What teens really want to know about sex On the first day of the high school Sexuality and Society class that I teach, I don’t pass around anatomy drawings or hand out pamphlets about safer sex — although those are stacked on a table near the door. Instead, the first thing I do is establish ground rules in the classroom: People should speak for themselves, laughter is OK, we won’t ask “personal history” questions, and we’ll work to create a community of peers who care about and respect one another. Then, I introduce the Question Box — a safe place where students can drop any question they have about human sexuality. Below are some actual questions from students and my answers to them. “Why is sex so good?” A part of the body that brings sexual pleasure when stimulated is called an erogenous zone. The second reason sex feels good is that humans have developed the emotional capacity to feel love, intimacy, and passion. “When is someone emotionally and physically ready for sex?” “Could you use a balloon as a condom?”
Rekindling a Sense of Connection for High School Students in the New School Year There were days in the 2020–21 school year when teaching meant logging on to Google Meet and engaging with little black boxes with students’ names next to little icons of muted microphones. Teaching meant greeting students at the door with a clumsy elbow bump and delivering material while they sat six feet apart, unable to see their smiles. These were the days that reminded me of Christopher Emdin’s powerful words on the importance of teaching with magic, and I couldn’t help but note how little wizardry I was able to conjure. Many of us were still able to capture that magic, though it likely looked different due to distance or hybrid learning and safety protocols. But despite our best efforts to make this past school year effective, a wall—taller than in previous years—had inevitably formed, hampering our ability to make those personal connections with our students. They were there, of course, but I certainly noticed that I had to clear that wall more frequently.
Teaching: How to Give Students a Break From Their Screens — in an Online Course The article closed out with comments from James Lang, who argued that instructors should give students something worth paying attention to, at least during key moments of the class — but also not expect to hold their focus every minute. When I re-read that story last week, I felt like I’d opened a time capsule. Remember laptop bans? Capturing students’ attention is obviously a much greater challenge now, with classes taught online or physically distanced and students under significant stress. Beth wrote about faculty members finding ways to engage them in her latest story — which also quotes Lang, who has a new book out soon on distraction. It’s strange to think about how worried many people were about the time students spent on screens before all of this, now that so much of what we used to do in person is happening instead on Zoom. So I was interested to hear some examples of professors who are making an intentional effort to give their students a break from their screens. -Beckie
Why fascism is so tempting— and how your data could power it Watch these recommended TED-Ed Lessons and TED Talks: How did Hitler rise to power?Decades after the fall of the Third Reich, it feels impossible to understand how Adolf Hitler, the tyrant who orchestrated one of the largest genocides in human history, could ever have risen to power in a democratic country. Facebook's role in Brexit-- and the threat to democracyIn an unmissable talk, journalist Carole Cadwalladr digs into one of the most perplexing events in recent times: the UK's super-close 2016 vote to leave the European Union. The rise of modern populism In many democratic countries, charismatic leaders vilify political opponents, disparage institutions, and claim to be for the people. What obligation do social media platforms have to the greater good? How Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Google manipulate our emotionsThe combined market capitalization of Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Google is now equivalent to the GDP of India. Do politics make us irrational?
How Read-Alouds Can Benefit Older Students One of the best parts of kindergarten through second grades is the time that teachers set aside to read aloud to their students. It’s a moment when children get to use their imagination and creativity while dreaming about the story that’s unfolding before them. The wonderment and excitement this activity creates is one of the reasons why young children develop a love of reading. However, once a student moves into upper elementary and middle school, many times these read-alouds are replaced with reading curriculum that schools feel must take precedence, which usually means dropping the daily read-alouds. Reading aloud daily to students is one of the best ways to increase reading resilience and motivation, and it also helps build community. Reading aloud daily establishes a routine and a commitment to literacy in an authentic way. How to Implement a Daily Read-Aloud 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. Five Great Books to Begin the School Year
Support Online Learning with Powerful Thinking Routines – Dr. Catlin Tucker Project Zero at Harvard’s Graduate School of Education has created a collection of Core Thinking Routines as part of their Visible Thinking Project. Teachers can view the entire collection on the Project Zero website, where each routine is described in detail (e.g., purpose, application, launch) in both English and Spanish. These routines encourage students to be intentional thinkers. What do they know or notice? These thinking routines can be modified and adjusted for different age levels and subject areas, making them extremely versatile. Thinking Routine #1: See, Think, Wonder Thinking Routine #2–Claim, Evidence, Question Thinking Routine #3–I Used to Think…Now I Think Thinking Routine #4–Connect, Extend, Challenge Thinking Routine #5–Compass Points Important notes: The title of each thinking routine is linked to a detailed PDF created by Project Zero describing the routine and how teachers can use it.
Humans aren't inherently selfish – we're actually hardwired to work together There has long been a general assumption that human beings are essentially selfish. We’re apparently ruthless, with strong impulses to compete against each other for resources and to accumulate power and possessions. If we are kind to one another, it’s usually because we have ulterior motives. If we are good, it’s only because we have managed to control and transcend our innate selfishness and brutality. This bleak view of human nature is closely associated with the science writer Richard Dawkins, whose book The Selfish Gene became popular because it fitted so well with (and helped to justify) the competitive and individualistic ethos of late 20th-century societies. Like many others, Dawkins justifies his views with reference to the field of evolutionary psychology. This is usually seen as a period of intense competition, when life was a kind of Roman gladiatorial battle in which only the traits that gave people a survival advantage were selected and all others fell by the wayside. The !
Forskarna: Testa elever för varaktig kunskap – Skolvärlden En klassisk utmaning för lärare är att inte bara förmedla information på ett begripligt och intresseväckande sätt, utan att också få eleverna att komma ihåg informationen. Att dessutom lyckas nå ut till alla elevgrupper är ännu en utmaning där spannet mellan elever kan vara stort, både kognitivt och personlighetsmässigt. Genom att använda testbaserat lärande kan pedagogen uppnå goda resultat när det gäller båda dessa utmaningar. Det menar Umeåprofessorerna Bert Jonsson och Lars Nyberg som nyligen givit ut boken ”Testbaserat lärande – att stärka inlärning och minne” (Natur & Kultur). – I grund och botten handlar det om att öva på att hämta information från långtidsminnet redan under inlärningsfasen, säger Bert Jonsson. Genom ett flerårigt tvärvetenskapligt forskningssamarbete har Bert Jonsson, som har en bakgrund inom psykologin, och Lars Nyberg, som kommer från den neurofysiologiska disciplinen, vunnit insikter om de mekanismer i hjärnan som gör processen så effektiv.
How to compress PowerPoint presentations Media-rich presentations are great. Including high-quality images and videos often adds hugely to audience engagement, but it also adds file size. Adding to your file size means that your presentation is likely to sit on the unfriendly size of email etiquette, but it also means your PowerPoint will run a lot slower (and it may crash – see this article for more on that). But is there an answer? View our tips in this video. The content from the video can be found in the article below. Method 1: Compress PowerPoint presentations using in-built tools Did you know PowerPoint has a built-in picture and video compression tool? Images: Select a picture on any slide and go to the Picture Tools Format tab on the ribbon.Choose Compress Pictures in the top left corner: the pop-up box shows you the resolution options you have for the image. Videos: That may do the trick, but sometimes you’ll come across a presentation that stubbornly refuses to yield a decent file size. Leave a comment
Sweden officially the 'goodest' country in the world, study says Sweden has topped a poll as the best ‒ or “goodest” ‒ country when it comes to serving the interests of its people while avoiding damaging impacts to other nations and the environment. The country has outranked 162 others to take pole position in the Good Country Index, a league table based on 35 separate indicators from sources including the United Nations and the World Bank. Sweden scores highest for positive lifestyle contributions including prosperity, equality, health and wellbeing, while also performing well culturally. We’ll tell you what’s true. You can form your own view. From 15p €0.18 $0.18 USD 0.27 a day, more exclusives, analysis and extras. Iceland tops the list for its overall contribution to the planet and climate protection, including low CO2 emissions and minimal production of hazardous material, while the UK performs less well in this area, sitting down in 22nd place. "A good country is one that successfully contributes to the good of humanity.
How to Guide Middle and High School Students to Self-Regulated Learning Self-regulated learning, or SRL, is not a new concept in pedagogy and has been considered a best practice for decades. Yet it’s often interpreted with the literal meaning of regulating one’s self through keeping emotions in check and is confused with a close cousin, social and emotional learning. SRL is much more than just learning strategies to regulate emotions. It also taps into the often-missing component of teaching and learning, the metacognitive aspects of learning, or learning how to learn for different contexts. SRL is knowing how to learn and being aware of your progression of learning toward specific goals. Barry Zimmerman, one of the leading researchers for SRL, describes SRL as “not a mental ability or an academic performance skill; rather, it is the self-directive process by which learners transform their mental abilities into academic skills.” They manage their time well and plan appropriately to complete their assignments and study. How to Incorporate SRL 1. 2. 3.
Building blocks for online learning This school year will be my 20th year in the classroom. For the past 19 years, summer months have provided necessary respite—the quiet pause—I’ve needed to refuel for the coming school year. To refill my cup so that I can arrive well and whole for my students in September. But during a pandemic that continues to rage—and with racial inequities (which have always existed) laid glaringly bare yet again—this was not that kind of summer. Instead, much of my summer has been spent in constant, alternating states of fear, anger, and anxiety, as many school reopening plans ask teachers to put themselves at risk by returning to potentially unsafe buildings and working conditions. How can schools enforce physical distancing? And how can I teach under these conditions? Like many teachers, I spent this summer, losing sleep, trying to answer this question. We are going to have to save ourselves. I stopped when I first read Val’s words—and then I exhaled. One thing, any thing In no particular order:
The Impact of Cell Phones on Student Attention in the Classroom Many studies have investigated the so-called “downstream” effect of cell phone presence on learning. Students who split their attention between a learning task and texting on their cell phones or accessing Facebook, for example, perform poorly when compared to students who are not dividing their attention. But recent research from the Journal of the Association for Consumer Research suggests that cell phones might have a negative “upstream” impact on learning, too. “The presence of one’s smartphone enables on-demand access to information, entertainment... and more,” the study concludes. Taken together, there’s increasing evidence that the presence and usage of cell phone in the classroom—while not necessarily detrimental in all contexts—should be carefully monitored, intentionally structured, and even restricted in some cases.
How to make online-education gazillion times more social, interactive and live than off-line-education ever can be – Disruptive Education The typical situation for learning is not thousands of participants – MOOC´s. It is smaller groups, 30-100. Still, imagine you cannot meet physically, Corona-times could be one reason. Then here is what you can do. And please note; it can become way better in doing exactly everything that off-line-education is claimed to be great at. I have been busy experimenting, hard, with myself, others, and digital tools. Here is what I already knew before I started to experiment… Firstly: People, being on-line, get bored, leave, or fall asleep, even faster, than they do offline. Secondly: There is absolutely no point asking someone to go online for something that can be done better offline. Thirdly: Every technology has its own characteristic, that should be used, otherwise try a different technology that can help you to achieve what you want, more here. During my experiments, I have done things online, live, but without recording me. I love music, live and recorded. Here is what I have found out…