The Evidence on Online Education WASHINGTON -- Online learning has definite advantages over face-to-face instruction when it comes to teaching and learning, according to a new meta-analysis released Friday by the U.S. Department of Education. The study found that students who took all or part of their instruction online performed better, on average, than those taking the same course through face-to-face instruction. Further, those who took "blended" courses -- those that combine elements of online learning and face-to-face instruction -- appeared to do best of all. That finding could be significant as many colleges report that blended instruction is among the fastest-growing types of enrollment. The Education Department examined all kinds of instruction, and found that the number of valid analyses of elementary and secondary education was too small to have much confidence in the results. Using technology to give students "control of their interactions" has a positive effect on student learning, however. John R.
Pédagogie : le numérique peut-il casser des briques ? (1) Qu'en est-il du numérique « pédagogique »? Les NTIC (nouvelles technologies de l'information et de la communication), les TIC (idem, mais sans l'adjectif « nouvelles ») ou TICE (idem, mais avec le E de Enseignement) sont des acronymes plutôt casse-pieds – car découlant plus du vice des acronymes que d'une réelle nécessité. C'est pourquoi je m'en tiendrai au « numérique », d'autant que les acronymes en question n'ont pratiquement pas été employés lors de l'événement récent qui m'inspire ce billet. Il s'agit de la célébration par les Cahiers pédagogiques (et par l'association éditrice, qui persiste, encore un problème d'acronyme, à s'appeler très déraisonnablement CRAP) du 500ème numéro de cette revue, parue pour la première fois en 1945. Signe important en matière de politique éducative, Vincent Peillon est venu prononcer un discours amical en ouverture de cette manifestation, qui s'est tenue le mardi 30 octobre à Paris dans les locaux de la MGEN à Montparnasse. Tâtonnement expérimental
Self-awareness in humans is more complex, diffuse than previously thought Ancient Greek philosophers considered the ability to "know thyself" as the pinnacle of humanity. Now, thousands of years later, neuroscientists are trying to decipher precisely how the human brain constructs our sense of self. Self-awareness is defined as being aware of oneself, including one's traits, feelings, and behaviors. Neuroscientists have believed that three brain regions are critical for self-awareness: the insular cortex, the anterior cingulate cortex, and the medial prefrontal cortex. The conclusions came from a rare opportunity to study a person with extensive brain damage to the three regions believed critical for self-awareness. "What this research clearly shows is that self-awareness corresponds to a brain process that cannot be localized to a single region of the brain," said David Rudrauf, co-corresponding author of the paper, published online Aug. 22 in the journal PLOS ONE. "According to previous research, this man should be a zombie," he added.
Against School - John Taylor Gatto How public education cripples our kids, and why I taught for thirty years in some of the worst schools in Manhattan, and in some of the best, and during that time I became an expert in boredom. Boredom was everywhere in my world, and if you asked the kids, as I often did, why they felt so bored, they always gave the same answers: They said the work was stupid, that it made no sense, that they already knew it. They said they wanted to be doing something real, not just sitting around. They said teachers didn't seem to know much about their subjects and clearly weren't interested in learning more. Boredom is the common condition of schoolteachers, and anyone who has spent time in a teachers' lounge can vouch for the low energy, the whining, the dispirited attitudes, to be found there. We all are. The empire struck back, of course; childish adults regularly conflate opposition with disloyalty. But we don't do that. Do we really need school? 1) The adjustive or adaptive function.
Deep Questioning We are fortunate to have many excellent teachers at Durrington High School. The 15 minute forum this week was led by one of our longest serving teachers – Sue Wolstenholme. Sue is a fantastic English teacher and was recently singled out by an HMI during an OFSTED subject inspection for her outstanding questioning skills. Interactive teaching: The Socratic method A method of questioning unaffected by preformed conclusions, used by Socrates to develop latent ideas in his students.Getting people to think.Getting them to formulate in words what they already know.Getting them to question what they think they know.Extending their thought processes. (More on Socratic questions and here) Questioning Techniques Golden Principles Opening Gambits For more ideas about questioning, see here. Like this: Like Loading...
The Professors Behind the MOOC Hype - Technology Dave Chidley for The Chronicle Paul Gries, of the U. of Toronto, has taught MOOCs on computer science. By Steve Kolowich What is it like to teach 10,000 or more students at once, and does it really work? The largest-ever survey of professors who have taught MOOCs, or massive open online courses, shows that the process is time-consuming, but, according to the instructors, often successful. Nearly half of the professors felt their online courses were as rigorous academically as the versions they taught in the classroom. The survey, conducted by The Chronicle, attempted to reach every professor who has taught a MOOC. Hype around these new free online courses has grown louder and louder since a few professors at Stanford University drew hundreds of thousands of students to online computer-science courses in 2011. Princeton University's Robert Sedgewick is one of them. Like many professors at top-ranked institutions, Mr. It paid off. Why They MOOC Mr. But it might also be good for him. Mr. Mr.
Les réseaux d'enseignants – Quels sont les comportements rédactionnels des locuteurs ? 1L'offre grandissante de technologies numériques s'accompagne du développement de nouvelles pratiques (communication en ligne, écriture collaborative) par les internautes et facilite l'émergence d'organisations réticulaires basées sur des échanges horizontaux. 1 Données publiées sur le site Internet de l'association Sésamath (...) 2En s'appuyant sur ces technologies, certains enseignants créent et animent depuis une dizaine d'années des réseaux d'échanges professionnels. Plusieurs de ces réseaux en ligne connaissent aujourd'hui une forte audience. À titre d'exemple, le site Internet de Sésamath est visité chaque mois plus d'un million de fois1. Ceci nous laisse penser que ce réseau professionnel pourrait avoir une influence sur la conception et l'utilisation de ressources pédagogiques. 3Les réseaux créés par et pour des enseignants en dehors des stricts circuits institutionnels restent encore peu étudiés à ce jour (Quentin, 2010). 2.1. 2.2. 2.3. 3.1.
Science, such a sweet mystery I have been teaching and doing research at the university level for more than 40 years, which means that for more than four decades, I have been participating in a deception - benevolent and well intentioned, to be sure, but a deception nonetheless. As a scientist, I do science, and as a teacher and writer, I communicate it. That's where the deception comes in. When scientists speak to the public or to students, we talk about what we know, what science has discovered. Nothing wrong with this. Teaching and writing only about what is known risks turning science into a mere catalog of established facts, suggesting that "knowing" science is a matter of memorizing: this is how cells metabolize carbohydrates, this is how natural selection works, this is how the information encoded in DNA is translated into proteins. In my first college-level biology course, I was required to memorize all of the digestive enzymes and what they do. Don't be discouraged, however. And we've got plenty to do.
Innotribe at Sibos Osaka: Digital Asset Grid This blog post shares some more details about the Digital Asset Grid session. The session Digital Asset Grid will take place on Wednesday 31 Oct 2012 from 16:00 till 17:30 in the Conference Room-3. It is part of the Main Conference sessions of Sibos. I have written extensively about the Digital Asset Grid in previous blog posts. We swim in a sea of data and the sea level is rising rapidly. A new environment requires a new design. The digital age and making the new design presents both threats and opportunities for Banks: Dis-intermediation and erosion of market share by new entrants, telco’s and dominant technology companies threaten the position of Banks – and are increasing in velocity – reducing margins and profitability.But there are also opportunities: new sources of rich information are multiplying, and the information that is available is being digitised. The Digital Asset Grid is a research project by Innotribe, SWIFT’s Innovation initiative for enabling collaborative innovation.
What is Open Pedagogy? Hundreds of thousands of words have been written about open educational resources, but precious little has been written about how OER – or openness more generally – changes the practice of education. Substituting OER for expensive commercial resources definitely save money and increase access to core instructional materials. Increasing access to core instructional materials will necessarily make significant improvements in learning outcomes for students who otherwise wouldn’t have had access to the materials (e.g., couldn’t afford to purchase their textbooks). If the percentage of those students in a given population is large enough, their improvement in learning may even be detectable when comparing learning in the population before OER adoption with learning in the population after OER adoption. Using OER the same way we used commercial textbooks misses the point. Free to accessFree to reuseFree to reviseFree to remixFree to redistribute Killing the Disposable Assignment
Stephen Downes: The Role of the Educator How often do we read about the importance of teachers in education? It must be every day, it seems. We are told about "strong empirical evidence that teachers are the most important school-based determinant of student achievement" again and again. The problem with the educational system, it is argued, is that teachers need to be held accountable. The problem with focusing on the role of the teacher, from my perspective, is that it misses the point. Let me tell you how I know this. Each of these has contributed in one way or another to an overall approach not only to learning online but to learning generally. It's an approach that emphasizes open learning and learner autonomy. It's an approach that emphasizes exercises involving those competencies rather than deliberate acts of memorization or rote, an approach that seeks to grow knowledge in a manner analogous to building muscles, rather than to transfer or construct knowledge through some sort of cognitive process.