Group items tagged

in the basic forms, as well as in the content of people's thinking.

The early 1930

had experienced the conditions necessary to alter radically the content and form of their thought.

we expected that they would display a predominance of those forms of thought that come from activity that is guided by the physical features of familiar objects.

Therefore we began, as most field work with people does, by emphasizing contact with the people who would serve as our subjects. We tried to establish friendly relations so that experimental sessions seemed natural and non-threatening. We were particularly careful not to conduct hasty or unprepared presentations of the test materials.

As a rule, our experimental sessions began with long conversations which were sometimes repeated with the subjects in the relaxed atmosphere of a tea house, where the villagers spent most of their free time, or in camps in the field and in mountain pastures around the evening campfire. These talks were frequently held in groups. Even when the interviews were held with one person, the experimenter and other subjects made up a group of two or three who listened attentively to the person being interviewed and who sometimes offered remarks or comments on what he said. The talk often took the form of a free-flowing exchange of opinion between participants, and a particular problem might be solved simultaneously by two or three subjects, each proposing an answer. Only gradually did the experimenters introduce the prepared tasks, which resembled the “riddles” familiar to the population and therefore seemed like a natural extension of the conversation.

He characterized primitive thinking as “prelogical” and “loosely organized.” Primitive people were said to be indifferent to logical contradiction and dominated by the idea that mystical forces control natural phenomena

We conceived the idea of carrying out the first far-reaching study of intellectual functions among adults from a non-technological non-literate, traditional society

hamlets

nomad

1. Women living in remote villages who were illiterate and who were not involved in any modern social activities. There were still a considerable number of such women at the time our study was made. Their interviews were conducted by women, since they alone had the right to enter the women's quarters. 2. Peasants living in remote villages who were in no way involved with socialized labor and who continued to maintain an individualistic economy. These peasants were not literate. 3. Women who attended short-term courses in the teaching of kindergarteners. As a rule, they had no formal schooling and almost no training in literacy. 4. Active kolhoz (collective farm) workers and young people who had taken short courses. They were involved as chairmen running collective farms, as holders of other offices on the, collective farm, or as brigade leaders. They had considerable experience in planning production, distributing labor, and taking stock of output. By dealing with other collective farm members, they had acquired a much broader outlook than isolated peasants. But they had attended school only briefly, and many were still barely literate. 5. Women students admitted to teachers school after two or three years of study. Their educational qualifications, however, were still fairly low.

Short-term psychological experiments would have been highly problematic under the field conditions we expected to encounter

district was innovating

there is no good way to quantify those achievements — putting them in a tough spot with voters deciding whether to bankroll this approach again

“We’ve jumped on bandwagons for different eras without knowing fully what we’re doing. This might just be the new bandwagon,” he said. “I hope not.”

$46.3 million for laptops, classroom projectors, networking gear and other technology for teachers and administrators.

If we know something works

it is hard to separate the effect of the laptops from the effect of the teacher training

The high-level analyses that sum up these various studies, not surprisingly, give researchers pause about whether big investments in technology make sense.

Good teachers, he said, can make good use of computers, while bad teachers won’t, and they and their students could wind up becoming distracted by the technology.

“It’s not the stuff that counts — it’s what you do with it that matters.”

“Test scores are the same, but look at all the other things students are doing: learning to use the Internet to research, learning to organize their work, learning to use professional writing tools, learning to collaborate with others.”

that computers can distract and not instruct.

“They’re inundated with 24/7 media, so they expect it,”

The 30 students in the classroom held wireless clickers into which they punched their answers. Seconds later, a pie chart appeared on the screen: 23 percent answered “True,” 70 percent “False,” and 6 percent didn’t know.

rofessor Cuban at Stanford argues that keeping children engaged requires an environment of constant novelty, which cannot be sustained.

engagement is a “fluffy

term” that can slide past critical analysis.

creating an impetus to rethink education entirely

guide on the side.

Professor Cuban at Stanford

But she loves the fact that her two children, a fourth-grader and first-grader, are learning technology, including PowerPoint

“There is a connection between the physical hand on the paper and the words on the page,” she said. “It’s intimate.”

Mr. Share bases his buying decisions on two main factors: what his teachers tell him they need, and his experience. For instance, he said he resisted getting the interactive whiteboards sold as Smart Boards until, one day in 2008, he saw a teacher trying to mimic the product with a jury-rigged projector setup. “It was an ‘Aha!’ moment,” he said, leading him to buy Smart Boards, made by a company called Smart Technologies.

This is big business.

“Do we really need technology to learn?” she said. “It’s a very valid time to ask the question, right before this goes on the ballot.”

“So much of the learning that we do now is unsupervised, on our own,” said Robert A. Bjork, a psychologist at the University of California, Los Angeles, “that it’s crucial to be able to monitor that learning accurately; that is, to know how well we know what we know, so that we avoid fooling ourselves.”

“Studying something in the presence of an answer, whether it’s conscious or not, influences how you interpret the question,” Dr. Bjork said. “You don’t appreciate all of the other things that would have come to mind if the answer weren’t there. “Let’s say you’re studying capitals and you see that Australia’s is Canberra. O.K., that seems easy enough. But when the exam question appears, you think: ‘Uh oh, was it Sydney? Melbourne? Adelaide?’ ” That’s why some experts are leery of students’ increasing use of online sites like Cramster, Course Hero, Koofers and others that offer summaries, step-by-step problem solving and copies of previous exams. The extra help may provide a valuable supplement to a difficult or crowded course, but it could also leave students with a false sense of mastery. Even course outlines provided by a teacher, a textbook or other outside source can create a false sense of security, some research suggests. In one experiment, researchers found that participants studying a difficult chapter on the industrial uses of microbes remembered more when they were given a poor outline — which they had to rework to match the material — than a more accurate one.

a cognitive quality known as fluency, a measure of how easy a piece of information is to process.

On real tests, font size made no difference and practice paid off, the study found.

Write important information down where the child can easily read and reference it. Remind the student where the information can be found. Divide big assignments into smaller ones, and allow children frequent breaks.

Develop a “secret language” with the child with ADD/ADHD. You can use discreet gestures or words you have previously agreed upon to let the child know they are interrupting. Praise the child for interruption-free conversations.

written behavior plan is near the student

consequences immediately following misbehavior. Be specific in your explanation, making sure the child knows how they misbehaved.

Recognize good behavior out loud. Be specific in your praise, making sure the child knows what they did right.

cross off each item as it is completed.

run an errand or do a task for you

play a sport—or at least run around before and after school.

Provide a stress ball, small toy, or other object for the child to squeeze or play with discreetly at his or her seat.

do one step and then come back to find out what they should do next

extremely brief when giving directions

write directions down in a bold marker or in colored chalk on a blackboard.

Establish a homework folder for finished homework. Check and help the child organize his or her belongings on a daily basis, including his or her backpack, folders, and even pockets. If possible, keep an extra set of textbooks and other materials at home. Help the child learn to make and use checklists, crossing items off as they are accomplished. Help organize loose papers by color coding folders and showing the child how to hole-punch and file appropriately.

Allow the child breaks as often as every ten to twenty minutes. Teach a better understanding of the passage of time: use an analog clock and timers to monitor homework efficiency.

Neurological deficits, not unwillingness, keep kids with attention deficit disorder from learning in traditional ways.

If you can work with and support your child’s teacher, you can directly affect the experience of your child with ADD/ADHD in the classroom.

portion of the room free of obvious visual and auditory distractions

desk dividers

as a "privilege"

appropriate peer models next to ADHD child. Stand near the student when giving directions or presenting the lesson. Use the student's worksheet as an example.

Provide an outline, key concepts or vocabulary prior to lesson presentation.

variety of activities during each lesson

multisensory presentation

lessons brief o

involve the student during the lesson presentation.

instructional aid who is to write key words or ideas on the board

Encourage the students to develop mental images of the concepts or information being presented. Ask them about their images to be sure they are visualizing the key material to be learned. Allow the students to make frequent responses throughout the lesson by using choral responding, frequently calling on many individuals, having the class respond with hand signals. Employ role-playing activities to act out key concepts, historical events, etc.

computer assisted instruction

self-correcting materials

cooperative learning

specific role or piece of information that must be shared with the group.

game-like activities

Use the student's name in your lesson presentation. Write personal notes to the student about key elements of the lesson.

Let ADHD students share recently learned concepts with struggling peer

use colored chalk to emphasize key words or information.