The latest consensus is that it’s important to encourage confidence and a growth mindset when it comes to learning math (75% more women might stay in the STEM pipeline if confidence is encouraged early on), and a new tool is helping educators determine which students might need extra motivation to gain that desired confidence.

According to Phys.org, a "University of Kansas professor has created and validated a tool that can measure young students' math motivation and help educators to identify students who experience demotivation and to help address the problem before they fall behind.”

According to Professor Michael Orosco, such a tool can help educators and schools reach students who are struggling in math and becoming demotivated. The idea is that educators can identify and then help these students early on before they check out of the subject altogether.

"With the instrument you can look at math motivation, it's reliable and gives school personnel a good indicator if their students are having math demotivation," Orosco said, according to the article.

"If the child isn't motivated, if the teacher isn't able to motivate them, they're just not going to learn."

Read the full story. 

NCSE Runs Free Summer Camp in New Outreach Strategy

The National Center for Science Education is constantly looking for ways to reach out to the community and help children learn science.

This year, NCSE member Emily Schoerning helped put together a free week of summer camp for rural students who otherwise would not have access to such a program.

Emily describes her experiences on the NCSE blog, where she details her first challenge when getting to the topic of evolution.

”Lies!” says one camper when being asked his thoughts.

We will have to stay tuned to find out how Emily and her team faced the challenge that many science teachers face in their classrooms every year.

"If you try to run a camp like this, you are going to run into this issue! Check out the next installment to see where to go from here,” she writes.

Read the blog post here.

Code.org Makes Significant Policy Changes to Better Protect Student Data

Code.org had made a series of significant policy changes in order to better protect student data.

It is encouraging public review and comment until it plans on implementing the new policies on August 22.

"We did this because the privacy and safety of student data is more important to us than the ability to contact our users. We hope other education web sites consider the same approach,” Code.org said in its announcement.

Read the full story. 

Congressional App Challenge Encourages Kid Coding

Would your child or student be interested in having his or her app featured on the United States House of Representative website? Then this challenge is for them!

Earlier this month, the Congressional App Challenge was launched and gives students an opportunity to compete nationally to make the best app on the platform of their choice.

Students must answer questions about the app like what coding language was used and must submit a demonstration video of the app to compete. Submissions are being accepted until November 2016.

Find out how your student can register here. 

Nicole Gorman, Senior Education World Contributor

7/28/2016