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Jason Schmidt

School Would Be Great If It Weren't for the Damn Kids - 95 views

  • It simply doesn’t make sense to try to “purge ‘ineffective’ teachers and principals.”  His listener, almost giddy with gratitude now, prepares to chime in, as Samuelson, without pausing, delivers the punch line:  That’s right, it’s time to stop blaming teachers and start . . . blaming students!
  • His focus is not on students’ achievements (the intellectual accomplishments of individual kids) but only on “student achievement” (the aggregate results of standardized tests)
  • As I’ve noted elsewhere, we have reason to worry when schooling is discussed primarily in the context of “global competitiveness” rather than in terms of what children need or what contributes to a democratic culture
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  • Upon hearing someone castigate students for being insufficiently motivated, a noneconomist might be inclined to ask two questions.  The first is:  “Motivated to do what, exactly”?  Anything they’re told, no matter how unengaging, inappropriate, or, well, demotivating? 
  • Whenever I see students made to cram facts into their short-term memories for a test, practice a series of decontextualized skills on yet another worksheet, listen passively to a lecture, or inch their way through the insipid prose of a corporate-produced textbook, I find myself thinking of a comment made by Frederick Herzberg, a critic of traditional workplace management:  “Idleness, indifference, and irresponsibility,” he said, “are healthy responses to absurd work.”
  • The more you reward people for doing something, or for doing it well, the less interest they typically come to have in whatever they had to do to get the reward. 
  • People who blame students for not being “motivated” tend to think educational success mean little more than higher scores on bad tests and they’re apt to see education itself as a means to making sure our corporations will beat their corporations.  The sort of schooling that results is the type almost guaranteed to . . . kill students’ motivation.
  • one thing that’s happened is a concatenation of rewards and punishments, including grades, which teach students that learning is just a means to an end.
  • Another thing that’s happened is teaching that’s meant primarily to raise test scores.
  • inner-city kids get the worst of the sort of schooling that’s not about exploring and discovering and questioning but only about working hard (often at rote tasks) and being nice (read: obedient).
  • “Motivation is weak because more students…don't like school, don't work hard and don't do well.”  But why don’t they like school (which is the key to understanding why, assuming his premise is correct, they don’t succeed)?  What has happened to their desire to figure out how things work, the hunger to make sense of things, with which all children start out? 
  • if you want to see (intrinsically) motivated kids, you need to visit classrooms or schools that take a nontraditional approach to education, places where students are more likely to be absorbed and frequently delighted, where what they’re doing is not merely “rigorous” (a word often applied to very difficult busywork) but meaningful.
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    Alfie Kohn's commentary on an article written by Robert J. Samuelson. Samuelson argues in his article that the problem with education reform is not the usual suspects like ineffective teachers, but kids who are lazy and unmotivated. Interesting read with thoughtful information about student motivation.
anonymous

April Fool's Resources on Edutopia via Common Core & Ed Tech - 61 views

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    An interesting list from Edutopia, plus some brief commentary...
GP withMdmLin

Abortion laws cannot hinge on when life 'begins' - 15 views

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    In his letter, "Arguments that should be aborted" (April 3), Mr Devathas Satianathan states that it is unclear how Associate Professor Tan Seow Hon's religious view is relevant. From Edwin Dai Weiyun - 03 April In his letter, "Arguments that should be aborted" (April 3), Mr Devathas Satianathan states that it is unclear how Associate Professor Tan Seow Hon's religious view is relevant. However, I would ask if her premise is that life begins at six weeks from conception, or possibly earlier, an interpretation that would be informed by her religious views. To say that her view on this has no bearing on her commentary is intellectual dishonesty. She also cited recent legislative developments in North Dakota, a Bible Belt state. Mr Jason Cheng responded, in "Let pregnant women make their own moral choices" (April 2), that six weeks is insufficient time for women to detect their pregnancy, which basically results in a de facto ban on abortion. Mr Devathas argues that, in the balance between preserving a baby's life and a mother's choice, Mr Cheng fails to acknowledge the former. Ironically, Mr Devathas fails to acknowledge the latter. Where he discusses a valid point is in the question: When does life begin? Answers to such a question, though, are varied across society and influenced by the religious views, or a lack thereof, of the individual. It is unwise and unconstitutional for the State to legislate or endorse the moral views of any religious group over other members of society. People who hold strong pro-life views are free to bring their babies to full term. The same liberty should be accorded to people who hold pro-choice views."
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    This does not seems to be educational but maybe I misunderstood what would be fed to me through diigo. In any event since it come through, I pose this philosophical non-religious question: If you were 2 weeks pregnant and I punched you in the stomach which in turn killed the fetus, it would definitely be assault on you, but should I be criminally responsible for the fetus? If so, why?
Margaret FalerSweany

The Myths of Technology Series - "Technology equals engagement" - 73 views

  • The Myths of Technology Series – “Technology equals engagement”
  • As educators, we have to be able to differentiate between “novelty” and “engagement”; they often look the same at the beginning, but one will quickly fade.
  • Compliance – Do this because I told you. Engagement – Do this because you are excited. Empowerment – Do this because you have the power to do something meaningful for yourself.
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  • engagement” should not be the highest bar we set for our students.  If we can develop meaningful learning opportunities that empower our students to make a difference, our impact will go beyond their time they spent in our classrooms.  Technology alone will never provide this.  We need great educators that think differently about the opportunities we now have in our world and will take advantage of what we have in front of us, and help to create these experiences for our students to do something powerful.
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    One of a series of commentaries on the relationship between technology and learning. The comments here raise questions worth thinking about.
Donal O' Mahony

…Reading digital material - 6 views

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    A commentary on PISA In Focus 12....Are boys and girls ready for the digital age?
Sean Flynn

reason.tv - 1 views

shared by Sean Flynn on 23 May 12 - Cached
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    videos and commentary on free market responses to economic issues
ron houtman

Educreations Interactive Whiteboard - 8 views

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    Educreations turns your iPad into a recordable whiteboard. Creating a great video tutorial is as simple as touching, tapping and talking. Explain a math formula... Create an animated lesson... Add commentary to your photos... Diagram a sports play... With voice recording, realistic digital ink, photo imports, and simple sharing through email, Facebook or Twitter, now you can broadcast your ideas from anywhere.
Cammy Torgenrud

Learning to Slow Down - 116 views

  • Students must still learn to communicate complex ideas. They must be able to create entire thoughts that run together in recognizable patterns in order to function in school and at work. Most importantly, they must be able to master this skill to participate as informed citizens in our shared civil discourse. Students who are flooded by facts think that the best way to answer a question is to search for more facts instead of organizing and marshalling the information they already have to develop a strong case. As long as the Internet is readily available, a search is faster and easier than a thoughtful and challenging discussion.
  • When my students learn to be nuanced, when they learn to listen carefully and find agreement, those are human tasks. When they learn to disagree carefully and logically, those are human tasks. These interactions that take place at the speed of conversation are essential building blocks for survival in the 21st or any other century.
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    A thoughtful commentary on the need to help students value deliberation and "brain pacing" rather than just "internet retrieval speed."
Florence Dujardin

Beyond natives and immigrants: exploring types of net generation students - Kennedy - 2... - 33 views

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    Abstract: Previously assumed to be a homogenous and highly skilled group with respect to information and communications technology, the so-called Net Generation has instead been shown to possess a diverse range of technology skills and preferences. To better understand this diversity, we subjected data from 2096 students aged between 17 and 26 from three Australian universities to a cluster analysis. Through this analysis, we identified four distinct types of technology users: power users (14% of sample), ordinary users (27%), irregular users (14%) and basic users (45%). A series of exploratory chi-square analyses revealed significant associations between the different types of technology users and the university that students attended, their gender and age and whether the student was local or international. No associations were found for analyses related discipline area, socio-economic status or rurality of residence. The findings are discussed in light of the rhetoric associated with commentaries about the Net Generation, and suggestions about their implications for teaching and learning in universities are offered.
Jenny Darrow

Facebook's Eroding Privacy Policy: A Timeline | Electronic Frontier Foundation - 41 views

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    Facebook's Eroding Privacy Policy: A Timeline Commentary by Kurt Opsahl Since its incorporation just over five years ago, Facebook has undergone a remarkable transformation. When it started, it was a private space for communication with a group of your choice. Soon, it transformed into a platform where much of your information is public by default. Today, it has become a platform where you have no choice but to make certain information public, and this public information may be shared by Facebook with its partner websites and used to target ads.
Deb White Groebner

Education Week: Will We Ever Learn? - 37 views

  • All students should master a verifiable set of skills, but not necessarily the same skills. Part of the reason high schools fail so many kids is that educators can’t get free of the notion that all students—regardless of their career aspirations—need the same basic preparation. States are piling on academic courses, removing the arts, and downplaying career and technical education to make way for a double portion of math. Meanwhile, career-focused programs, such as Wisconsin’s youth apprenticeships and well-designed career academies, are engaging students and raising their post-high-school earnings, especially among hard-to-reach, at-risk male students.
  • Maintaining our one-size-fits-all approach will hurt many of the kids we are trying most to help. Maybe that approach, exemplified in the push for common standards, will simply lead to yet more unmet education goals. But it won’t reduce, and might increase, the already high rate at which students drop out of school, or graduate without the skills and social behaviors required for career success.
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    Well-written commentary for anyone interested in the impact of Common Core Standards. "What's Wrong With the Common-Standards Project" "We need rigorous but basic academics, homing in on skills that will be used, and not short-shrifting the "soft skill" behaviors that lead to success in college and careers. The management guru Peter Drucker got it right: "The result of a school is a student who has learned something and puts it to work 10 years later."
Marita Thomson

Gamification Blog - 42 views

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    GamificationCo is your one stop for the latest news, insight, research and commentary on gamification. Come here to find the best technology providers, read about the most exciting companies, attend one of our events and workshops, or just connect with experts.
Misha Miller

Using Groups Effectively: 10 Principles » Edurati Review - 50 views

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    "Conversation is key . Sawyer succinctly explains this principle: "Conversation leads to flow, and flow leads to creativity." When having students work in groups, consider what will spark rich conversation. The original researcher on flow, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, found that rich conversation precedes and ignites flow more than any other activity.1 Tasks that require (or force) interaction lead to richer collaborative conceptualization. Set a clear but open-ended goal . Groups produce the richest ideas when they have a goal that will focus their interaction but also has fluid enough boundaries to allow for creativity. This is a challenge we often overlook. As teachers, we often have an idea of what a group's final product should look like (or sound like, or…). If we put students into groups to produce a predetermined outcome, we prevent creative thinking from finding an entry point. Try not announcing time limits. As teachers we often use a time limit as a "motivator" that we hope will keep group work focused. In reality, this may be a major detractor from quality group work. Deadlines, according to Sawyer, tend to impede flow and produce lower quality results. Groups produce their best work in low-pressure situations. Without a need to "keep one eye on the clock," the group's focus can be fully given to the task. Do not appoint a group "leader." In research studies, supervisors, or group leaders, tend to subvert flow unless they participate as an equal, listening and allowing the group's thoughts and decisions to guide the interaction. Keep it small. Groups with the minimum number of members that are needed to accomplish a task are more efficient and effective. Consider weaving together individual and group work. For additive tasks-tasks in whicha group is expectedtoproduce a list, adding one idea to another-research suggests that better results develop
James Allen

Talking History - 96 views

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    Talking History, based at the University at Albany, State University of New York, is a production, distribution, and instructional center for all forms of "aural" history. Our mission is to provide teachers, students, researchers and the general public with as broad and outstanding a collection of audio documentaries, speeches, debates, oral histories, conference sessions, commentaries, archival audio sources, and other aural history resources as is available anywhere.
Nigel Coutts

The challenge of educating for unknown unknowns - The Learner's Way - 6 views

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    It is almost precisely eighteen years since Donald Rumsfeld uttered his now well-regarded commentary on the danger of "unknown unknowns". At the time his remarks brought more confusion than clarity and reinforced for many a belief that politicians use words to conceal the truth. Somehow though, Donald's words from 2002 seem to fit the world of today, and the challenges confronting educators all too well.
Cindy Edwards

U.S. Copyright Office - Can I Use Someone Else's Work? Can Someone Else Use Mine? (FAQ) - 23 views

  • You can ask for it
  • Under the fair use doctrine of the U.S. copyright statute, it is permissible to use limited portions of a work including quotes, for purposes such as commentary, criticism, news reporting, and scholarly reports.
  • is protected by federal copyright law upon creation
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  • in the absence of clear information to the contrary, most works may be assumed to be protected by federal copyright law.
Steven Szalaj

What changed my mind about the Fourth of July - chicagotribune.com - 25 views

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    An essay on freedom in America, and particularly in journalism and education
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