Study: You Really Can 'Work Smarter, Not Harder' - Nanette Fondas Research shows that reflecting after learning something new makes it stick in your brain. This Year's Love/Flickr Two weeks ago, my oldest son taught my youngest son how to perform a corner kick during half time of my middle son’s soccer game. He demonstrated the correct way to swing the leg, angle the foot, and launch the ball toward the goal. When the referee blew his whistle, resuming the game, we moved to a spot of grass nearby. There, my little boy began to explain how to do the corner kick, recounting every detail absorbed during his older brother’s half-time tutorial. Learning is more effective if a lesson or experience is deliberately coupled with time spent thinking about what was just presented, a new study shows. In the lab portion of the study, participants completed a math brain teaser under time pressure and wrote about what strategy they used or might use in the future to solve the problem.
Think of the children "Think of the children" (also "What about the children?") is a phrase that evolved into a rhetorical tactic.[1][2][3] Used literally it to refers to children's rights, as in discussions of child labor.[4][5][6] In debate, this plea for pity is wielded as an appeal to emotion which can constitute a logical fallacy.[1][2][3] Art, Argument, and Advocacy (2002) argued the exhortation may supplant emotion for reason in debate.[1] Ethicist Jack Marshall wrote in 2005 that the phrase's popularity stemmed from its capacity to stunt rationality, particularly discourse on morals.[2] "Think of the children" was invoked by censorship proponents to shield children from perceived dangers.[7][8] Community, Space and Online Censorship (2009) noted that classifying children in an infantile way as innocents in need of protection was a form of obsession over the concept of purity.[7] A 2011 article in the Journal for Cultural Research observed the term grew out of a moral panic.[9] Background[edit]
8 Reasons The IQ Is Meaningless Humans The average person has an intelligence quotient of 100. An unsourced claim gives O. The first standardized attempt to measure the human’s mental capacity was courtesy of Alfred Binet and Theodore Simon, who formulated a test to measure verbal ability. Once an average person reaches the age of 15 or so, the IQ test is no longer important, since the mental age has reached maturity. Extremely high scores are routinely inaccurate. 180 on the Standford-Binet is typically the top of the scale, and anything measured over it has few precedents for comparison and should be taken with a grain of salt. All the various tests can do is discover the very low scorers among children, and these scores are quite accurate. Quite a few IQ tests measure “general knowledge.” As general knowledge goes, the intent is to ask questions to which everyone on Earth, at an age of 5, should know the answers. IQ tests were invented for the purpose of scoring children. Children are mean. Close
Thought Reform and the Psychology of Totalism Thought Reform and the Psychology of Totalism: A Study of "Brainwashing" in China is a non-fiction book by psychiatrist Robert Jay Lifton on the psychology of brainwashing and mind control. Lifton's research for the book began in 1953 with a series of interviews with American servicemen who had been held captive during the Korean War. In addition to interviews with 25 Americans, Lifton also interviewed 15 Chinese who had fled their homeland after having been subjected to indoctrination in Chinese universities. From these interviews, which in some cases occurred regularly for over a year, Lifton identified the tactics used by Chinese communists to cause drastic shifts in one's opinions and personality and "brainwash" American soldiers into making demonstrably false assertions. Main points[edit] In the book, Lifton outlines the "Eight Criteria for Thought Reform": Milieu Control. Thought-terminating cliché[edit] Lifton said:[4][5] Examples[edit] General examples “Think of the children”
The Wrong Way to Teach Grammar - Michelle Navarre Cleary A century of research shows that traditional grammar lessons—those hours spent diagramming sentences and memorizing parts of speech—don’t help and may even hinder students’ efforts to become better writers. Yes, they need to learn grammar, but the old-fashioned way does not work. There is a real cost to ignoring such findings. In my work with adults who dropped out of school before earning a college degree, I have found over and over again that they over-edit themselves from the moment they sit down to write. These students are victims of the mistaken belief that grammar lessons must come before writing, rather than grammar being something that is best learned through writing. Happily, there are solutions. There are also less immediately apparent costs to having generations of learners who associate writing only with correctness. Schools that have shifted from traditional “stand-alone” grammar to teaching grammar through writing offer concrete proof that such approaches work.
What is Swaraj? What Is Swaraj? The concept of swaraj, or self-rule, was developed during the Indian freedom struggle. In his book Hind Swaraj (1909), Gandhi sought to clarify that the meaning behind swaraj was much more than simply "wanting [systems of] English rule without the Englishman; the tiger's nature but not the tiger." On another level, the call for swaraj represents a genuine attempt to regain control of the 'self' - our self-respect, self-responsibility, and capacities for self-realization - from institutions of dehumanization. Gandhi wanted all those who believed in swaraj: (1) to reject and wholly uproot the British raj (rule) from within themselves and their communities; and, (2) to regenerate new reference points, systems, and structures that enable individual and collective self-development. How is this relevant for us today?
Maxwell's Equations. From Einstein Light Maxwell's equations: symmetric form Although the equations are simple, they are notated in a few different ways, for use in different circumstances. The variable quantities are the electric field E (written in bold here to indicate that it is a vector), the magnetic field B, the electric charge density ρ (the amount of charge per unit volume) and the electric current density J (the amount of electric current flowing through unit area). There are also properties of the medium, even if it is vacuum. ε is the dielectric permittivity. It is a property of a medium that determines the strength of the electric field produced by a given electric charge and geometry. Greater values of ε mean that more charge is required to produce the same electric field (for all materials in the liquid or solid phase, ε is greater than the vacuum value). μ is the magnetic permeability of a medium. Isn't that lovely?
Unlearning and The Stockholm Effect The stories I’ve read have all given me much food for thought, so much so that I couldn’t possibly say it all in a few pages. The most striking thing about these seven stories, to me, is that these writers all did well in school, come from middle-class families, and yet discovered (or "unlearned"), on their own, that school has limited rather than expanded their learning abilities. Why, I wonder, aren’t more people questioning school as these writers have? Once one reaches compulsory school age in any country, the process of schooling is identical: our natural urge to learn and explore is controlled and measured on a daily basis, and universal compulsory school attendance laws make it hard for alternatives to school to emerge. I think most of us identify with our caretakers in school and make the best of the situation. In August, 1973, two ex-convicts held three women and a man hostage during a robbery in Stockholm, Sweden. What can better describe the conventional school curriculum?
Make It Stick — Peter C. Brown, Henry L. Roediger III, Mark A. McDaniel To most of us, learning something “the hard way” implies wasted time and effort. Good teaching, we believe, should be creatively tailored to the different learning styles of students and should use strategies that make learning easier. Make It Stick turns fashionable ideas like these on their head. Memory plays a central role in our ability to carry out complex cognitive tasks, such as applying knowledge to problems never before encountered and drawing inferences from facts already known. Many common study habits and practice routines turn out to be counterproductive.
Safron Afghanistan TED Radio Hour NPR: TED Radio Hour Podcast The TED Radio Hour is a journey through fascinating ideas: astonishing inventions, fresh approaches to old problems, new ways to think and create. Based on Talks given by riveting speakers on the world-renowned TED stage, each show is centered on a common theme - such as the source of happiness, crowd-sourcing innovation, power shifts, or inexplicable connections. The TED Radio Hour is hosted by Guy Raz, and is a co-production of NPR & TED. Follow the show @TEDRadioHour. Overcoming (R) June 13, 2014 We all have our struggles, whether they be mental, physical, or social. Download MP3 Getting There June 6, 2014 Our daily lives depend on travel: walking, biking, driving, flying. Haves and Have-Nots (R) May 30, 2014 Income inequality is at an all-time high between the haves and the have-nots. What We Fear May 23, 2014 Human beings have a fine-tuned sense of fear. Why We Collaborate (R)