Education

Part One
Can early experiences with computers and robots increase STEM
interest among young girls?
I. Vocabulary
incorporate prompt self-ef cacy stereotype underrepresent

II. Cultural Notes

STEM Education — a new movement in American Education to help teachers and their students
understand how the academic disciplines of Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics
impact their world and prepare them for the workforce of tomorrow. Over the last few years, there
is increasing awareness that STEM alone misses several key components that many employers,
educators, and parents have voiced as critical for our children to thrive in the present and rapidly
approaching future. So the arts have been added to the list and STEAM has thus been created.
STEAM is an educational approach to learning that uses Science, Technology, Engineering, the Arts
and Mathematics as access points for guiding student inquiry, dialogue, and critical thinking. The
end results are students who take thoughtful risks, engage in experiential learning, persist in
problem-solving, embrace collaboration, and work through the creative process.

III. Exercises
This is a talk on how girls can build up their con dence in STEM. Listen and ll in the blanks.

Girls start believing they aren't good at maths, science and even computers at a young age—but
providing fun STEM activities at school and home may _________________________________(1).
A study from the University of Washington's Institute for Learning & Brain Sciences (I-LABS)
nds that, when exposed to _________________________________(2), 6-year-old girls expressed
greater interest in technology and more positive attitudes about their own skills and abilities than
girls who didn't try the activity.
The results suggest _________________________________(3) for teaching computer science, in
particular, in early elementary school, said Allison Master, a research scientist at I-LABS and the
study's lead author. Introducing concepts and skills when girls are young can _________________
________________(4) and prompt interest in a eld in which women today are underrepresented.
“As a society, we have these _________________________________(5) that are pushing boys
toward certain activities more than girls. So our thought was, if you give equal experiences to boys
and girls, what happens?” Master said. “We found that if you give them ______________________
___________(6), then girls and boys have the same response - equal interest and con dence.”
The study, published online in the Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, involved
_________________________________(7), evenly divided among boys and girls, who were
randomly assigned to one of three groups. In the rst group, each child programmed a robot, and
then answered survey questions; in the second group, each _________________________
________(8), and then answered the same questions, while those in the third group only answered
the questions. The survey was designed to collect kids' opinions of technology activities, like the
robot, and their beliefs about whether girls or boys are _________________________________(9).
Programming, the researchers explained to the children, is “when you tell a computer or a robot
or a phone what to do.”
For the robot activity, the children chose an animal-like robot. They rst ________________
_________________(10) on a smartphone to “tell” it to move forward, backward, right or left, and
then chose the instructions themselves, effectively programming the phone to control the
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 movements of the robots. The study found that after _________________________________(11), the
boys and girls showed equal interest in technology and their own feelings of self-ef cacy, or
con dence in their own abilities.
But when compared to the “control group” of children who played the card game or only
answered the survey without playing a game, _________________________________(12): The
designed activity with the robot reduced the gender gap in technology interest by 42 percent, and
the gap in self-ef cacy by 80 percent.
In other words, the girls who programmed the robot were much more likely to express interest
in programming and con dence in their own abilities to _________________________________(13)
than the girls who didn’t work with the robot.
Co-author and I-LABS co-director Andrew Meltzoff said, “Experience in programming the
robot movement was something that both boys and girls thought was fun. But the most important
nding is that we brought the girls’ _________________________________(14) up to the level of the
boys. This was a big impact for a brief, well-designed intervention. How long will it last? That's an
important question for future scienti c experiments.”
The ndings suggest that _________________________________(15) in the classroom or at home
may ignite and sustain girls’ interest, Master said. Summer camps, after-school programs and
other partner- or group-oriented activities _________________________________(16).
“The important thing is to make activities accessible to all children in a fun way that also helps
them build skills,” she said.
_________________________________(17) did not, however, appear to change the children's
stereotypes about whether boys or girls are better at programming and robotics. While the girls
who programmed the robot indicated greater con dence in their own abilities, that con dence did
not alter their stereotypes, _________________________________(18), about girls and boys in
general. The authors pointed to the potential of other experiences, such as meeting or seeing a
woman programming a robot or working in a STEM eld, for shifting these more deeply-held
stereotypes.
“Stereotypes get built up in our heads from many _________________________________(19), but
perhaps if we give girls more experience doing these kinds of activities, that will give them more
resources to resist those stereotypes,” Master said. “They might be able to say, ‘I can still be good at
this and enjoy it, _________________________________(20).’” The researchers hope to test this in
future studies.

1. ____________________________________ 11. ____________________________________

2. ____________________________________ 12. ____________________________________

3. ____________________________________ 13. ____________________________________

4. ____________________________________ 14. ____________________________________

5. ____________________________________ 15. ____________________________________

6. ____________________________________ 16. ____________________________________

7. ____________________________________ 17. ____________________________________

8. ____________________________________ 18. ____________________________________

9. ____________________________________ 19. ____________________________________

10. ____________________________________ 20. ____________________________________

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 Part Two
Chinese Maths Textbooks to Be Translated for UK Schools
I. Vocabulary
debrief agging reinforce top-performing

II. Exercises
Listen to the news and choose the best answer to each question you hear.

1. (A) Sth. (B)17th. (C) 25th. (D) 27th.

2. (A) Inviting Chinese teachers as experts.
(B) Changing the UK's education system.
(C) Investing more to learn from Asian teaching methods.
(D) Introducing Chinese maths textbooks.
3. (A) Maths Is Fun (B) Inspire Maths
(C) My Pals Are Here! (D) Happy Maths
4. (A) Some interconnected mathematical concepts are taught in each lesson.
(B) Mathematical concepts are elaborated.
(C) Students in the same class will be taught differently according to their learning styles.
(D) It is necessary that lessons be taught by expert teachers.
5. (A) Primary school maths teachers in Shanghai are specialists, while their counterparts in the UK
are generalists.
(B) Pupils in south Asian countries work harder and spend more time on maths than the
British pupils.
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B. Listen again and fill in the blanks in thefollowing part of the talk.

____________________________________(1)—a group of Yale alums back on campus for reunion

—have just taken ____________________________________(2) of an observational skills training
workshop that was developed by Braverman for rst-year medical students. The workshop is an
exercise in ____________________________________(3) that gives students an opportunity to look
at something ____________________________________(4) to them early in their medical careers—in
this case, an 18th-century British painting—and ____________________________________(5).
“In essence, this is a physical examination of a patient,” said Braverman. The exhibit hall is the
____________________________________(6), and the painting becomes the patient.
“It‘s ____________________________________(7) from what we had,” said Braverman, recalling
his own medical education. “We were taught to look for patterns that were _____________________
_______________(8).” These kinds of shadows on an X-ray mean this kind of problem. But what
happens when a doctor ____________________________________(9) they weren’t exposed to in
medical school? They have no pattern to ____________________________________(10). According
to Braverman, it takes about 10 years to develop the skills to ____________________________
________(11), and he wanted to give his students a head start.
The idea to use works of art to ____________________________________(12) rst occurred to
Braverman at grand rounds in 1998, when he noticed the dermatology residents weren’t describing
what they saw on patients ____________________________________(13). “It occurred to me that if I
were to ask them to describe some object that they were totally unfamiliar with—like a painting—
they wouldn’t know what was ____________________________________(14). They would describe
everything in that object,” said Braverman. He worked with Linda Friedlaender, curator of
education at the center, to develop the program for ____________________________________(15).
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1. ____________________________________

2. ____________________________________

3. ____________________________________

4. ____________________________________

5. ____________________________________

6. ____________________________________

7. ____________________________________

8. ____________________________________

9. ____________________________________

10. ____________________________________

11. ____________________________________

12. ____________________________________

13. ____________________________________

14. ____________________________________

15. ____________________________________

16. ____________________________________

17. ____________________________________

18. ____________________________________

19. ____________________________________

20. ____________________________________