edutopia The opening months of school are a time of optimism and new beginnings. Each school year's start rejuvenates educators and students. Yet these feelings can quickly turn sour if we do not encourage students to find meaning in what we ask them to do. Practice One: Be Real Communicating authentic purpose to students is critical if we want their attention. 1. Curriculum is often taught as non-concrete concepts that are steeped in academic abstractions (just like this sentence). 2. Parents, friends, and colleagues either have expertise or know "the right people" who can talk with (not to) your students. 3. Give students real-world challenges to solve. Practice Two: Launch Events That Matter Relevance matters. Creative PSA Show The Sneeze. Personalizing History As an invisible theater exercise, the Teaching Channel's Making the Declaration of Independence Come Alive can help students recognize the value of historical events and ideas by making personal or contemporary connections.
Goodbye, Linear Factory Model of Schooling: Why Learning is Irregular Outside of school, most people apply learning across disciplines, scenarios, and experiences. For a majority of our lives as students, we are taught in a system that creates blocks of time for learning specific content, much like the factory model of production. However, learning should be life and there is nothing linear about life. Life is irregular—thus, learning is irregular. We are in the midst of one of the most disruptive, yet exciting times in history: The Information Age. The linear, factory system of education is counter to the messy, irregular, and creative learning process that our students have grown accustomed to outside of school. 1. With the emergence of online learning platforms and social networking, students are able to connect, communicate, and collaborate with their teachers and peers to extend learning beyond the walls of the schoolhouse and school day. “In so many ways, learning is a fundamentally social act. 2. 3.
edutopia A while back, I was asked, "What engages students?" Sure, I could respond, sharing anecdotes about what I believed to be engaging, but I thought it would be so much better to lob that question to my own eighth graders. The responses I received from all 220 of them seemed to fall under 10 categories, representing reoccuring themes that appeared again and again. 1. "Middle-school students are growing learners who require and want interaction with other people to fully attain their potential." "Teens find it most interesting and exciting when there is a little bit of talking involved. 2. "I believe that when students participate in "learning by doing" it helps them focus more. "We have entered a digital age of video, Facebook, Twitter, etc., and they [have] become more of a daily thing for teens and students. 3. "I believe that it all boils down to relationships. "If you relate the topic to the students' lives, then it makes the concept easier to grasp." 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. Go on.
20 Questions That Schools Should Be Asking About Professional Development | TeachThought Professional Development 20 Questions That Schools Should Be Asking About Professional Development by Drew Perkins, Director of TeachThought Professional Development Planning for Professional Development can be a tricky proposition. As an “administrator” you’re responsible for being an instructional leader for your staff and you’re trying to find something that they’ll find interesting, engaging, useful and more while trying to balance costs and hours and available days in your calendar. The focus on teaching and learning can become lost in the hustle and bustle of running a school every day. So can the pursuit of great professional learning opportunities for teachers who are passionate about their craft and looking to you for leadership. You want to avoid pointless professional development for sure and sometimes you can’t please all the people all the time but here are 20 questions to get you started and help focus your PD. How well does this fit in with my school and/or district’s Mission and Vision?
Total Sensory Immersion | How To Practice We want to help you practice better. Our newsfeed will keep you up to date with regular advice. Free personal help is available in our practice clinic and new news and offers can be found in our newsletter. Are we all blind, unfeeling and without emotion? Of course not! Why then do a lot of musicians only use their hearing sense when practising? Sight What can you see? Touch Playing your instrument is NOT a purely mechanical process. Moving Standing absolutely still may be the way you play. Emotion How does your music make you feel inside? Taste & Smell Are there any smells or tastes evoked by your playing? Hearing Learn to listen in many ways. Spend some time to work through each of these senses. Related posts:
How Relearning Old Concepts Alongside New Ones Makes It All Stick By Samara Freemark and Stephen Smith, American RadioWorks UCLA researcher Dick Schmidt gazes across the driving range at a line of golfers trying to improve their game. It’s a breezy day at the Westchester Golf Course and there’s a relentless roar of jet traffic from the nearby Los Angeles airport. Schmidt is a retired professor of psychology at UCLA, and an authority on how humans learn and develop motor skills. As Schmidt watches the golfers practice the same swing with the same clubs, over and over, he chuckles. “I give conference presentations to golf instructors and professionals,” Schmidt said. Schmidt explains that repetitive drilling on the same task is called “block practice.” Tim Lee draws a five-iron from his bag to demonstrate. “So I might try to hit a knockdown shot to start with, and then I might try a hook and then a slice,” Lee said. Lee recently retired from McMaster University in Canada. Bjork studies interleaving in his psychology lab at UCLA.
Citation Query Rules of play: game design fundamentals Multimodal human computer interaction: A survey by Alejandro Jaimes, Nicu Sebe , 2005 "... Abstract - Cited by 75 (2 self) - Add to MetaCart In this paper we review the major approaches to Multimodal Human Computer Interaction, giving an overview of the field from a computer vision perspective. Jogging the distance by Florian ‘floyd Mueller, Darren Edge, Frank Vetere, Martin R. "... Abstract - Cited by 66 (16 self) - Add to MetaCart Exertion games require investing physical effort. Fundamental components of the gameplay experience: Analysing immersion by Laura Ermi, Frans Mäyrä - In DIGRA. "... Abstract - Cited by 62 (1 self) - Add to MetaCart This paper presents a gameplay experience model, assesses its potential as a tool for research and presents some directions for future work. An Experiment in Automatic Game Design by Julian Togelius, Jürgen Schmidhuber , 2008 "... Abstract - Cited by 45 (21 self) - Add to MetaCart This paper presents a first attempt at evolving the rules for a game. "...
Mathematics, Everywhere for Everyone The idea of “learning math” often conjures the image of a student hunched over his desk, solving problems using a set formula he copied down from his teacher. Math, we tend to think, is a strict set of algorithms, practices, and rules — all emanating from inside the classroom. New resources from the Harvard Family Research Project (HFRP), though, paint a different picture entirely — elevating the role of the family as a source of math knowledge. In its latest initiative, HFRP is focusing on the idea that children’s knowledge of math is “broad and deep,” developing anywhere, anytime, and even starting at birth. But today's math assignments can be confounding for parents who learned math in a pre-Common Core era, or in a different country — or who still harbor math anxiety from their own days at school, or never fully learned to connect the dots between everyday actions and math lessons. Math Is Cultural Mathematics is cultural. Five Strategies for Connecting with Families
Immersion & Associated Concepts in Video Games by Nyssa Harkness on Prezi Paying Attention to OUR Understanding! – Thinking Mathematically I believe one of the most important things we can do as math teachers is to constantly deepen our understanding of the concepts our students are learning. In my 2nd year of teaching I was assigned to teach a grade 6/7 split class with 35 students. Being a new teacher, I taught my students the way I was taught… through direct instruction… and in a very procedural way… with the belief that learning happens by me telling, and students following the rules/steps that I shared. Now, I could look back at my teaching and cringe with disbelief at my actions, however, I was doing the best I knew how! So, my second year of teaching was well underway when the topic of adding fractions came along. I decided to offer those that did poorly a second chance, but assumed that first I needed to offer some help. His first incorrect answer looked something like this: Pretty common error right! This brings us to where we started: Do you have a knowledgeable other learning with you? Like this: Like Loading...
Immersion (virtual reality) The name is a metaphoric use of the experience of submersion applied to representation, fiction or simulation. Immersion can also be defined as the state of consciousness where a "visitor" (Maurice Benayoun) or "immersant" (Char Davies)’s awareness of physical self is transformed by being surrounded in an artificial environment; used for describing partial or complete suspension of disbelief, enabling action or reaction to stimulations encountered in a virtual or artistic environment. The degree to which the virtual or artistic environment faithfully reproduces reality determines the degree of suspension of disbelief. The greater the suspension of disbelief, the greater the degree of presence achieved. According to Ernest W. Tactical immersion Tactical immersion is experienced when performing tactile operations that involve skill. Strategic immersion Strategic immersion is more cerebral, and is associated with mental challenge. Narrative immersion Spatial immersion Ability to manipulate CNS
Deeper learning When I was younger, I used to have something called a “Trap Club.” If this sounds dangerous, it probably was. I used to create all sorts of traps for people to fall into. In the same way that I made my blueprints, mathematicians often create a model before they arrive at a solution.