For adults, learning a new language is often a long, frustrating process that inevitably ends up in failure. A memory expert and a neuroscientist hope to change that with a new online software package designed to make learning the vocabulary of a foreign language fast, fun and rewarding.

"Really good successful learning needs to be vivid, imaginative and creative. It needs to be active. And if you can make it a bit social, that's great," Greg Detre, a neuroscientist and co-founder of Memrise, the online destination to learn foreign words quickly, told me today.

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The website is built on the metaphor that our minds are gardens where memories are either flourishing or wilting. When users learn a new word, they get a seed that they tend and grow into a healthy plant by correctly passing well-timed tests that force the users to recall the word.

To help users learn the word, the site offers up mnemonic devices. When learning the word man in Mandarin, for example, Memrise transforms the character for man into a cartoon of a man. Users are also encouraged to come up with their own devices. These devices, the founders say, make the words stick in your mind and enriches the recall experience. 

To help plant and tend the memory, the site uses an algorithm that tests you on the word when the memory of it is most likely fading your mind.

"It is trying to teach you how your memories work," Detre explained. "If you don't nurture them on a scientific schedule, they die just like flowers. But we are also at the same time trying to make your learning visible and social and useful."

The fun part hinges on choreography behind the scenes that props the tests at the time and a level of difficulty where you have to work a bit to get the answer, but that you will likely get it right. In other words, the tests make you feel like a genius, which feels good, so you keep on learning. If the tests were too hard or too easy, you might quit, Detre noted.

The site also lets you play along with friends and strangers. Comparing your garden with others fires up the competitive spirit, for example. Users can also share mnemonic devices and encourage each other to learn new words, fostering a sense of community.

Memrise bills itself as teacher of words in a foreign language. "That's only a small part of learning a language," Luis Von Alm, a professor at Carnegie Mellon University and co-creator of another online learning website, Duolingo, told Technology Review.

Detre agrees that Memrise alone will not teach you a new language, but, in his opinion, is the "best way to learn the words of a new language." And learning vocabulary, he added, is "the right way for the brain to kick itself into learning a new language."

More on language and learning:

• A baby's babble leads to language
• English won't dominate as world language
• Robots invent their own spoken language
• What language do we use with E.T.?

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Tip o' the Log to Technology Review's Kristina Bjoran

John Roach is a contributing writer for msnbc.com. Connect with the Cosmic Log community by hitting the "like" button on the Cosmic Log Facebook page or following msnbc.com's science editor, Alan Boyle, on Twitter (@b0yle).

Everything is bigger in Texas, the saying goes, which is why advocates for science education are concerned about proposed supplemental, web-based instructional materials for biology courses that appear to promote creationist arguments.

"This gets a foot in the door," Joshua Rosenau, the programs and policy director of the National Center for Science Education, told me today. "In general, Texas is a concern with textbook issues because they buy so many textbooks. A publisher who was planning on being able to sell in Texas and then can't is in real trouble." 

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That means textbook publishers target the Texas market. Cash-strapped school boards across the country looking to replace their materials, in turn, are likely to be stuck buying whatever was created for the Texans. 

Texas science standards
Two years ago, the Texas State Board of Education voted 13-2 to put in place a plan that would require teachers to encourage students to scrutinize "all sides" of scientific theories, including the theory of evolution.

Critics of the plan argued that it would allow non-scientific ideas such as creationism and intelligent design to slip into Texas classrooms even though the board president at the time, Don McLeroy, had previously said, "Anything taught in science has to have consensus in the science community and intelligent design does not." 

Now, proposed science education materials — all web based — are available for review on the board's website. The National Center for Science Education and the Texas Freedom Network, organizations that criticized the new plan, reviewed the materials and found their fears confirmed.

Intelligent design teachings
The review shows that materials from an obscure New Mexico-based company called International Databases LLC promote anti-evolution arguments made by proponents of intelligent design and creationism. These are the same arguments that many scientists have shown lack scientific merit.  

Among the highlights from the review made available by NCSE and TFN include:

• A slide on the origin of life states that "since such materialistic, self organization scenarios now have a history of scientific insufficiency for explaining the Origin of Life on Earth, the Null hypothesis (default) stands. This allows for the testing of the legitimate scientific hypothesis … Life on Earth is the result of intelligent causes."
• A teacher resources slide that says that "at the end of the instructional unit on the Origin of Life, students should go home with the understanding that a new paradigm of explaining life's origins is emerging from the failed attempts of naturalistic scenarios. The new way of thinking is predicated upon the hypothesis that intelligent input is necessary for life's origins."
• A module on the scientific method that lays out two "unproven hypothesis" that scientists have used to build their theories on the origin of life. One is called "scientific materialism, naturalism, and so forth." The other is that "an intelligence is necessary to explain both the origin, and diversification of life on Earth."

The NCSE and TFN point out that a federal judge in Pennsylvania ruled in 2005 that teaching intelligent design in public schools is unconstitutional, regarding it as creationism in disguise. Should the Texas school board approve the materials reviewed here, the critics hint at "expensive legal challenges."

What's next?
Teams of reviewers appointed by the Texas Education Agency will examine all of the proposed instructional materials in June and report to the TEA and State Board of Education. A public hearing and final vote on the materials is scheduled for July. Public schools could then purchase the materials for use in classrooms beginning in the 2011-2012 school year. 

Rosenau, the NCSE programs and policy director, is optimistic the board won't approve International Databases Inc. materials on technical grounds. "Not even getting to the issue that it is creationist, it doesn't cover all the new standards as it is supposed to, it has typos, it has basic errors of fact," he told me. "It is hard to imagine it going anywhere."

Should it be approved, however, the company would go from an unknown entity to suddenly having access to the coveted Texas market, validating them as a player in the emerging e-textbook market. It would also open the door to allowing the material in a hardcopy textbook, Rosenau added.

"I'm sure the board could say, 'Look, we've already got an approved supplement that takes this perspective, so how can you say it would be irresponsible now to put that in your textbooks?' "

More stories on science education and intelligent design: 

• Textbook changed 'creation' to intelligent design' 
• 'Intelligent design' in Tenn. schools? 
• 13 percent of biology teachers back creationism 
• Evolution texts survive in Louisiana 

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John Roach is a contributing writer for msnbc.com. Connect with the Cosmic Log community by hitting the "like" button on the Cosmic Log Facebook page or following msnbc.com's science editor, Alan Boyle, on Twitter (@b0yle).

 

 

Tennessee legislators took a step closer Thursday to allowing controversial subjects such as intelligent design to be taught in the science classroom.

The House or Representatives voted 70-28 to pass a bill that would protect teachers from discipline if they challenge the scientific theory of subjects such as "biological evolution, the chemical origins of life, global warming, and human cloning."

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Defenders of science education ranging from the American Association for the Advancement of Science to the Tennessee Science Teachers Association have come out against the bill, characterizing it as "unnecessary, anti-scientific and very likely unconstitutional."

Support for the bill comes from backers of the intelligent design movement at the Discovery Institute in Seattle, Wash.

"There has been a widespread pattern of discrimination against educators who would challenge evolution in the classroom," Casey Luskin, a policy analyst with the institute, told Science Insider. "Schools censor from students the evidence against evolution. This [bill] protects the rights of teachers to teach in an objective way."

An identical bill is up for vote by the Senate Education Committee at the end of the month. If it follows the party line vote of the House, policy experts expect it to pass and to be signed into law.

Science Insider noted that if the bill passes, Tennessee would join Louisiana as the second state with specific protections for teaching "antievolution rhetoric."

More stories on intelligent design:

• Judge rules against 'intelligent design'
• Why scientists dismiss 'intelligent design'
• 13 percent of biology teachers back creationism
• Evolution texts survive in Louisiana

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John Roach is a contributing writer for msnbc.com. Connect with the Cosmic Log community by hitting the "like" button on the Cosmic Log Facebook page or following msnbc.com's science editor, Alan Boyle, on Twitter (@b0yle).

Multiple choice tests have long made teachers and students go ick, but a new variety launched today could be a game changer that improves science education in the U.S. by pointing out what students know, and, importantly, their misconceptions.

To get things started, let's look at a few sample questions. Like all multiple choice questions, one of the possible answers is right. Common misconceptions are also included in the choices. (Scroll to the end of the post for the correct answers. More questions and answers are available online.)

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1. Which of the following is TRUE about the species that are living on earth today?

 

• A. All species living today have existed since the time life began.
• B. Most species living today have existed since the time life began, but a few have appeared more recently.
• C. Most species living today did not exist at the time life began.
• D. There is no way of finding out whether all, most, or only a few species living today existed since the time life began.

2. Which of the following kinds of cells perform basic functions such as making molecules for growth? 

• A. Plant cells, but not animal cells
• B. Animal cells, but not plant cells
• C. Both plant cells and animal cells
• D. Neither animal cells nor plant cells

3. Why does liquid water take the shape of a cup it is poured into, but solid ice cubes do not?

• A. Because the molecules of liquid water are softer than the molecules of solid ice
• B. Because the molecules of liquid water are smaller than the molecules of solid ice
• C. Because the molecules of liquid water are moving but the molecules of solid ice are not
• D. Because the molecules of liquid water can easily move past one another but the molecules of solid ice cannot

4. Which of the following is TRUE about the boundaries between earth’s plates?

• A. Boundaries can be anywhere in an ocean basin or a continent
• B. Boundaries are always where ocean basins meet continents.
• C. Boundaries are always in the middle of ocean basins.
• D. Boundaries are not found in continents.

5. Some organisms, such as a chimpanzee and a human, have many similarities.  Others, such as a zebra and a worm, have fewer similarities.  What is TRUE about the ancestors of these organisms?

• A. Chimpanzees and humans share a common ancestor with each other, but zebras and worms do not share a common ancestor with each other.
• B. Chimpanzees and humans share a common ancestor with each other, and zebras and worms share a common ancestor with each other, but chimpanzees and humans do not share a common ancestor with zebras and worms.
• C. Because chimpanzees, humans, zebras, and worms are separate species, none of them shares a common ancestor with any other.
• D. Chimpanzees, humans, zebras, and worms all share an ancient common ancestor. 

Question analysis
George DeBoer, deputy director of the project at the American Association for the Advancement of Science, highlighted that last question – correct answer is D – in a teleconference with reporters today. The question is one of several that get at the idea of common descent of all living organisms.

"The idea is, if you go back far enough, we are all related, all the way back to single cell organisms," he said.

Analysis of the questions clustered around this topic reveal that 65 percent of students know the principle that living organisms can share a common ancestor with other living species and with species that are extinct, "but there was a significant drop off when students were presented with specific cases," he said.

For example, 45 percent of students correctly answered that eagles and owls are related; for dogs and cats it drops to 27 percent; for dogs, cats, fish and birds it drops to 17 percent. Just 9 percent think chimpanzees, humans, zebras, and worms are related.

When the same question about chimpanzees, humans, zebras and worms is phrased in such a way that this is what scientists think – not what the student believes to be correct – as a means to get around the messiness of personal beliefs and scientific fact, the responses were unchanged.

The 600 questions, which are part of the AAAS' Project 2061 science-education reform initiative, are targeted at middle and early high school science students and aligned with national content standards and consistent with state standards — that is, the questions are meant to really get to the meat of what students are expected to know, explained DeBoer.

Alternative ideas
Using documented misconceptions as answer choices "allows us to find out the alternative ideas students have as well as what they know and do not know," he said in today's briefing with reporters.

The questions were field tested on more than 90,000 students in 814 schools. Overall student performance highlighted some "bright spots" and places where "things look pretty dismal," DeBoer said.

The average number of questions answered correct was 46 percent, he noted. Of course, broken down across individuals, the range is wide. Some students can answer just about anything asked. But a large percentage doesn't know much at all. School location appeared to make a difference.

Since the questions reveal what students don't know and their misconceptions, the project team hopes they will allow teachers to better target their instruction, DeBoer said.

"Students create strange conceptions about the world from their experiences," Anu Malipatil, a school administrator for a network of charger schools in New York and Connecticut, said in a press release. "It becomes more difficult to teach students without actually addressing the misconception first."

To learn more about the program, common misconceptions, check out the AAAS Science Assessment website. Answers to the five questions included at the top of this post are as follows:1. C; 2. C; 3. D; 4. A; 5. D

More stories on science education:

• Science shifting in 'Sputnik moment'
• Do a third of Russians believe the sun spins around Earth?
• Bridging the science gap
• Humanized mouse among student science prizes
• 13 percent of biology teachers back creationism

 

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John Roach is a contributing writer for msnbc.com. Connect with the Cosmic Log community by hitting the "like" button on the Cosmic Log Facebook page or following msnbc.com's science editor, Alan Boyle, on Twitter (@b0yle).

 

Nearly 70 percent of Americans aged 16 to 25 view themselves as creative, but only about a third think they're inventive, according a new survey on perceptions about invention and innovation.

"They are checking off all the right boxes. They like science, they like math, they like solving problems for others, they think they are creative," Josh Schuler, the executive director of the Lemelson-MIT Program, told me today. "But they don't, for some reason, take that leap from creative to inventive."

The finding points to a disconnect that threatens to hobble efforts to nurture a new generation of innovators who can help keep American society prosperous and strong.

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"The way to be competitive for the U.S. is through innovation," Schuler added. "It is a long-term investment that we have to make."

Gender gap
Results from the 2011 Lemelson-MIT Invention Index show that the perception gap affects both genders, but is wider for women. According to the index, 71 percent of women indicate they are creative, the characteristic they most associate with inventors, but just 27 percent describe themselves as inventive. Among the men, 66 percent say they are creative and 39 percent say they are inventive.

Further demonstrating inventive traits, 42 percent of young women rated math or science as their favorite subject in school. That compares with a 53 percent figure for young men.

Here's the rub: Less than 10 percent of women earn college degrees in technical majors such as computer and information sciences. This highlights a need to educate women about translating their skills and academic interests into inventive careers, the Lemelson-MIT Program reported.

One way to bridge the gap is to give young Americans  opportunities to invent something, Schuler noted. "In order for them to really understand it and catch the bug, they gotta do it. You have to make it relevant to them. You have to give them an opportunity to roll up their sleeves and realize in very tangible terms that science matters," he said.

Other steps include providing more government funding and space to develop inventions. These steps all cost money in a world with dwindling budgets, but Schuler insisted making the investment is the "only way" to spur the innovation required for the U.S. to claw its way out of the financial crisis.

World standing
Such investment could also make American youth think more like world leaders in innovation. In the current survey, they ranked the U.S. behind Japan as leading the way in invention.

When young people go down the path of invention and innovation, they are most interested in using their creativity to improve the lives of others with better consumer and health science products, according to the survey. Males were more interested in inventing consumer products such as mobile devices (32 vs. 28 percent), while females favored health science inventions (30 vs. 15 percent). Inventions having to do with the environment, the Web and the performing arts were farther down the wish list.

The next generation of inventors may be motivated by old-fashioned youthful idealism, or by a new sense that information technology is making the world seem smaller and more connected. In any case, Schuler said, "it seems like there are a lot more opportunities for youth to be engaged in giving back."

Other findings from the survey include:

• 39 percent of men and 36 percent of women think that inventors are people who most often work at home or in their garage (rather than in labs or start-ups), illustrating a misperception of inventors and their careers.  
• Young adults show a preference for working in groups or with mentors (73 percent), the style typically associated with professionals in technical fields.
• Young women are most interested in thinking of and designing a solution (57 percent) when it comes to the inventive process; men are also interested in those steps, but they express more interest in building the solution (84 percent).
• And while many American youth seem reluctant to unleash their creative sides into the world of innovation and invention, more than half (57 percent) think that the word "creativity" best describes an inventor. That outranks other terms, such as  intelligent, problem solver, works in a technical field, nerdy or quirky.

More stories on innovation in America:

• How America might invent the future
• Closing the innovation gap
• Inventors take the prize
• An insatiable hunger to create, create, create

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John Roach is a contributing writer for msnbc.com. Connect with the Cosmic Log community by hitting the "like" button on the Cosmic Log Facebook page or following msnbc.com's science editor, Alan Boyle, on Twitter (@b0yle).