The Pygmalion Effect: Communicating High Expectations In 1968, two researchers conducted a fascinating study that proved the extent to which teacher expectations influence student performance. Positive expectations influence performance positively, and negative expectations influence performance negatively. In educational circles, this has been termed the Pygmalion Effect, or more colloquially, a self-fulfilling prophecy. What has always intrigued me about this study is specifically what the teachers did to communicate that they believed a certain set of students had "unusual potential for academic growth." The research isn't overly explicit about this, but it indicates that the teachers "may have paid closer attention to the students, and treated them differently in times of difficulty." Why can't teachers treat all of their students like this? Excellence, Celebration, and Success Be Excellent in All Ways Everything speaks. Celebrate Small Victories Say, "I'm proud of you" -- and say it often. Make Failure Unacceptable Raise the Bar Right Now
Differentiated Instruction Resources Irregular verbs again I have already published several posts on irregular verbs: Past participles – divided according to the pronunciation and Present perfect tense. However, a week ago a student of mine contacted me and asked me if I could create a way for him to learn the irregular verbs. He spends a lot of time driving so he asked me to prepare something to listen to in his car. So I did. In this post there are 33 irregular verbs presented in an associative matrix, in mp3 for listening, in mp3 for learning and two games for practising them. Irregular verbs – learning Here you can find two ways to learn the irregular verbs. Here is the pdf version of all the irregular verbs: Irregular verbs_part1 Irregular verbs – Listen and learn In learning there are only a few methods which work for everyone. If you need just the correct pronunciation of each of the verbs presented above, here is the mp3 with all of the verbs: You can download the files here: All the irregular verbsAll the verbs learning mp3
50 Apps for the Foreign Language Classroom I enjoy discussing iPad and other edtech resources with my colleague and friend Sylvia Duckworth almost every week through Twitter. Sylvia is a leader in the French teaching community in Canada, and has created an enormous amount of resources for language teachers to use. I asked her if she wanted to collaborate on this post, and she quickly agreed to do so. Below is a list of iPad apps that we both use in our language classrooms. 1) Content-Consumption Apps Class Dojo Free (Click for the web version) Decide Now $.99 Random Name Selector (Free) Note: Many of these apps have options in other languages Touch, look, listen $1.99 StoryToys apps $4.99/ea (all excellent) French words for Kids (Montessori) $3.99 Feed me (French) $1.99 JeuxPourLire $3.99 eFlash Apps for French $1.99 (turn on “Questions” mode in settings to make more challenging) *Gus learns French $3.99 Canadian French $9.99 *Qui est-ce? 4 images, 1 mot Free ($1.99 for ad-free version, recommended) Google Translate Free WordReference Free
Modelling the Emotional Listener: Making Psychological Processes Audible | meaningfulnoise Citation info: Ekman, I. (2009) “Modelling the Emotional Listener: Making Psychological Processes Audible”, Proc. AudioMostly 2009, Sepbember, Glasgow, Great Britain. Modelling the Emotional Listener: Making Psychological Processes Audible Inger Ekman Center for Knowledge and Innovation Research, Helsinki School of Economics, Finlandinger.ekman@hse.fi Abstract. 1 Introduction Game sound designs need not strive for realism. The creation of sound for such a game environment usually involves the modelling of sound in terms of physical properties of sound. The natural way of thinking about sound in these interactions is to consider sound in terms of its physical properties as this provides a way of ascribing meaning (about the game world, proximity and type of sound) to the sonic processes the player will encounter. Depending both on processing capacity and available memory, the level of fidelity varies between systems. 2 The Ears of the Player [T]here is no “Innocent Ear.” 3. 3.1. Table 1. 4.
Ofsted 2012: Questioning to promote learning — From Good to Outstanding Have you ever noticed that often, when someone is being interviewed, they say “That’s a good question.”? It’s usually when it’s a question they can’t answer quickly and easily. Indeed, “good” questions are ones that generally need thinking about. Inspectors must consider whether: “teachers use questioning and discussion to assess the effectiveness of their teaching and promote pupils’ learning” School inspection handbook from September 2012 Notice, in this instance it does not say “ASSESS” learning, although clearly this is undeniably a major purpose for questioning. Questions that are easy to answer don’t move learning on; they might indicate that learning has happened, or that at least something has been noticed, thought about or memorised, but they don’t promote learning. How do questions promote learning? Questioning can fail because: Questioning succeeds when: What kinds of questions do you routinely ask, and how do you ask them ? E.g. E.g. T: How might you describe a hexagon? E.g. Applying
Irregular verbs straightforward #2 - Games to learn English | Games to learn English As students reacted very positively to the first post on irregular verbs I am going to continue with teaching the irregular verbs in this way. Once again I am going to teach 24 irregular verbs with their past tense and past participle. The verbs are divided into two groups of 12 and there are separate worksheets and videos for teaching them. ADVERT: If you are a teacher you do not have to use all of the activities and worksheets below. Irregular verbs #2 – video First, watch the video and repeat the words. The other 12 verbs are presented in the following video: Irregular verbs – worksheets The first worksheet contains all the verbs taught in this post. Irregular verbs02_all Then there are two worksheets containing crosswords and word puzzles to practice the irregular verbs from the two videos. Irregular verbs 03_vocabulary_wsIrregular verbs 03_vocabulary_ws_key The puzzles and crosswords for the second video are over here:Irregular verbs 04_vocabulary_wsIrregular verbs 04_vocabulary_ws_key
Five-Minute Film Festival: The Best Education Parodies of 2014 January is quickly approaching, and you know what that means: year-end lists and retrospectives galore! We'd be shirking our responsibilities as bloggers if we didn't join in, so in keeping with our December tradition, take a look at this list of the best education parodies of 2014! We've scoured the web to find videos by teachers, about teachers, parodies breaking down historical inaccuracies, humorous tunes by parents, and so much more. For even more viral video fun, YouTube's Rewind team has done a great job of recapping the year's most popular YouTube uploads. Video Playlist: The Best Education Parodies of 2014 Watch the player below to see the whole playlist, or view it on YouTube. Word Crimes by "Weird Al" Yankovic (3:46) This catchy tune from "Weird Al" Yankovic takes a shot at everyone who can't spell, conjugate, or place punctuation correctly. More Resources for Using Humor and Music in the Classroom Parodies and musical entertainment can be a great tool in the classroom!
8 Ways to Use Music in the Language Arts Classroom I think when we talk about using music or art or theater in the Core classes, there is still this persistent suspicion that a teacher who plays music in the classroom must be too "soft" or "granola-y." Don't get angry; I'm just stating an observation of perception, not a fact of truth. I would push back, however, that using the arts in the core subject-area classes is far from fluffy. What I do understand, however, is that not everyone is a musicologist. One doesn't need Bach in the background to qualify as having used music. Why Use Music? Music can be used to help control a classroom environment or to support the content within that class. Music is also a way to build community and to share yourself as a teacher. The week after I saw The Lego Movie, every period that walked into my middle school classroom was greeted with "Everything is AWESOME!" The Activities But what do you do if you don't have a lot of knowledge about music? #1 Songs to Teach Academic Vocabulary #2 Lyrics as Poetry
International Symposium on Education, Psychology and Social Sciences