Ending the 'tyranny of the lecture' Harvard professor Eric Mazur reveals how he uses peer instruction to make learning more dynamic—and how new software can facilitate this process By Dennis Pierce, Editor Read more by Dennis Pierce July 27th, 2011 Students need to assimilate information before they can apply it to a different context, Mazur said. At an educational technology conference in Boston July 27, Harvard University physics professor Eric Mazur explained how he uses “peer instruction” to help his students engage in deeper learning than traditional lectures can provide—and he unveiled a brand-new ed-tech service that can help educators take this concept to a whole new level. Mazur used a simple experiment to drive home his point that lecturing is an outdated—and largely ineffective—strategy for imparting knowledge. While the responses from the crowd varied—some cited practice or experience, while others said trial and error—no one answered “lecture,” Mazur noted wryly.
EdX Online Learning Project Announced By Harvard, MIT CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — Harvard and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have joined forces to offer free online courses in a project aimed at attracting millions of online learners around the world, the universities announced Wednesday. Beginning this fall, a variety of courses developed by faculty at both institutions will be available online through the new $60 million partnership, known as "edX." "Anyone with an Internet connection anywhere in the world can have access," Harvard President Drew Faust said during a news conference to announce the initiative. MIT has offered a program called OpenCourseWare for a decade that makes materials from more than 2,000 classes available free online. It has been used by more than 100 million people. In December, the school announced it also would begin offering a special credential, known as MITx, for people who complete the online version of certain courses. Harvard has long offered courses to a wider community through its extension program.
D10: How Education Will Change In the Digital Age An interesting session at the All Things D conference featured Stanford University President John Hennessy and Salman Khan, founder of Khan Academy. They discussed how the digital era could help lower the exorbitant costs of higher education. Above: Conference host Walt Mossberg, Stanford University President John Hennessy, and Khan Academy founder Salman Khan College tuition can cost nearly $60,000 a year, but is this model sustainable? Hennessy said it is for elite universities, but not for most schools. Khan said there is a fundamental disconnect between the providers and consumers of education. Conference host Walt Mossberg mentioned that tuition at public universities has also gone up dramatically. Khan Academy is a non-profit known for videos, but Khan said it is now working on software and data services to push the envelope of what can be done virtually, allowing the physical classroom to "move up the stack."
Why Microsoft has made developers horrified about coding for Windows 8 When Microsoft gave the first public demonstration of Windows 8 a week ago, the reaction from most circles was positive. The new Windows 8 user interface looks clean, attractive, and thoughtful, and in a first for a Microsoft desktop operating system, it's finger friendly. But one aspect of the demonstration has the legions of Windows developers deeply concerned, and with good reason: they were told that all their experience, all their knowledge, and every program they have written in the past would be useless on Windows 8. Key to the new Windows 8 look and feel, and instrumental to Microsoft's bid to make Windows a viable tablet operating system, are new-style full-screen "immersive" applications. Windows 8 will include new APIs for developing these applications, and here is where the problem lies. Cue much wailing and gnashing of teeth. Windows developers have invested a lot of time, effort, and money into the platform. A justified reaction Hopes dashed Microsoft did have a point.
Flipped learning: A response to five common criticisms One of the reasons this debate exists is because there is no true definition of what “flipped learning” is. Over the past few years, the Flipped Learning method has created quite a stir. Some argue that this teaching method will completely transform education, while others say it is simply an opportunity for boring lectures to be viewed in new locations. While the debate goes on, the concept of Flipped Learning is not entirely new. Dr. It’s our opinion that one of the reasons this debate exists is because there is no true definition of what Flipped Learning is. Dr.
Mass Incarceration and Criminal Justice in America A prison is a trap for catching time. Good reporting appears often about the inner life of the American prison, but the catch is that American prison life is mostly undramatic—the reported stories fail to grab us, because, for the most part, nothing happens. One day in the life of Ivan Denisovich is all you need to know about Ivan Denisovich, because the idea that anyone could live for a minute in such circumstances seems impossible; one day in the life of an American prison means much less, because the force of it is that one day typically stretches out for decades. It isn’t the horror of the time at hand but the unimaginable sameness of the time ahead that makes prisons unendurable for their inmates. That’s why no one who has been inside a prison, if only for a day, can ever forget the feeling. For most privileged, professional people, the experience of confinement is a mere brush, encountered after a kid’s arrest, say.
Self-Learning: The New Master's Degree The free wheeling heydays of paying 100s of thousands of dollars for an education while driving around with the top down screaming, “Money ain’t a thang,” times may soon be over. People are getting tired of paying an exorbitant amount of money for a quality education — and not even the best in the world. Employers are starting to care less and less about your degree, or where you went to school; but, more about the actual skills you possess. Technology will play a key role in offering people around the world an opportunity to get an excellent education. “The self-motivated learner will be on the web. Check out the infographic below, or a full-version of it, here. Via: Udemy
Future U: Classroom tech doesn't mean handing out tablets Future U is a multipart series on the university of the 21st century. We will be investigating the possible future of the textbook, the technological development of libraries, how tech may change the role of the professor, and the future role of technology in museums, research parks and university-allied institutions of all kinds. A couple of decades ago the most advanced technology to appear in an average classroom was a mini-cassette recorder and a calculator. For most students, however, typical classroom technology ran the gamut from yellow legal pads to theme books, from pencils to ballpoints. Computers were restricted to the computer lab. For those excited by the possibilities in the new medium, the hyperlink was king. Within a few years, the Mosaic browser would make the weird world of the Internet more accessible. As an indicator, the National Center for Education Statistics found that in 1994, only 35 percent of American public schools had computers. Adjusting to new tools
ABC Science Hot tags Weather Climate Change Planets and Asteroids Archaeology Fossils Editor's choice Sunday, 15 January 2017 RN Offtrack Counting birds to save the Murray-Darling Friday, 18 November 2016 Professor Richard Kingsford has spent much of his life counting birds: a critical body of work that shows Australia's rivers are under threat. Great Moments in Science The earworms you can't get out of your head Tuesday, 29 November 2016If you've ever had a song stuck in your head, you'll know it's annoying. Photos Incredible inner space Venture into the micro world of human anatomy and animals with teeth reinforced with iron, scales that reflect light and velvet 'fingers' on their skin captured by scientists from the Australian Microscopy and Microanalysis Research Facility. More galleries Science Quizzes Aussie birds quiz Can you tell the difference between a cuckoo and a cockatoo, or a peregrine and a penguin? Chemistry quiz Is your chemistry knowledge as light as helium or as heavy as plutonium?
Going From One-Size-Fits-All Education, To One-Size-Fits-One In June of 2009, after Michael Jackson died, I decided it was time to learn how to moonwalk. I went to YouTube and found the “How to Moonwalk” video with the most hits, a simple 2:15 minute homemade job by Montreal DJ AngeDeLumiere. The video proved to be a lesson not only in a dance step but in transformative pedagogy. Ange begins by showing us what we think is the way to do the moonwalk. Alvin Toffler calls this method of instruction “unlearning.” Ange’s video is a great model of teaching and a great metaphor for the kind of educational change we need to embrace right now. But if learning is the issue--and especially learning in an age of information abundance--then we have to unlearn that old model. Take the example of learning a new sport. Whenever I speak before large gatherings of corporate trainers, they tell me they can recruit anyone now, in this economy; the very best students from the very best universities.
Science Classroom Lessons Microscope Mania Pond Water Survey Hydra Investigation Animal Classification Challenge Incredible Edible Cells - Cell Project Construction Zone - Cell Project Mitosis Flip Books Genetics with a Smile + SpongeBob Genetics DNA Keychains & Replication Protein Power Game Egg-cellent Ideas for Osmosis & Diffusion Human Body Activities (Body Systems, Skeletal System, Muscular System) Also see Silly Science - a dichotomous key activity in General Science section! Internet Lessons • The Organ Trail - Challenge your students to create a "Wanted" poster about an organ. This download provides project guidelines, student information, and project worksheets. Links for students can be found on the Health & Human Body links page of the Kid Zone. • Microscopes Online (pdf) (Internet Lesson) - Use this worksheet to help your students explore the history of the microscope as well as other sites listed on the Cells & Microscopes page of the Kid Zone . Also available ... | Back to top |
Come the Revolution Andrew Ng is an associate professor of computer science at Stanford, and he has a rather charming way of explaining how the new interactive online education company that he cofounded, Coursera, hopes to revolutionize higher education by allowing students from all over the world to not only hear his lectures, but to do homework assignments, be graded, receive a certificate for completing the course and use that to get a better job or gain admission to a better school. “I normally teach 400 students,” Ng explained, but last semester he taught 100,000 in an online course on machine learning. “To reach that many students before,” he said, “I would have had to teach my normal Stanford class for 250 years.” Welcome to the college education revolution. Big breakthroughs happen when what is suddenly possible meets what is desperately necessary. Private companies, like Phoenix, have been offering online degrees for a fee for years.