4 secrets to reading body language like an expert: How important is body language? 55% of what you convey when you speak comes from body language. In fact, when you’re speaking about something emotional only about 7% of what the other person hears has to do with the words you use. More often than not you can tell what a politician thinks about an issue just by watching their hands. In five minutes you can often evaluate people with approximately 70% accuracy… but obviously we’re wrong often, and that 30% can be very costly. What can the research teach us about better reading people’s body language? What You’re Doing Wrong In The Silent Language of Leaders: How Body Language Can Help–or Hurt–How You Lead the author points out a number of common errors people make. Here’s how I interpreted the findings: Ignoring context: Crossed arms don’t mean as much if the room is cold or the chair they’re sitting in doesn’t have armrests. What To Focus On What signals can and should you trust when trying to get a “read” on someone? Specifics To Look For Tags:
Five Keys to Rigorous Project-Based Learning Voiceover: How will today’s children function in a dangerous world? What means will they use to carve the future? Will they be equipped to find the answers to tomorrow’s problems? Teacher: When you think about traditional learning you think of a student sitting in a classroom and being talked at. Teacher: Now I imagine a lot of you are still thinking... Teacher: They are supposed to be a sponge. Peggy Ertmer: So there are a lot of different ways to approach PBL, a lot of different ways to implement it, but really it all boils down to five essential keys: real-world connection, core to learning, structured collaboration, student driven, and multifaceted assessment. Student: One of the problems in the ocean is that with the higher amount of CO2 calcifying organisms are decreasing and we’re testing to see how well life in the ocean lives without calcifying organisms. Student: --four by eight feet. Peggy Ertmer: So the second commonality is the PBL unit provides academic rigor. Student: Yes.
Fixed vs. Growth: The Two Basic Mindsets That Shape Our Lives By Maria Popova “If you imagine less, less will be what you undoubtedly deserve,” Debbie Millman counseled in one of the best commencement speeches ever given, urging: “Do what you love, and don’t stop until you get what you love. Work as hard as you can, imagine immensities…” Far from Pollyanna platitude, this advice actually reflects what modern psychology knows about how belief systems about our own abilities and potential fuel our behavior and predict our success. Much of that understanding stems from the work of Stanford psychologist Carol Dweck, synthesized in her remarkably insightful Mindset: The New Psychology of Success (public library) — an inquiry into the power of our beliefs, both conscious and unconscious, and how changing even the simplest of them can have profound impact on nearly every aspect of our lives. One of the most basic beliefs we carry about ourselves, Dweck found in her research, has to do with how we view and inhabit what we consider to be our personality.
Time to Debunk Those PBL Myths What are the myths you hear most often about project-based learning? Here are some PBL misconceptions I encounter with surprising regularity: "Projects may be fun, but they'll never prepare students for ____ [fill in high-stakes test of your choice]" "If kids work in teams on projects, one or two will do all the work and the others will coast" "PBL won't work with my students because they are ____ [fill in the challenge of your choice]" "I'll never have time to cover all my content if I spend time on projects" "Projects just aren't rigorous" "Parents will wind up doing most of the work" "We can't do PBL because we don't have ____ [fill in the technology of your choice]" Once you start listening for PBL myths, you'll hear them in the most surprising places. During a long flight recently, I was reading to pass the time. If we dispel the myths, we can concentrate on helping teachers and students achieve the meaningful learning that's possible through high-quality PBL. Projects versus PBL
Body language, not facial expressions, broadcasts what's happening to us If you think that you can judge by examining someone's facial expressions if he has just hit the jackpot in the lottery or lost everything in the stock market -- think again. Researchers at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and at New York University and Princeton University have discovered that -- despite what leading theoretical models and conventional wisdom might indicate -- it just doesn't work that way. Rather, they found that body language provides a better cue in trying to judge whether an observed subject has undergone strong positive or negative experiences. In a study published this week in the journal Science, the researchers present data showing that viewers in test groups were baffled when shown photographs of people who were undergoing real-life, highly intense positive and negative experiences. The study was led by Dr. In an additional study, Aviezer and his collaborators asked viewers to examine a more broad range of real-life intense faces.
How to Get High-Quality Student Work in PBL “I thought the project was going well… but by the end, I felt that the work my students produced was not as good as I imagined it would be. I was a little embarrassed and almost wanted to dial back the audience’s expectations on the night of the presentations!” This is a common concern of teachers who are new to Project Based Learning. 1. Simply telling students that you want them to do high-quality work is not enough, nor is giving them a checklist that tracks completion, not quality. To have students practice using a rubric, find some exemplars of the kind of work required in the project. Another tip for clarifying high expectations: Depending on what kind of product the project requires, bring experts in to class, or visit them in person or online, to hear about the criteria used to judge the quality of a similar product in their work. 2. One of the 8 Essential Elements of PBL is “Critique and Revision.” 3. Maybe it’s hard to imagine adding another few days to your project calendar.
The Lost Art of Eye Contact We’ve stopped seeing each other. You and me. All of us. Our eyes may indeed be windows to our soul, but with our necks craned downward and our eyes focused on tiny handheld screens, who can tell? We hardly make an effort to look at the person we’re talking to anymore. Younger people, in general, find it challenging to maintain eye contact with adults. When nearly every personal and business interaction uses a screen as an intermediary, it’s difficult to develop and maintain meaningful relationships with employees, customers and partners. Speak with Your Eyes We communicate so much with a simple look. Listen to Their Eyes Without looking directly into someone’s eyes, you’ll miss millions of visual clues as to what’s going on inside their head. Look for the “Tell” In poker, it’s called the “tell”: the habitual signal your opponent makes that betrays whether he or she is holding a full house or a hand full of nothing. Be Shifty-Eyed But Don’t Be Creepy
Viewpoint on PBL: What Students Say We are Miles, Gaby, Ethan, Lauren, Madison, and Aiden from Novi Community Schools District, in Michigan. What we do we have in common? We were really lucky to have Project Based Learning teachers. Some of us are still in Project Based Learning classrooms and love it. Some of us have moved to more traditional classrooms. Individually, we answered a simple question “Why do you like PBL?” Shhh…It’s a secret! “Need to Know” Nibbles by Gaby, 6th grade In PBL we had “Need to Knows” that gave us a nibble of what we were going to discover in our projects. In a traditional classroom, I wasn’t motivated to talk about school past the classroom walls. PBL spells F-U-N! I felt like I learned more about the topic through a project than doing worksheets. In PBL, you get to work with new people and have collaboration. More-than-just-a-grade Production by Ethan, 6th grade PBL is hands on. It’s also more than just a grade. PBL is a very REAL life way of bringing REAL learning into a classroom.
18 Ways to Improve Your Body Language There is no specific advice on how to use your body language. What you do might be interpreted in several ways, depending on the setting and who you are talking to. You’ll probably want to use your body language differently when talking to your boss compared to when you talk to a girl/guy you’re interested in. These are some common interpretations of body language and often more effective ways to communicate with your body. First, to change your body language you must be aware of your body language. Notice how you sit, how you stand, how you use you hands and legs, what you do while talking to someone. You might want to practice in front of a mirror. Another tip is to close your eyes and visualize how you would stand and sit to feel confident, open and relaxed or whatever you want to communicate. You might also want observe friends, role models, movie stars or other people you think has good body language. Some of these tips might seem like you are faking something. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7.