Group items tagged

students who read a passage, then took a test asking them to recall what they had read, retained about 50 percent more of the information a week later than students who used two other methods.

the illusion that they know material better than they do.

“I think that learning is all about retrieving, all about reconstructing our knowledge,” said the lead author, Jeffrey Karpicke, an assistant professor of psychology at Purdue University. “I think that we’re tapping into something fundamental about how the mind works when we talk about retrieval.”

Dyslexia does not resolve over time.  Longitudinal studies indicate that dyslexia is a persistent, chronic condition; it does not represent a transient "developmental lag.”    The  image on the left shows the  trajectory of reading skills over time in good and poor readers. The vertical axis on the left is the reading achievement score

Dyslexia reflects a very specific difficulty with reading and has nothing to do with intelligence. In fact, understanding ideas and concepts are often at a very high level in dyslexia as are other higher-level reasoning skills. Dyslexia is a localized problem, one involving the sounds, and not the meaning, of spoken language. Consideration of the differences between spoken and written language provides a helpful understanding of why some bright children struggle to read.

In dyslexic readers, converging evidence from many laboratories around the world has demonstrated “a neural signature for dyslexia,” that is, a disruption of the two neural systems in the back of the brain observed during reading (shown in the image below).

learners in the online condition spent more time on task than students in the face-to-face condition found a greater benefit for online learning," the report says.

differed in terms of time spent, curriculum and pedagogy. It was the combination of elements in the treatment conditions (which was likely to have included additional learning time and materials as well as additional opportunities for collaboration) that produced the observed learning advantages

One online instructor (Alley 1996) has described this changing pedagogical consciousness as an �instructional epiphany�.� Alley tells of a personal transformation, stimulated by online instruction, marked by two "milestones". First, he had to totally redesign his course to fit and leverage the new learning environment. Second, he had to rethink what he calls his �basic approach�: �As long as I held on to the traditional �sage-on-stage� style of teaching, I would keep reinventing ways for students to be a passive audience� (1996:51).� Similar changes in pedagogical belief and practice have been reported by other faculty who have taught web-based courses (Brown 1998; Jaffee 1997; Cremer 1998) as well as researchers who have interviewed online instructors (Frank 2000).�� There are clearly some �structural constraints� built into the virtual classroom ecology that make it difficult to implement traditional modes of delivery and, in this sense, almost force instructors to entertain active learning strategies. As Frank (2000) discovered in her study of online instructors, "All of the participants saw online learning as empowering for students. The most valuable benefits were the facilitation of active learning, critical thinking, collaboration, confidence, and lifelong learning habits. A common theme was the way in which the teacher is forced to give up the control that one has in a face-to-face environment and re-examine the traditional role of content deliverer".� Just as the physical classroom architecture imposes constraints on, and opportunities for, particular pedagogical practices, so too does the virtual classroom. John Seely Brown (2000) has described the environment of the world-wide-web as a �learning ecology� that is a self-organized evolving collection of cross-pollinating overlapping communities of interest.� Asynchronous web-based courses that include a discussion forum possess many of the same ecological features. All members of the class can receive and broadcast information at any time. This critical communication feature distinguishes the virtual classroom from prior forms of instructional technology.�� While instructors can mediate and guide, they cannot entirely control the flow of communication. Thus, instructor and student roles and relations are less hierarchical and more overlapping and interactive. These greater opportunities for participation can contribute to a greater diversity of opinion and perspective. It is hard work to establish these social dynamics in a physical classroom constrained by a fixed space, a designated time block, and trained inhibitions. The virtual classroom, in contrast, has the potential to establish new patterns of instructor and student interaction and, accordingly, different teaching and learning roles and practices (Girod and Cavanaugh 2001; Becker and Ravitz 1999). ��������� In making comparisons between the physical and virtual classroom, it is important to emphasize a cautionary caveat. The pedagogical ecology, be it a physical classroom or a virtual interface, cannot entirely determine a particular pedagogical practice or learning outcome. The pedagogical ecology offers opportunities and constraints that will shape and influence classroom dynamics and learning outcomes, but much will also depend on the principles informing, and the actual design of, the teaching and learning process (see Chamberlin 2001). The various practices that are employed in both a physical and a virtual classroom indicate the range of possibilities. However, if we believe that, for the purpose of student learning, active student engagement and interaction is preferable to the passive reception of information, we should consider the degree to which this principle is advanced or facilitated by the expanding virtual learning ecology.�

Sociological theories and concepts have an important role to play in analyzing and interpreting these developments. A central sociological proposition is that structural environments influence the social perceptions, roles, and relations of human actors.� As increasing numbers of students and faculty find themselves operating in virtual learning environments, we might also expect to find some changing instructional dynamics. More specifically, there are a number of questions worth exploring. What are the relationships between the technical, the social, and the pedagogical infrastructures?� How has the introduction of new instructional technologies influenced established pedagogical practices? How does the shift from a physical classroom to a virtual learning environment shape and reconfigure the social roles and relations among faculty and students? What consequences will these technologies have for developing pedagogical practices?

have less to do with the proven effectiveness of the particular practice than the desire to appear legitimate or conform to normative expectations.�

Teachers can draw on technology applications to simulate real-world environments and create actual environments for experimentation, so that students can carry out authentic tasks as real workers would, explore new terrains, meet people of different cultures, and use a variety of tools to gather information and solve problems." (p. 43)

technology can enhance student engagement and productivity. More specifically, technology increases the complexity of the tasks that students can perform successfully, raises student motivation, and leads to changes in classroom roles and organization

collaborative.

where people medicate themselves into bliss

Postman asserts the presentation of television news is a form of entertainment programming; arguing inclusion of theme music, the interruption of commercials, and "talking hairdos" bear witness that televised news cannot readily be taken seriously

so I guess that will most likely be my audience.

The common practice of systematic design, such as the ADDIE model, simply did not fit well with the academic culture (Moore & Kearsley, 2004; Magnussen, 2005). Over the past two decades, instructional designers in higher education have needed to redefine their role and practice. The role of a change agent emerged as instructional designers worked side by side with faculty to rethink their teaching in order to integrate technology into course design and delivery (Campbell, Schwier, & Kenny, 2007). Not only do instructional designers play the role of advisers to faculty and department on issues of curriculum and course quality, they also play a vital role in faculty development and institutional change when it comes to researching and implementing new learning technologies. Undoubtedly, instructional designers in higher education need to modify their approach and design models to fulfill their widening role and to make meaningful contributions. New design prototypes have evolved through field experience in higher education (Power, 2009), and role-based design has been proposed to transform the field of instructional design (Hokanson, Miller, & Hooper, 2008).

There was strong agreement among participants that the guidelines are more helpful for new and less-experienced faculty members.

peop

it isn't about the technology

It is about the informational affordances and cultural practices which have taken shape around the computer and other interactive technologies.