How is learning to speak different from learning to read and write? – Richard Olsen's Blog Time to read: 6 minutes It appears de rigueur at the moment to make bold proclamations, usually based on flimsy evidence, about what students need to know, in order to learn this or that. For example, people pushing phonics make claims about the essential knowledge readers need to have about reading. Proponents of direct instruction make claims about the incompatibility of using play or inquiry to learn specific scientific concepts of mathematics, while others outline the non-negotiable knowledge that student writers apparently need to know in order to write. Recently, I’ve encountered people trying to justify their beliefs in specific essential learning by citing “biological primary and secondary knowledge,” ignoring that fact that Vygotsky, Piaget, and others have differentiated spontaneous and non-spontaneous concepts for eighty years! Even the most devout direct instructionists admit that everyone learns to talk spontaneously. Another example. Footnote.
The principles of learning to design learning environments The OECD Handbook for Innovative Learning Environments The principles of learning to design learning environments DOI: This site is powered by Keepeek 360, Logiciel de Photothèque for business. Linking Embedding 800x600 550x700 Custom: Width: Height: OLCreate: Dyslexia and Inclusive Practice Introduction to Dyslexia and Inclusive Practice Introduction to Dyslexia and Inclusive Practice is the first of three free online modules developed to complement the 2015 Education Scotland Route Map for Dyslexia and Inclusive Practice and support the professional standards from the General Teaching Council for Scotland. This free module aims to provide teachers and local authority staff with an awareness of what dyslexia is, its impact and how it can be supported within an inclusive school community. It may also be of interest if you work in the voluntary sector or simply have an interest in dyslexia and inclusive practice. If you complete the module, you will receive a digital badge. To enrol on this module, sign in first then click on the enrol button (the grey button alongside the social media buttons). If this is your first visit to the site, you need to register for a free account via the 'Sign up / Sign in' button. This course was published on 28 March 2017. Dyslexia Scotland Addressing Dyslexia Toolkit
Subjectivity, Rubrics, and Critical Pedagogy – OFFICE OF DIGITAL LEARNING In “Embracing Subjectivity,”مها بالي (Maha Bali) argues “that subjectivity is the human condition. Everything else that attempts to be objective or neutral is pretense. It is inauthentic. It is not even something I strive towards.” And yet we try very hard to be objective in the way we evaluate student work. Objectivity is equated with fairness, and is a tool for efficiency. For too long—really, since its inception—instructional design has been built upon silencing. Despite any stubborn claims to the contrary, instructional design assigns learners to a single seat, a single set of characteristics. This design is for efficiency, a thing that online teachers—especially those who design their own courses—desperately need. And yet this striving for efficiency enacts an erasure that is deeply problematic. Rubrics Sherri Spelic writes: Inclusion is a construction project. Teachers and students both advocate for rubrics. Rubrics Make Grading Fair and Balanced Rubrics Make Grading Easier
Play Matters: Six Play-Full Practices For Higher Education 43 22Share Synopsis We tend to forget that play supports learning at all ages. This post provides a rationale for incorporating play in higher education and offers strategies for play-full teaching that can be employed in all subject areas. Some topics get a lot of airtime in education. On the flipside, the value of play for adult learning gets little to no airtime in education. This post provides a rationale (if you need one) and practical support for including play—and playfulness—in the context of Higher Education. What Do I Mean By "Play"? While Dr. The drive to play manifests itself differently and so too does the look/feel of play for learners. Play engages emotions. Play has a built in “repeat button”—at some other time we will want to do it again. Play may be associated with a particular activity. Play may be “a state of mind”. Play may lead to a loss of sense of time. Play feels good—it is enjoyable, pleasurable. 6 Reasons To Play In Higher Education (#playforall) 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 1.
An interesting flaw in Cognitive Load Theory A new paper has been published by Ouhao Chen and colleagues that points to a flaw in one of the assumptions of Cognitive Load Theory (CLT); a flaw with some potentially interesting implications. One of the central ideas of CLT is that the working memory in which we consciously process new (biologically secondary) information is limited, but these limits fall away once dealing with knowledge stored in long term memory. I used to think of this as a design flaw; that you could perhaps improve on humans by expanding our working memories but CLT assumes there is a reason for this limit: Given that information passes through working memory into long term memory, it prevents rapid and disruptive changes to long term memory. Apart from when dealing with knowledge stored in long term memory, CLT assumes that the working memory capacity of an individual is fixed. All students completed a series of learning tasks, a series of working memory tasks and a test. Not so. Like this: Like Loading...
5 Big Ideas In Education That Don't Work : NPR Ed Small classes. High standards. More money. Over his career, Hattie has scrutinized more than 1,000 "meta-analyses," looking at all types of interventions to improve learning. Out of that, he's identified five common ideas in education policy that he says should be looked at with a critical eye. 1. By the same token, it seems to make sense to set achievement standards by grade level, but the further along students get in school, Hattie points out, the more of them are performing either behind or ahead of the schedule that's been set. The alternative: a focus on growth and progress for each student, no matter where he or she starts. 2. The alternative: testing that emphasizes giving teachers immediate, actionable feedback to improve teaching. 3. But there is one kind of choice that Hattie does believe makes a difference: teacher choice. 4. Hattie says reducing class size can have a positive impact. 5.
Designing for forgetting – Alastair Somerville I have for the last few years tried to publicly prototype the ideas I am interested in and then converted into workshops. Last year had Transcendence (actually that started in 2016), Cognitive Accessibility and Perception of information in colocated spaces. This post is a start on ideas I am interested in this year. Forgetting is the key issue. I have written a tiny post on this before: On the axes of memorability. Here’s a longer post that I will build on as I go along. Helping users Design has been trying to help people out by offering ways of making successful experiences easier to achieve (thru such useful books as Don’t Make Me Think) and making tasks easier to achieve over time and place (thru notifications, To Do list apps and more). This is all good. But… Attention Economy The downside of these approaches and tools is they can be abused (deliberately or accidentally) to minimise human agency. Understanding and Forgetting How can we create friction to enable understanding? A memory test
Lecture-Based Pedagogy and the Pitfalls of Expertise – The Tattooed Professor Every few months, higher education is witness to a curious ritual where one’s stance on particular pedagogical issues assumes an affect of Calvinist-style salvation or damnation. You can set your watch by the recurring debate over laptops in the classroom. And when that particular vein of argument is exhausted for the time being, the blood feud between the proponents of lecture-based pedagogy and active learning rears up to keep the sharks-and-jets mood alive. Sometimes genuinely good conversations and insights can emerge from the debate. In particular, pieces that actually unpack the assumptions behind the calls for some unilateral action (Ban all the laptops! In the spirit of full disclosure, I’m a member of Team Active Learning, and tend to think that pedagogies based exclusively on lecturing are inimical to both student learning and the larger purpose of higher education. What had gone so wrong? So was my lecture-based pedagogy the root of the problem?
What If? And What’s Wrong? – Sherri Spelic Recently I read a searing critique of Design Thinking which likens its spread in popularity to that of a sexually transmitted disease. It’s a provocative stance to take and the author offers numerous examples to support his view. I was intrigued for a couple of reasons: my encounters with design thinking have been only peripheral so far and noticing its steady rise, particularly in education circles, made me curious about the approach and what it promises. I’ve read about Design Thinking at a distance: in conference workshop descriptions, as part of a Twitter chat, in an occasional blog post. I’ve even participated virtually in an abbreviated edition. In this essay, however, Lee Vinsel pulls back the curtain on the larger game of design thinking. The versions of design thinking most likely to be shared among K-12 educators as a course or professional development workshop will necessarily need to be practical, meaning that teachers can take it into their classrooms and apply it.
‘Students don’t necessarily want more digital – they just want it used better’ One of his favourite uses of digital technologies is to allow students to pose and research questions ahead of a debate, says the University of Derby’s head of forensic science Dr Ian Turner. “It really enhances the students’ experience in the classroom.” The university has developing digital capabilities as one of its core goals for the next five years. Meanwhile, Harlow College claims that it has improved retention and achievement rates for students by making good use of digital technologies. "Facebook and Snapchat are very powerful platforms, but they have particular associations. Supporting initiatives such as these is Jisc, the UK body for digital technology and resources in higher and further education and research. Jisc’s chief innovation officer Phil Richards uses horticultural analogies to describe his role, seeding digital opportunities and growing the shared services of the future. Related content Cultural differences Working with suppliers, is perhaps more difficult.
Peer-Driven Learning – College Ready Writing 1.0 Starting during the Fall ’11 semester, I turned my 200-level class (Writing II) into a peer-driven classroom. Of course, I am going to be blogging about it and collecting my posts here. I was tweeting the whole thing, so scroll through for how it all unfolded over the years. Here is a copy of the syllabus I have been using. You can also view the Prezi I created to talk about peer-driven learning for a keynote presentation to the Writing Eastern Kentucky Conference.
“Accessible” is not the same as Inclusion Do we consider all learners when embedding digital into teaching, learning and assessment? If they don’t have the newest device, good connectivity, unlimited data, can they still participate, engage and learn, what if they have a disability? When practitioners start to use innovative practices and technologies is everyone included? It’s not often that I talk about accessibility, inclusion and technology; and its even less frequent over the last 10 years that I have written about it. Every so often I find myself looking back and wondering how much of impact did we have. A lot of what I brought to that role was based on my own experiences. This is what brings me back to my own experience, and my experience at TechDis. It all feels great. But I started thinking about some of the answers to questions I have been asking. “How many of your students engage with the tools?” “About 90%” “Are the tools accessible?” “Yeah, the students love them, they access on their smartphones” The questions go on?
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