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"The Minute Paper comes in many variations, but the simplest one involves wrapping up the formal class period a few minutes early and posing two questions to your students: What was the most important thing you learned today? What question still remains in your mind? Taken together, those two questions accomplish multiple objectives. The first one not only requires students to remember something from class and articulate it in their own words (more about that in a moment), but it also requires them to do some quick thinking. They have to reflect on the material and make a judgment about the main point of that day's class. The second question encourages them to probe their own minds and consider what they haven't truly understood. Most of us are infected by what learning theorists sometimes call "illusions of fluency," which means that we believe we have obtained mastery over something when we truly have not. To answer the second question, students have to decide where confusion or weaknesses remain in their own comprehension of the day's material. Closing connections. If we want students to obtain mastery and expertise in our subjects, they need to be capable of making their own connections between what they are learning and the world around them - current events, campus debates, personal experiences. The last five minutes of class represent an ideal opportunity for students to use the course material from that day and brainstorm some new connections.The metacognitive five. We have increasing evidence from the learning sciences that students engage in poor study strategies. Likewise, research shows that most people are plagued by the illusions of fluency. The solution on both fronts is better metacognition - that is, a clearer understanding of our own learning. What if all of us worked together deliberately to achieve that?Close the loop. Finally, go back to any of the strategies I introduced in my recent column on the first five minutes of clas

1) the ways they currently implement Twitter in their teaching and learning, 2) ideas for future development of Twitter-based assignments and pedagogical practices, and 3) issues concerning the integration of Twitter and other digital media into both traditional and non-traditional pedagogies. Collaborators should feel free to add material to these pages, to comment on existing material, and to share links to relevant external readings and resources. It may be helpful to tag your contributions with your Twitter handle. Collaborators are asked to please respect this space as a forum for open and respectful dialogue and networking. Let's fill up the pages below with great ideas!  Share the ways you currently implement Twitter in your teaching and learning: Students in my course New Information Technologies do an "Internet Censorship" project, focused on a specific country. I ask them to follow a journalist who tweets on that country as part of their research to understand the state of Internet freedom in the country they select. -- Lora Since shortly after Twitter was launched, I've experimented with various iterations of "The Twitter Essay," an assignment that has students considering the nature of the "essay" as a medium and how they might do that work within the space of 140 characters. -- Jesse (@Jessifer) In my fully online classes, I've started using Twitter to replace the discussion forum as the central location for student interaction. -- Jesse (@Jessifer) Show Tweets that have gotten people arrested and prompt discussion on whether it is fair that anyone be arrested for any Tweet in the US, who is likely to be arrested for their Tweets, what kinds of Tweets are likely to prompt arrest, etc. Students in my First Year Seminar course "The Irish Imagination: Yeats to Bono" developed a platform for digital annotation of Irish literature. Embedded in their platform was a twitter feed of relevant individuals/groups, m

1) the ways they currently implement Twitter in their teaching and learning, 2) ideas for future development of Twitter-based assignments and pedagogical practices, and 3) issues concerning the integration of Twitter and other digital media into both traditional and non-traditional pedagogies. Collaborators should feel free to add material to these pages, to comment on existing material, and to share links to relevant external readings and resources. It may be helpful to tag your contributions with your Twitter handle. Collaborators are asked to please respect this space as a forum for open and respectful dialogue and networking. Let's fill up the pages below with great ideas!  Share the ways you currently implement Twitter in your teaching and learning: Students in my course New Information Technologies do an "Internet Censorship" project, focused on a specific country. I ask them to follow a journalist who tweets on that country as part of their research to understand the state of Internet freedom in the country they select. -- Lora Since shortly after Twitter was launched, I've experimented with various iterations of "The Twitter Essay," an assignment that has students considering the nature of the "essay" as a medium and how they might do that work within the space of 140 characters. -- Jesse (@Jessifer) In my fully online classes, I've started using Twitter to replace the discussion forum as the central location for student interaction. -- Jesse (@Jessifer) Show Tweets that have gotten people arrested and prompt discussion on whether it is fair that anyone be arrested for any Tweet in the US, who is likely to be arrested for their Tweets, what kinds of Tweets are likely to prompt arrest, etc. Students in my First Year Seminar course "The Irish Imagination: Yeats to Bono" developed a platform for digital annotation of Irish literature. Embedded in their platform was a twitter feed of relevant individuals/groups, m

"Back in the 1980s, a group of social workers in Jamaica visited low-income homes one hour a week for two years, bearing age-appropriate toys for the kids and advice on child rearing for the parents. Researchers tracked the outcomes, and a generation later, the results are in. The children whose homes were visited by social workers became adults who earn wages that are 25 percent higher than those earned by peers who had not been visited. Their I.Q.s are an average seven points higher, and they are less likely to resort to crime or suffer from depression. Other studies, including several recent ones in the United States, have shown similar results, contributing to a consensus on the importance of early childhood development that has led governments around the world to increase spending on the first five years of life. In Latin America and the Caribbean, a region of longstanding social and economic inequality, several countries have been especially ambitious. Brazil and Chile doubled the coverage of day care services over the past decade, while in Ecuador they grew sixfold. These investments build on historic gains in child nutrition and health. But while Latin American children are now healthier and more likely to attend preschool, they still lag far behind in learning, particularly in the areas of language and cognition, when compared with their counterparts in wealthy countries. What are we doing wrong? ..."

"Back in the 1980s, a group of social workers in Jamaica visited low-income homes one hour a week for two years, bearing age-appropriate toys for the kids and advice on child rearing for the parents. Researchers tracked the outcomes, and a generation later, the results are in. The children whose homes were visited by social workers became adults who earn wages that are 25 percent higher than those earned by peers who had not been visited. Their I.Q.s are an average seven points higher, and they are less likely to resort to crime or suffer from depression. Other studies, including several recent ones in the United States, have shown similar results, contributing to a consensus on the importance of early childhood development that has led governments around the world to increase spending on the first five years of life. In Latin America and the Caribbean, a region of longstanding social and economic inequality, several countries have been especially ambitious. Brazil and Chile doubled the coverage of day care services over the past decade, while in Ecuador they grew sixfold. These investments build on historic gains in child nutrition and health. But while Latin American children are now healthier and more likely to attend preschool, they still lag far behind in learning, particularly in the areas of language and cognition, when compared with their counterparts in wealthy countries. What are we doing wrong? ..."

Artículo en inglés... "Mobile devices as teaching tools are becoming a more and more common part of the American education experience in classrooms, from preschool through graduate school. A recent Pew Research Center survey found that 58% of U.S. teachers own smartphones - 10 percentage points higher than the national average for adults. Those teachers are building that tech-savviness into their lesson plans, too, by embracing bring-your-own-device policies and leading the push for an iPad for every student. In 2013, an estimated 25% of U.S. schools had BYOD policies in place and it's reasonable to assume those numbers have risen in the past two years. ..."

Artículo en inglés... "Mobile devices as teaching tools are becoming a more and more common part of the American education experience in classrooms, from preschool through graduate school. A recent Pew Research Center survey found that 58% of U.S. teachers own smartphones - 10 percentage points higher than the national average for adults. Those teachers are building that tech-savviness into their lesson plans, too, by embracing bring-your-own-device policies and leading the push for an iPad for every student. In 2013, an estimated 25% of U.S. schools had BYOD policies in place and it's reasonable to assume those numbers have risen in the past two years. ..."