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This article from Anthropology News discusses Prof. Michael Wesch's 2008 presentation at the Library of Congress - An Anthropological Introduction to YouTube. It is worth a read, especially with regard to the last statement, "

Admittedly, peer grading is not the same as grading by an expert who really knows the material. But it is better than nothing! In fact, done conscientiously, using a well designed rubric, it's a lot better than you might think, particularly when the results are compared with grading by an instructor who has a large number of assignments to grade in a limited amount of time! In some studies, students were observed to learn better when they were asked to actively assess their answers and those of their peers according to the instructor's rubric. In particular, students who self-graded using a rubric outperformed students who were graded by instructors.

Critical thinking...the awakening of the intellect to the study of itself. Critical thinking is a rich concept that has been developing throughout the past 2500 years. The term "critical thinking" has its roots in the mid-late 20th century. We offer here overlapping definitions, together which form a substantive, transdisciplinary conception of critical thinking. This is a very good site to study the meaning behind the terms. What do we mean by critical thinking? How do we know when students are engaged in it? What are the outcomes of teaching critical thinking?

Tip: Press ctrl and F (or Command and F on a Mac) to perform a keyword search of this page. To keyword search all Best of History Web Sites pages use the search engine located on each page.

For more history and social studies lesson plans, also check out http://thwt.org - Teaching History with Technology

Wonder if there are parallel implications in math?

There are actually! Come by my office and check out the book: Whistling Vivaldi by Claude Steele who's work these studies are based on. There are also really interesting results that pertain to race and stereotype threat which can inform our teaching practices to cater to students most impacted...

Some evidence that 100% "time on task" might actually be counterproductive if you want to develop creativity.

Thanks Chris. I'm currently reading Jonah Lehrer's "Imagine: How Creativity Works." lots of tie-ins with this research (Kounios is one of his main sources). I wonder if we can build such mind- wandering into our classes...do physics labs allow for "deliberate zoning out time"? Probably not.

Great videos in all subjects, listed in title order

Interesting use of a data set.

Sponsored by the George Lucas Education Foundation, this is a great resource for research as well as case studies of best practices. They have a feature section on Project Based Learning.

Beth: One of my favorite sites, good resources, good blogs, and plenty of good ideas under key educational issues. Bob

Creative Teaching provides useful tips, suggestions, lesson plans and worksheets to creatively teach children at the elementary- and middle-school grade levels, along with suggested resources for parents and teachers. The information and materials cover content areas including reading, writing, math, science and social studies. We hope you find these useful in both classroom and homeschool environments.

Richard Byrne, award winning social studies teacher from Maine, posts 4-5 new resources every day. His blog is an amazing resource for finding tools to use in the classroom.

Thanks for sharing this Beth! Did you get my message about your upcoming visit to Atlanta and trying to get together. Bob

OK, this is a biology game, but image the power of a math game that could accomplish what this does for cell biology.

OK! I just played the game, Cell Craft. Very interesting and potentially a good classroom or study tool to make the learning of cellular respiration interesting. What do you all think?