a music act by Moon Arra, and standup comedy by Cyrus Broacha. For two days, an estimated 20,000 attendees heard expert insights on topics ranging from entrepreneurship and creativity to politics and movies.

Here are my top 18 takeaways on startup wisdom from the LitFest, especially from the two panels titled ‘Changing Faces of Entrepreneurship: 1980 and 2015’ and ‘New Retail v/s Old Retail.’ The speakers included Snapdeal Co-Founder Kunal Bahl, Infosys Co-Founder N.R. Narayana Murthy, Portea Medical CEO Meena Ganesh, Zivame CEO Richa Kar, Reliance Retail CEO Damodar Mall (author of ‘Supermarketwalla’) and Vivek Kaul (author of ‘Easy Money’).

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10 Educationally Insane Superhero PSA Comics

For most of their existence, comic books have been perceived as two things: 1) entertainment for children, and 2) terrible, morality-eroding entertainment for children. In order to strike back against these perceived problems, Marvel and DC have frequently produced public-service announcement comics, generally referred to as PSAs, using their superheroes to promote awareness of things need to be aware of, or warn kids about bad things like drugs, sex and landmines. Since these comics were educational and given out for free, they were almost invariably terrible and lame. But a few of them were terrible and insane. Here are 10 comics that were significantly crazier than they were educational.

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Tips on choosing a programming language to learn

If you’re interested in learning a new programming language, Justin James, the author of the post, suggests asking yourself the following five questions that will help you pick the one that best suits your needs.

Why am I learning a programming language?
How do I plan to learn the programming language?
What toolset, libraries, and frameworks support the programming language?
What do I plan on building?
Am I willing to take the road less travelled?

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10 project management lessons from the Titanic disaster

One hundred years ago this month, RMS Titanic sank after striking an iceberg. More than fifteen hundred people died in that disaster. The event has been the subject of books and movies, but it also provides a few stark illustrations regarding project management mistakes and oversights. Here are seven lessons that relate to the sinking itself and three that involve the recovery of the victims.

1: You need to know what you’re measuring
2: Assumptions can kill you
3: Distractions are dangerous
4: Little things add up
5: Stakeholders should be kept informed
6: Other people’s perspectives matter
7: Moving targets can hurt you
8: Traceability is essential
9: Methodology is more important than technology
10: Documentation may have lasting benefits

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The Power of Lifelong Learning

The man who graduates today and stops learning tomorrow is uneducated the day after. — Newton Diehl Baker

Seven critical methods that can help you become a lifelong learner:

- Learn from experience.
- Learn from mentors.
- Learn from coaches.
- Join a mastermind group.
- Learn how to think like the experts.
- Interview the best presenters you can find.
- Learn from the best books to read, movies to watch, and courses to take.


Source: The Seven Strategies of Master Presenters by Brad McRae and David Brooks