http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/23/opinion/sunday/friedman-how-to-get-a-job-at-google.html?_r=2
The executive in charge of personel at Google talks about what they look for when hiring employees. One of the very first things that he mentions is that a person's GPA is worthless and test scores are worthless for deciding whether or not to hire someone. I think that this is a very powerfull note, and I would have to agree with it in many situations. I especially agree with test scores because I have found that in general they rarely measure a persons ability and are generally testing whether or not someone can be tricked or not. There are of course exceptions, but I believe that in general tests are not the best way to see someone's ability. The probem with GPAs is that it is hard to tell what that GPA actually means, even if you know the specific classes that went into that GPA you cannot know whether or not that person was truly demonstratign their knowledge. This is not haowever to say that GPAs and tests do ot help to assess someone's ability, but they are not as important as they are made out to be.
The executive talks about the most important skills for one to have when Google is looking to hire them. The first is cognitive ability by which he means the ability to learn and to adapt to new situations. I think that this is a very valuable skill that we as educators should be promoting. To do this we can give our students more independent learning projects and to help them be more driven to do discoveries of their own. The next thing he says is very important is the ability to lead by which he means the ability to step up and the ability to step down at the appropriate times. We need to help our students cultivate this by giving them more group projects and by scaffolding leadership skills for them. To do this we should first have a rotation so that all students get the opportunity to try leading, we should also set it up so that our students can try to lead at first with guidelines so that they know what to do to lead. We should then take away supports gradually so that in the end they are leading correctly. The next attributes are that students should have humility and the ability to take ownership. This means that they should have the passion to be able to defend their ideas with some amount of fervor, but if someone brings up a valid point be able to reevaluate their stance and make any correct adjustments needed. This is something that can be cultivated pretty easily in math classes by making sure students have the neccessary tools to be able to make arguemtns and to be able to adjust their arguements.
The executive in charge of personel at Google talks about what they look for when hiring employees. One of the very first things that he mentions is that a person's GPA is worthless and test scores are worthless for deciding whether or not to hire someone. I think that this is a very powerfull note, and I would have to agree with it in many situations. I especially agree with test scores because I have found that in general they rarely measure a persons ability and are generally testing whether or not someone can be tricked or not. There are of course exceptions, but I believe that in general tests are not the best way to see someone's ability. The probem with GPAs is that it is hard to tell what that GPA actually means, even if you know the specific classes that went into that GPA you cannot know whether or not that person was truly demonstratign their knowledge. This is not haowever to say that GPAs and tests do ot help to assess someone's ability, but they are not as important as they are made out to be.
The executive talks about the most important skills for one to have when Google is looking to hire them. The first is cognitive ability by which he means the ability to learn and to adapt to new situations. I think that this is a very valuable skill that we as educators should be promoting. To do this we can give our students more independent learning projects and to help them be more driven to do discoveries of their own. The next thing he says is very important is the ability to lead by which he means the ability to step up and the ability to step down at the appropriate times. We need to help our students cultivate this by giving them more group projects and by scaffolding leadership skills for them. To do this we should first have a rotation so that all students get the opportunity to try leading, we should also set it up so that our students can try to lead at first with guidelines so that they know what to do to lead. We should then take away supports gradually so that in the end they are leading correctly. The next attributes are that students should have humility and the ability to take ownership. This means that they should have the passion to be able to defend their ideas with some amount of fervor, but if someone brings up a valid point be able to reevaluate their stance and make any correct adjustments needed. This is something that can be cultivated pretty easily in math classes by making sure students have the neccessary tools to be able to make arguemtns and to be able to adjust their arguements.