proprietary online platform developed to apply pedagogical practices that have been studied and vetted by one of the world’s foremost psychologists, a former Harvard dean named Stephen M. Kosslyn, who joined Minerva in 2012.
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Discovering How to Learn Smarter | MindShift - 100 views
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Stanford psychologist Carol Dweck conducted the groundbreaking research showing that praise intended to raise young people's self-esteem can seriously backfire. When we tell children, "You're so smart," we communicate the message that they'd better not take risks or make mistakes, lest they reveal that they're not so smart after all. Dweck calls this cautious attitude the "fixed mindset," and she's found that it's associated with greater anxiety and reduced achievement. Students with a "growth mindset," on the other hand, believe that intelligence can be expanded with hard work and persistence, and they view challenges as invigorating and even fun. They're more resilient in the face of setbacks, and they do better academically. Now Dweck has designed a program, called Brainology, which aims to help students develop a growth mindset. Its website explains: "Brainology makes this happen by teaching students how the brain functions, learns, and remembers, and how it changes in a physical way when we exercise it. Brainology shows students that they are in control of their brain and its development." That's a crucial message to pass on to children, and it's not just empty words of encouragement-it's supported by cutting-edge research on neuroplasticity, which shows that the brain changes and grows when we learn new things. You, and your child, can learn to be smarter.
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34 Brilliant Free Icon Sets for Designers and Developers - DzineBlog.com - 101 views
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The Importance of Fluency and Automaticity for Efficient Reading - 43 views
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The reading process involves two separate but highly interrelated areas - word identification and comprehension. It is well established that difficulties in automatic word recognition significantly affect a reader's ability to effectively comprehend what they are reading (Lyon, 1995; Torgeson, Rashotte, and Alexander, 2001). Even mild difficulties in word identification can pull attention away from the underlying meaning, reduce the speed of reading, and create the need to reread selections to grasp the meaning. Many students who struggle to learn to read are able, with appropriate instruction, to compensate for initial reading problems by becoming accurate decoders but fail to reach a level of sufficient fluency to become fast and efficient readers. Thus, the development of techniques for improving automaticity and fluency is critical. Although the research is clear that a systematic alphabetic approach to teaching beginning readers is more effective than a whole word approach (Adams, 1990; Chall, 1996; Snow, Burns and Griffin, 1009), the most effect ways to develop fluency are less well understood.
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Mobile Learning Academy | Verizon Corporate Responsibility - 34 views
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"Verizon Foundation is launching the Verizon Mobile Learning Academy, a virtual, moderated professional development course offered to teams of educators for free. The course includes five modules developed around ISTE standards. Course modules are designed to help teachers, administrators and tech coaches implement effective mobile learning initiatives in their schools and classrooms. Continuing Education Units (CEUs) will be offered to teachers completing the Verizon Mobile Learning Academy course."
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The Future of College? - The Atlantic - 29 views
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Minerva class extended no refuge for the timid, nor privilege for the garrulous. Within seconds, every student had to provide an answer, and Bonabeau displayed our choices so that we could be called upon to defend them.
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subjecting us to pop quizzes, cold calls, and pedagogical tactics that during an in-the-flesh seminar would have taken precious minutes of class time to arrange.
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felt decidedly unlike a normal classroom. For one thing, it was exhausting: a continuous period of forced engagement, with no relief in the form of time when my attention could flag
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One educational psychologist, Ludy Benjamin, likens lectures to Velveeta cheese—something lots of people consume but no one considers either delicious or nourishing.)
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adically remake one of the most sclerotic sectors of the U.S. economy, one so shielded from the need for improvement that its biggest innovation in the past 30 years has been to double its costs and hire more administrators at higher salaries.
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Lectures, Kosslyn says, are cost-effective but pedagogically unsound. “A great way to teach, but a terrible way to learn.”
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Minerva boast is that it will strip the university experience down to the aspects that are shown to contribute directly to student learning. Lectures, gone. Tenure, gone. Gothic architecture, football, ivy crawling up the walls—gone, gone, gone.
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“Your cash cow is the lecture, and the lecture is over,” he told a gathering of deans. “The lecture model ... will be obliterated.”
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One imagines tumbleweeds rolling through abandoned quads and wrecking balls smashing through the windows of classrooms left empty by students who have plugged into new online platforms.
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Liberal-arts education is about developing the intellectual capacity of the individual, and learning to be a productive member of society. And you cannot do that without a curriculum.”
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“The freshman year [as taught at traditional schools] should not exist,” Nelson says, suggesting that MOOCs can teach the basics. “Do your freshman year at home.”) Instead, Minerva’s first-year classes are designed to inculcate what Nelson calls “habits of mind” and “foundational concepts,” which are the basis for all sound systematic thought. In a science class, for example, students should develop a deep understanding of the need for controlled experiments. In a humanities class, they need to learn the classical techniques of rhetoric and develop basic persuasive skills. The curriculum then builds from that foundation.
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Subsidies, Nelson says, encourage universities to enroll even students who aren’t likely to thrive, and to raise tuition, since federal money is pegged to costs.
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We have numerous sound, reproducible experiments that tell us how people learn, and what teachers can do to improve learning.” Some of the studies are ancient, by the standards of scientific research—and yet their lessons are almost wholly ignored.
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ask a student to explain a concept she has been studying, the very act of articulating it seems to lodge it in her memory. Forcing students to guess the answer to a problem, and to discuss their answers in small groups, seems to make them understand the problem better—even if they guess wrong.
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e traditional concept of “cognitive styles”—visual versus aural learners, those who learn by doing versus those who learn by studying—is muddled and wrong.
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pedagogical best practices Kosslyn has identified have been programmed into the Minerva platform so that they are easy for professors to apply. They are not only easy, in fact, but also compulsory, and professors will be trained intensively in how to use the platform.
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a pop quiz at the beginning of a class and (if the students are warned in advance) another one at a random moment later in the class greatly increases the durability of what is learned.
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he could have alerted colleagues to best practices, but they most likely would have ignored them. “The classroom time is theirs, and it is sacrosanct,
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Minerva’s model, Nelson says, will flourish in part because it will exploit free online content, rather than trying to compete with it, as traditional universities do.
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certain functions of universities have simply become less relevant as information has become more ubiquitous
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MOOCs will continue to get better, until eventually no one will pay Duke or Johns Hopkins for the possibility of a good lecture, when Coursera offers a reliably great one, with hundreds of thousands of five-star ratings, for free.
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It took deep concentration,” he said. “It’s not some lecture class where you can just click ‘record’ on your tape.”
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part of the process of education happens not just through good pedagogy but by having students in places where they see the scholars working and plying their trades.”
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“hydraulic metaphor” of education—the idea that the main task of education is to increase the flow of knowledge into the student—an “old fallacy.”
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I remembered what I was like as a teenager headed off to college, so ignorant of what college was and what it could be, and so reliant on the college itself to provide what I’d need in order to get a good education.
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it is designed to convey not just information, as most MOOCs seem to, but whole mental tool kits that help students become morethoughtful citizens.
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for all the high-minded talk of liberal education— of lighting fires and raising thoughtful citizens—is really just a credential, or an entry point to an old-boys network that gets you your first job and your first lunch with the machers at your alumni club.
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Its seminar platform will challenge professors to stop thinking they’re using technology just because they lecture with PowerPoint.
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professors and students increasingly separated geographically, mediated through technology that alters the nature of the student-teacher relationship
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The idea that college will in two decades look exactly as it does today increasingly sounds like the forlorn, fingers-crossed hope of a higher-education dinosaur that retirement comes before extinction.
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Welcome to Great Source iwrite! - 5 views
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A variety of templates, tutorials, and graphic organizers introduce and explain the major forms of writing (narrative, persuasive, expository, research, response to literature) and help students develop practical writing skills - from coming up with a topic idea to publishing a polished work. Developed in collaboration with Microsoft for Learning Essentials, these tools offer solid instruction from the popular, research-based Write Source series of writing programs.
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shared by Christophe Gigon on 09 Dec 08
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elearnspace. Connectivism: A Learning Theory for the Digital Age - 17 views
www.elearnspace.org/...connectivism.htm
connectivism MEMOIRE learning elearning theory collaboration technology community
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Over the last twenty years, technology has reorganized how we live, how we communicate, and how we learn.
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I aggree that as teachers we need to realize that technology has changed instruction and the way that our students learn and the way that we learn and instruct.
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Technology has always changed the way we live. How did we respond to changes in the past? One thought is that some institutions, some businesses disappeared, while others, who took advantage of the new tech, appeared to replace the old. It will happen again and we as educators need to lead the way.
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With technology our students brains are wired differently and they can multi-task and learn in multiple virtual environments all at once. This should make us think about how we present lessons, structure learning and keep kids engaged.
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Rubbish. The idea that digital native are adept at multitasking is wrong. They may be doing many things but the quality and depth is reduced. There is a significant body of research to support this. Development of grit and determination are key attributes of successful people. Set and demand high standards. No one plays sport or an instrument because it is easy rather because they can clearly see a link between hard work and pleasure.
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Many learners will move into a variety of different, possibly unrelated fields over the course of their lifetime.
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Connectivism is the integration of principles explored by chaos, network, and complexity and self-organization theories.
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Learning and knowledge rests in diversity of opinions. Learning is a process of connecting specialized nodes or information sources. Learning may reside in non-human appliances. Capacity to know more is more critical than what is currently known Nurturing and maintaining connections is needed to facilitate continual learning. Ability to see connections between fields, ideas, and concepts is a core skill. Currency (accurate, up-to-date knowledge) is the intent of all connectivist learning activities. Decision-making is itself a learning process. Choosing what to learn and the meaning of incoming information is seen through the lens of a shifting reality. While there is a right answer now, it may be wrong tomorrow due to alterations in the information climate affecting the decision.
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Classrooms which emulate the “fuzziness”
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John Seely Brown presents an interesting notion that the internet leverages the small efforts of many with the large efforts of few.
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The pipe is more important than the content within the pipe. Our ability to learn what we need for tomorrow is more important than what we know today.
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To combat the shrinking half-life of knowledge, organizations have been forced to develop new methods of deploying instruction.”
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a persisting change in human performance or performance potential…[which] must come about as a result of the learner’s experience and interaction with the world”
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Learning theories are concerned with the actual process of learning, not with the value of what is being learned.
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Chaos is the breakdown of predictability, evidenced in complicated arrangements that initially defy order.
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If the underlying conditions used to make decisions change, the decision itself is no longer as correct as it was at the time it was made.
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principle that people, groups, systems, nodes, entities can be connected to create an integrated whole.
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Learning is a process that occurs within nebulous environments of shifting core elements – not entirely under the control of the individual
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Behaviorism, cognitivism, and constructivism do not attempt to address the challenges of organizational knowledge and transference.
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The health of the learning ecology of the organization depends on effective nurturing of information flow.
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This cycle of knowledge development (personal to network to organization) allows learners to remain current in their field through the connections they have formed.
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This amplification of learning, knowledge and understanding through the extension of a personal network is the epitome of connectivism.
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An organizations ability to foster, nurture, and synthesize the impacts of varying views of information is critical to knowledge economy surviva
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As knowledge continues to grow and evolve, access to what is needed is more important than what the learner currently possesses.
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Journal of Media Literacy Education - 47 views
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The Journal of Media Literacy Education is an online interdisciplinary journal that supports the development of research, scholarship and the pedagogy of media literacy education. The journal provides a forum for established and emerging scholars, media professionals and educational practitioners in and out of schools. As an extended conceptualization of literacy, media literacy education helps individuals of all ages develop habits of inquiry and skills of expression needed to become critical thinkers, effective communicators and active citizens in a world where mass media, popular culture and digital technologies play an important role for individuals and society. The Journal of Media Literacy Education is sponsored by the National Association for Media Literacy Education (NAMLE). Visit NAMLE at www.namle.net
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Online Professional Development | iEARN-USA: International Education and Resource Network - 41 views
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Intel Education - For K12 Education - 83 views
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Website put together by Intel that contains a vast amount of professional development resources (examples, theories, positive practice) for educators. Below is Intel's description of the page:\n\nIntel® Education enables 21st century teaching and learning through free professional development, tools, and resources that help K-12 teachers engage students with effective use of technology.
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Intel® Education enables 21st century teaching and learning through free professional development, tools, and resources that help K-12 teachers engage students with effective use of technology.
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Wired Up: Tuned out | Scholastic.com - 0 views
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Compared to us, I believe their brains have developed differently," says Sheehy. "If we teach them the way we were taught, we're not serving them well."
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children were much more likely to have connections between brain regions close together while older subjects were more likely to feature links between parts of the brain that are physically farther apart.
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Recent reports from the Pew Internet and American Life Project show that 93 percent of youth ages 12 to 17 go online. Of those kids, 55 percent use social-networking sites (like Facebook and MySpace), and 64 percent are creating their own original content (such as blogs and wikis)
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Unlike watching television, using the Internet allows young people to take an active role; this move from consumption to participation affects the way they construct knowledge, develop their identity, and communicate with others.
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"It's a shift from how to memorize and retrieve data in one's mind to how to search for and evaluate information out in the world
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"Computers give you different ways to solve problems, the opportunity to run and test simulations, and a way to offload processing. . . . We need kids to think about problems in innovative and creative ways. We need to change the emphasis of education to focus on higher-order kinds of thinking."
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Even if we're duplicating a real-life scenario in a virtual environment, the fact that students are engaged with technology and performing through a semblance of anonymity lends itself to a deeper level of discourse.
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"If we fail to do so, our kids are going to look at what they're learning in schools and see that it is irrelevant to the future they see before them."
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Davis says today's teachers are seeking information when they need it instead of waiting for more formal professional development workshops.
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acob is your average American 11-year-old. He has a television and a Nintendo DS in his bedroom; his family also has two computers, a wireless Internet connection, and a PlayStation 3. His parents rely on e-mail, instant messaging, and Skype for daily communication, and they're avid users of Tivo and Netflix. Jacob has asked for a Wii for his upcoming birthday. His selling point? "Mom and Dad, we can use the Wii Fit and race Mario Karts together!"
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Student Instructor Program - 0 views
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NCTE's Student/Instructor Program helps introduce pre-service teachers to the networking, resources, professional development, and collegiality of our profession. This member service allows teacher educators to share the latest developments and newest resources in English language arts with their students.
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Frames - Animation and Digital Storytelling Software | Tech4Learning - 6 views
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Introducing Frames 4! Frames is educational software for stop-motion animation, claymation, and digital storytelling. Creating illustrated animations, movies and digital stories engages students in the curriculum, encourages problem-solving, promotes creativity, and helps students develop 21st-century communication skills. Students can use Frames to create movies, animated GIF files, and Flash animations to share with the world.
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dents more than creating clay animation. With Frames as the foundation in the Clay Animation Kit, this motivating process transforms your classroom into an active learning
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Communicating visually is an essential 21st-century skill. With Frames integrated drawing tools, students can illustrate their own animated diagrams, graphs, procedures, and more, helping them understand concepts that are difficult to explain using text alone. (L
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ents more than creating clay animation! Use Frames to transform your classroom into an active learning environment and begin having your student develop exciting cross-curricular group projects that incorporate writing and technology skills. (Learn More)
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Educational Leadership:How Teachers Learn:Learning with Blogs and Wikis - 2 views
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What makes professional development even more frustrating to practitioners is that most of the programs we are exposed to are drawn directly from the latest craze sweeping the business world. In the past 10 years, countless schools have read Who Moved My Cheese?, studied The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, learned to have "Crucial Conversations," and tried to move "from Good to Great."
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With the investment of a bit of time and effort, I've found a group of writers to follow who expose me to more interesting ideas in one day than I've been exposed to in the past 10 years of costly professional development. Professional growth for me starts with 20 minutes of blog browsing each morning, sifting through the thoughts of practitioners whom I might never have been able to learn from otherwise and considering how their work translates into what I do with students.
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This learning has been uniquely authentic, driven by personal interests and connected to classroom realities. Blogs have introduced a measure of differentiation and challenge to my professional learning plan that had long been missing. I wrestle over the characteristics of effective professional development with Patrick Higgins (http://chalkdust101.wordpress.com) and the elements of high-quality instruction for middle grades students with Dina Strasser (http://theline.edublogs.org). Scott McLeod (www.dangerouslyirrelevant.org) forces me to think about driving school change from the system level; and Nancy Flanagan (http://teacherleaders.typepad.com/teacher_in_a_strange_land) helps me understand the connections between education policy and classroom practice. John Holland (http://circle-time.blogspot.com) and Larry Ferlazzo, Brian Crosby, and Alice Mercer (http://inpractice.edublogs.org) open my eyes to the challenges of working in high-needs communities.
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If you're not sure where to begin, explore the blogs that I've organized in my professional Pageflake at www.pageflakes.com/wferriter/16618841. I read these blogs all the time. Some leave me challenged. Some leave me angry. Some leave me jazzed. All leave me energized and ready to learn more. School leaders may be interested in the collection of blogs at www.pageflakes.com/wferriter/23697456.
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A power shift is underway and a tough new business rule is emerging: Harness the new collaboration or perish. Those who fail to grasp this will find themselves ever more isolated—cut off from the networks that are sharing, adapting, and updating knowledge to create value. (Kindle location 268–271)
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Hans Rosling | Profile on TED.com - 23 views
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Rosling's presentations are grounded in solid statistics (often drawn from United Nations data), illustrated by the visualization software he developed. The animations transform development statistics into moving bubbles and flowing curves that make global trends clear, intuitive and even playful. During his legendary presentations, Rosling takes this one step farther, narrating the animations with a sportscaster's flair.
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Virtual Nerd has the best interactive math and science video tutorials to help high sch... - 82 views
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National Association of Partners in Education - 7 views
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For over 30 years, the National Association of PARTNERS IN EDUCATION has been an objective voice in developing school volunteer, intergenerational, community service, and business partnership programs throughout the United States. Originally the National School Volunteer Program, the organization took its present name in 1988 when it assumed responsibility for the annual National Symposium on Partnerships in Education. Currently, it is the only national membership organization devoted solely to providing leadership in the field of education partnership development. (NOTE: no rep for KY)
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The Future of Learning: An Interview with Alfred Bork - 82 views
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active environment maintains student interest for a long period of time, even with difficult learning material.
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the computer, keeping detailed records on student performance and using these records in making decisions about what is next to be presented to the student.
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In our traditional learning environments, some students learn and some do not. It is this second group of students that we want to help.
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, on a moment-to-moment basis, just what the student knows and just what learning problems are occurring
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key concept for structuring highly interactive learning experiences is the Benjamin Bloom concept of mastery learning.
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A student who has not learned in one way probably needs a different approach, rather than another go-round with the material that was not previously successful in assisting learning.
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In such an environment, learning and evaluation are no longer separate activities but are part of the same process, intimately blended. So the student is not conscious of taking tests, and we avoid the problems of cheating.
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highly interactive learning is intrinsically motivating. Motivation is particularly important in a distance-learning environment, since none of the "threats" of the classroom, such as low grades, are available.
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mastery-based computer segment could also offer human contact. Small groups could work together, either locally or remotely via electronic communication.
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existing authoring systems. Since they were, and still are, mostly directed toward supplying information, these were inadequate for creating highly interactive software.
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Teaching faculty, in the sense that we know them today, may cease to exist, except for in smaller, advanced courses. But their skills and experiences will be important in the design of learning modules.
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highly effective highly interactive distance-learning courses would have a large potential market, making them much cheaper per student than current courses, and if well developed, they will be much superior for almost all students
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The typical approach is to give some released time to faculty and to give limited support for programming and media production. It is unlikely, almost impossible, that good learning material will be developed this way.
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Universities are too stuck in their current ways of doing things to be able to compete with well-developed material from "outside." Most university faculty and administrators do not appreciate the current problems of learning and so are not prepared for these future directions.