Think You're An Auditory Or Visual Learner? Scientists Say It's Unlikely : Shots - Health Blog iStockphoto.com We've all heard the theory that some students are visual learners, while others are auditory learners. And still other kids learn best when lessons involve movement. But should teachers target instruction based on perceptions of students' strengths? Several psychologists say education could use some "evidence-based" teaching techniques, not unlike the way doctors try to use "evidence-based medicine." Psychologist Dan Willingham at the University of Virginia, who studies how our brains learn, says teachers should not tailor instruction to different kinds of learners. For example, if a teacher believes a student to be a visual learner, he or she might introduce the concept of addition using pictures or groups of objects, assuming that child will learn better with the pictures than by simply "listening" to a lesson about addition. In fact, an entire industry has sprouted based on learning styles.
Building An Online Learning Community by Kevin Wilcoxon “One thing is certain, learning communities are more engaging and members more engaged than is the case with traditional instruction.” How can an instructional designer (ID) leverage social interaction online to engage learners, increase exchange and dialogue, and get better results, without losing the purposeful focus provided by an instructor or traditional course content and structure? Many IDs are intrigued by the potential of communal experiences online, but there is a great deal of uncertainty about how to proceed. Here are a couple of cases that you may find interesting. Afterward, I offer a roadmap for producing similar results. Online Statistics course Michelle Everson teaches a Statistics course online. Each group is required to work on eight small-group assignments during the course or series. Online Operations Management course Joel Mencena teaches Operations Management online. Learning communities Figure 1. We can further specify each element of a learning community. Figure 2.
10 Infographics for Learning We all love infographics. Why? Well, they help us grasp information in a quick and fun way that appeals to our visual senses. 1. Knewton published an infographic on “Blended Learning: A Disruptive Innovation” that explores K-12 blended learning models by Innosight Institute and Charter School Growth Fund. 2. Voxy Blog published an infographic titled “Are We Wired for Mobile Learning?” Photo Courtesy of Voxy Blog 3. Rick Man posted an infographic, “Why infographics accelerate decision making,” that identifies the ways we traditionally present information versus the visual way we can present information through infographics. Photo Courtesy of Rick Mans 4. Matthew Bloch and Bill Marsh published an interactive map, “Mapping the Nation’s Well-Being,” on the New York Times this March. Photo Courtesy of the NY Times 5. Rasmussen College published an infographic titled “The Evolution of Online Education Technologies” that explores the evolution of learning from the 1700s through the Millenium. 6.
Using Piazza to Encourage Interaction [This is a guest post by Abir Qasem, who teaches intro to programming, AI, cloud, and device programming courses for the Computer Science Department at Bridgewater College. You can find him online or follow him on Twitter at @abirqasem.--@JBJ] In my introductory programming courses, my pedagogy relies heavily on collaborative problem solving during class time. A big challenge for me, until recently, had been getting the “quiet” students in my class to participate in class discussions. Piazza is a Web 2.0 tool that allows students to ask questions and engage in dialogue on the Internet with the professor and with each other. Click for full size. Piazza has a chatroom feel to it, while offering enough structure to be used effectively in a classroom environment. My initial goal was quite modest – I wanted to use it as an extension to the classroom discussion. Piazza captures class statistics, which can be interesting (see screenshot for “posts” vs. What I specifically did The bottom line
The Procrastinating Caveman: What Human Evolution Teaches Us About Why We Put Off Work and How to Stop July 10th, 2011 · 63 comments Survivor: Paleolithic Edition Rewind time 100,000 years ago: several different species of humans co-exist on earth.There was, of course, our own species, Homo sapien, but we were joined by our more athletic siblings from the Tree of Life, Homo erectus, who had left Africa and colonized Asia long before we ventured beyond the mother continent, all the while another sibling, the stocky Neanderthal, was hunkered down in a European ice age. Advance another 90,000 years, however, and our species is the only game left in town. Scientists have worked hard to figure out why we survived while other early humans did not. The Planning Edge “The most obvious answer [to the question of Homo sapiens’ survival] is that we had bigger brains,” explains paleoanthropologist John Shea, in a recent article from BBC News. Complex planning is a subtle skill: it requires you to both conceive of future steps and evaluate whether these steps are a good idea. Let me flesh this out.
Do you think, “The Classroom Is Obsolete: It’s Time for Something New”? As I read the following article by Prakash Nair from Education Week, it began to make me wonder just where are we in education. Are we limiting our students’ growth and learning experience? Will technology change the obsolete classroom? Is there a need for those four walls? Can public education handle a transformation such as the one described in the article? What are your thoughts? Published Online: July 29, 2011By Prakash Nair The overwhelming majority of the nearly 76 million students in America’s schools and colleges spend most of the academic day in classrooms. The debate over education reform has been going on for longer than anyone can remember. Lost in all this hand-wringing is the most visible symbol of a failed system: the classroom. The classroom is a relic, left over from the Industrial Revolution, which required a large workforce with very basic skills. The classroom is a relic, left over from the Industrial Revolution, which required a large workforce with very basic skills.
Community Forums Perhaps the larger questions are these: 1. To what extent are teachers selected into teaching based on their lack of critical thinking abilities? (Particularly their tendencies toward compliance, unwillingess to question authority, risk-aversion, high need for conformity, discomfort with ambiguity, perceived status as an oppressed class, etc.) It may just be that the structure and history of the profession has attracted a large percentage of people who simply don't apply critical thinking in their work -- even if they apply it regularly outside of work. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. If the ability to teach something to someone depends on possessing that something to a high degree, then it is vital that teachers have high degrees of critical thinking ability. if this is true, however, the only fix (if we care to fix it) is to create a system that selects differently -- and hope we can find enough different people to select. It's not the old saw that "you get what you pay for." Steve Peha
50 really useful iPad 2 tips and tricks An absolute gem of an article by John Brandon and Graham Barlow from MacLife on 30th March over at TechRadar. This is going to become my iPad manual from here on in. Customised iPads for all iPad 2 tips and original iPad tips - get 'em here! iPad 2 review It's also fully capable of running the latest version of Apple's iOS operating system and great apps like iMovie and GarageBand. 1. iOS now supports folders. 2. Double-clicking the Home button shows you all the apps that are running on your iPad in a bar along the bottom of the screen. 3. The internet got mightily upset when Orientation Lock was replaced with Mute on the iPad during the last iOS update. 4. If you're carrying around sensitive data, you can now enable a feature that'll erase all the data on the device if someone inputs the incorrect passcode 10 times. 5. First, turn on Home Sharing in iTunes (Advanced menu) and on your iPad (Settings > iPod and enter your Apple ID). 6. Have you ever played Tap Tap Revenge on the iPhone?
The Innovative Educator Mass customization in education Seth Godin and Ken Robinson have again taken schools to task for their industrial model of educating students, complaining that we are turning out robots and fail to encourage the natural creativity and problem-solving abilities of every student. Read Godin and watch Robinson. It's hard to disagree with anything about which they pontificate. What neither acknowledge, however, are the benefits that mass production have brought to society - the affordability of more goods for people at a wider range of economic levels. So too with education. Public schools were (are) designed to be economically efficient enough to provide a basic education for everyone. What Godin and Robinson argue for is an individualized education for every child. At one time, Levis had a website to which one could submit one's physical measurements. Here's the thing: We have lots of data about our kids - test scores, ability measurements, learning inventories, teacher observations etc.
Study Links Academic Setbacks to Middle School Transition Published Online: November 28, 2011 Published in Print: November 28, 2011, as Learning Declines Linked to Moving to Middle School Includes correction(s): March 24, 2012 While policymakers and researchers alike have focused on improving students’ transition into high school, a new study of Florida schools suggests the critical transition problem may happen years before, when students enter middle school. The study , part of the Program on Education Policy and Governance Working Papers Series at Harvard University, found that students moving from grade 5 into middle school show a “sharp drop” in math and language arts achievement in the transition year that plagues them as far out as 10th grade, even risking thwarting their ability to graduate from high school and go on to college. “I don’t see eliminating the transition at the high school level as important or beneficial as eliminating the transition at the middle school level,” said Martin R. Mr. Losing Their Edge For the Florida study, Mr.
Becoming an Unteacher: Do the Unexpected I had the pleasure of seeing Jeremy K. Macdonald’s Soiree of Slides at the Instructional Technology Strategies Conference this past weekend . . . a beautiful five minutes. His message was that as teachers, we learn to do the expected. Students are supposed to behave within the norms and rules of school. Teachers enforce those norms and rules. Jeremy’s Follow-Up Jeremy reported what happened next via his blog post #Unexpected. My student was at school today. My Own Doing the Unexpected: A Peak Experience I had a similar experience with 8 year old Sherry a while back. Sherry was a tough little third grader in my counseling group at a local elementary school. Sherry loved coming to the group, but was especially defiant this day – I wasn’t feeling so patient, tolerant, or compassionate on this day. I was ready to make the adult-in-charge-type-statement. I did the unexpected . . . Like this: Like Loading...