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Steve C

Let the Children Play (Some More) - Happy Days Blog - NYTimes.com - 0 views

  • Goof-off time shouldn’t be limited to summer vacation: it’s important all year.
  • st American children in the not-so-distant past, “going out to play” was the norm. Today, according to a University of Michigan study,
  • Just an hour a day of vigorous play — running, chasing, games like tag or dodge ball, and even dealing with or avoiding being excluded from these activities — can provide intense skill learning.
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  • Deprive a social mammal like a rat or monkey of its normal rough-and-tumble play and it enters adulthood emotionally fragile, unable to tell friend from foe, poor at handling stress and lacking the skills to mate properly.
  • Play is an active process that reshapes our rigid views of the world.
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    In defense of play:
Matthew Ripley-Moffitt

Op-Ed Contributor - End the University as We Know It - NYTimes.com - 0 views

  • Responsible teaching and scholarship must become cross-disciplinary and cross-cultural.
    • Matthew Ripley-Moffitt
       
      Why wait to work top down - raison d'etre for integrated humanities approach @ middle school
Marge Runkle

The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Internet-Using Educators - 0 views

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    The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Internet-Using Educators A book written by Stephen R. Covey titled, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, and a 1998 FETC conference presentation based on the book by Dr. Donna Baumbaugh (University of Central Florida), "The ABCs from the 7 Habits of Highly Effective Educators", inspired me to consider taking the basic ideas put forth and applying them to some strategies which educators might use as they are trying to incorporate the use of the internet into their curriculum. I will try to briefly outline the essence of the 7 habits and include some strategies for achieving effective internet use in your classroom.
Michele Brown

Stephen R. Covey: Our Children and the Crisis in Education - 61 views

  • Employers and business leaders need people who can think for themselves -- who can take initiative and be the solution to problems. They need people who can build trust and get along with others, and solve complex challenges in teams without much supervision.
  • "Partnerships between schools and parents in educating the whole child, which includes developing both the character strength and the competencies required to really succeed in the 21st Century."
  • A.B. Combs Elementary School in Raleigh, North Carolina
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  • Seven Habits of Highly Effective People -- a set of universal, timeless, self-evident principles common to every enduring, prospering society, organization, or family. I take no credit for these principles. I simply organized, sequenced and articulated them. These principles include 1) taking personal responsibility and initiative, 2) getting clear about what's important to you and setting goals, 3) putting those priorities first and being disciplined, 4) seeking mutual benefit in all interactions with others -- the golden rule, 5) seeking to understand others from their perspective first before making your point, 6) valuing differences and creating third-alternative solutions to problems that are better than "my way" or "your way," and 7) taking care of and renewing yourself in all four areas of life -- body, mind, heart and spirit.
  • The approach is inside-out, with the teachers and administrators learning, living and modeling the principles themselves first, and then, at the most basic level, integrating the principles into their teaching every day. There is no new curriculum. The principles of effectiveness are creatively woven by teachers into every subject -- reading, math, history, science, social studies, art, etc. From the moment they walk into the school each day until the final bell rings, the children soak in their adult leaders' belief that they are leaders of their own lives, have unique talents, and can make a difference.
  • We don't define leadership as becoming the CEO or the few percent who will end up in big leadership positions. We are talking about leading your own life, being a leader among your friends, being a leader in your own family. Leadership, as one school put it, is doing the right thing even when no one is looking.
  • The world has moved into one of the most profound eras of change in human history.
anonymous

Rich Internet Applications from the Center for Language Education And Research (CLEAR) ... - 66 views

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    A collection of online tools geared toward language learning. The Conversations tool enables you to record questions for students to submit oral responses to online.
Mr. Stanley

Department of Psychology :: Principles of Learning :: University of Memphis - 62 views

  • The single most important variable in promoting long-term retention and transfer is "practice at retrieval"
  • -learners generate responses, with minimal retrieval cues, repeatedly, over time.
  • without relying on external memory aids.
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  • practice at retrieval has been shown to be more effective than merely spending more time studying the material without actively engaging in memory retrieval.
  • By doing so repeatedly, especially in varied contexts, the learner strengthens access to this information,
  • given minimal cues
  • two different effects. One is the "testing effect," in which intervening tests improves learning of concepts that are retrieved from memory
  • when intervening tests are spaced, two tests were more effective than a single test in improving long-term retention of material.
  • Compared to a cued-recall or recognition intervening test, a free-recall test produced better performance on a final test, regardless of the format of the final test.
  • Educational Applications
  • Align lectures, assignments and tests, so that important information will have to be remembered at different times
  • Have students retrieve this information in multiple ways by either varying the questions or context in which it is assessed:
  • During lectures, ask students questions to elicit responses that reflect understanding of previously introduced course material.
  • This serves the dual purpose of probing students' knowledge, so that misconceptions can be directly and immediately addressed in the lecture.
  • On homework assignments, have students retrieve key information from lectures and readings.
  • Chapter summaries, for instance, may include study questions that ask students to recall major points or conclusions to be drawn from the reading.
  • Encourage group studying in which students actively discuss course topics
  • test questions offer another opportunity for "practice at retrieval,"
  • Ideally tests should be cumulative and test items should probe for understanding of the material.
Björn Hedin

Princeton University - Kindle pilot results highlight possibilities for paper reduction - 20 views

  • However, e-readers must be significantly improved to have the same value in a teaching environment as traditional paper texts, participants said.
  • but they also said the ability to highlight directly on traditional text, to take notes and flip pages for ease in navigation suffers in the e-reader.
  • With hopes of assisting industry with the refinement of e-readers, and providing useful information to other academic institutions considering the devices, information and data from the one-time pilot have been compiled on an Office of Information Technology (OIT) website.
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  • About 65 percent of the participants in the pilot said they would not buy another e-reader now if theirs was broken. Almost all the participants said they were interested in following the technology to its next stages, because they think a device that works well in academia would be worth having.
  • "I found the device difficult to use and not conducive to academic purposes," he said, and added, "But I can see how it can be used for pleasure reading."
  • What they liked best about the devices was: the battery life, the wireless connection and the portability of the e-reader; the fact that all the course reading was on one device; the ability to search for content; and the legibility of the screen, including the fact it could be read in full sunlight. The top five suggestions students had for improving e-readers were: improving the ability to highlight and annotate PDF files; improving the annotation tools; providing a folder structure to keep similar readings together; improving the highlighting function; and improving the navigation within and between documents on the reader (including having more than one document open at the same time for comparison).
  • "The Kindle would be better for an academic setting if the PDF format worked more effectively,"
  • "There would be a greater benefit realized if the devices could develop a better way to deliver the ubiquitous PDF document, which is used by many journals and libraries to deliver documents, and is the common format in which dissertations and theses are published and read by faculty," Temos said. "Some students said they spent a considerable amount of time printing PDF documents during the semester, and hardly ever referred back to them once the semester was over. I don't expect that is unusual."
Wayne Holly

Why the weak students end up as teachers: Education programs lack intellect. - CSMonito... - 205 views

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    Education courses don't challenge students' intellect as others do . . .
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    I don't know many teachers that thought their teacher education program was worth their time, so I would totally disagree with this -- weak students end up as teachers. I once had a teacher educator tell me that 'grades' were the most significant indicator of a good teacher. I laughed at her because I won the top teaching award and a year earlier I wouldn't have been accepted because my grades wouldn't have made their particular cut.
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    I have to agree with Lori. I have several colleagues who were not admitted into teacher education programs, yet have become amazing instructional leaders. Granted, there has to be a cutoff for programs, but frankly, grades are indeed not the best indicator. I was not allowed to take an advance-level French course because of my overall GPA during my undergraduate education. Later as a high school French teacher, my students consistently placed out of university language requirements, and while with me, often placed in declamation contests for their spoken abilities. Our teacher educations programs still need work. They are not where we want them to be. Now to get to work on how to make that happen! :-)
Mike Dunagan

Free Social Teaching and Learning Network focused solely on education - 17 views

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    SOPHIA is made possible by Capella University. Capella supports innovative and affordable pathways that extend access to education on a broad scale.
Benjamin Light

The Costs of Overemphasizing Achievement - 83 views

  • First, students tend to lose interest in whatever they’re learning. As motivation to get good grades goes up, motivation to explore ideas tends to go down. Second, students try to avoid challenging tasks whenever possible. More difficult assignments, after all, would be seen as an impediment to getting a top grade. Finally, the quality of students’ thinking is less impressive. One study after another shows that creativity and even long-term recall of facts are adversely affected by the use of traditional grades.
    • Deb White Groebner
       
      SO true!
    • Terie Engelbrecht
       
      Very true; especially the "avoiding challenging tasks" part.
  • Unhappily, assessment is sometimes driven by entirely different objectives--for example, to motivate students (with grades used as carrots and sticks to coerce them into working harder) or to sort students (the point being not to help everyone learn but to figure out who is better than whom)
  • Standardized tests often have the additional disadvantages of being (a) produced and scored far away from the classroom, (b) multiple choice in design (so students can’t generate answers or explain their thinking), (c) timed (so speed matters more than thoughtfulness) and (d) administered on a one-shot, high-anxiety basis.
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  • The test designers will probably toss out an item that most students manage to answer correctly.
  • the evidence suggests that five disturbing consequences are likely to accompany an obsession with standards and achievement:
  • 1. Students come to regard learning as a chore.
  • intrinsic motivation and extrinsic motivation tend to be inversely related: The more people are rewarded for doing something, the more they tend to lose interest in whatever they had to do to get the reward.
  • 2. Students try to avoid challenging tasks.
  • they’re just being rational. They have adapted to an environment where results, not intellectual exploration, are what count. When school systems use traditional grading systems--or, worse, when they add honor rolls and other incentives to enhance the significance of grades--they are unwittingly discouraging students from stretching themselves to see what they’re capable of doing.
  • 3. Students tend to think less deeply.
  • 4. Students may fall apart when they fail.
  • 5. Students value ability more than effort
    • Deb White Groebner
       
      This is the reinforcement of a "fixed mindset" (vs. (growth mindset) as described by Carol Dweck.
  • They seem to be fine as long as they are succeeding, but as soon as they hit a bump they may regard themselves as failures and act as though they’re helpless to do anything about it.
  • When the point isn’t to figure things out but to prove how good you are, it’s often hard to cope with being less than good.
  • It may be the systemic demand for high achievement that led him to become debilitated when he failed, even if the failure is only relative.
  • But even when better forms of assessment are used, perceptive observers realize that a student’s score is less important than why she thinks she got that score.
  • just smart
  • luck:
  • tried hard
  • task difficulty
  • It bodes well for the future
  • the punch line: When students are led to focus on how well they are performing in school, they tend to explain their performance not by how hard they tried but by how smart they are.
  • In their study of academically advanced students, for example, the more that teachers emphasized getting good grades, avoiding mistakes and keeping up with everyone else, the more the students tended to attribute poor performance to factors they thought were outside their control, such as a lack of ability.
  • When students are made to think constantly about how well they are doing, they are apt to explain the outcome in terms of who they are rather than how hard they tried.
  • And if children are encouraged to think of themselves as "smart" when they succeed, doing poorly on a subsequent task will bring down their achievement even though it doesn’t have that effect on other kids.
  • The upshot of all this is that beliefs about intelligence and about the causes of one’s own success and failure matter a lot. They often make more of a difference than how confident students are or what they’re truly capable of doing or how they did on last week’s exam. If, like the cheerleaders for tougher standards, we look only at the bottom line, only at the test scores and grades, we’ll end up overlooking the ways that students make sense of those results.
  • the problem with tests is not limited to their content.
  • if too big a deal is made about how students did, thus leading them (and their teachers) to think less about learning and more about test outcomes.
  • As Martin Maehr and Carol Midgley at the University of Michigan have concluded, "An overemphasis on assessment can actually undermine the pursuit of excellence."
  • Only now and then does it make sense for the teacher to help them attend to how successful they’ve been and how they can improve. On those occasions, the assessment can and should be done without the use of traditional grades and standardized tests. But most of the time, students should be immersed in learning.
  • the findings of the Colorado experiment make perfect sense: The more teachers are thinking about test results and "raising the bar," the less well the students actually perform--to say nothing of how their enthusiasm for learning is apt to wane.
  • The underlying problem concerns a fundamental distinction that has been at the center of some work in educational psychology for a couple of decades now. It is the difference between focusing on how well you’re doing something and focusing on what you’re doing.
  • The two orientations aren’t mutually exclusive, of course, but in practice they feel different and lead to different behaviors.
  • But when we get carried away with results, we wind up, paradoxically, with results that are less than ideal.
  • Unfortunately, common sense is in short supply today because assessment has come to dominate the whole educational process. Worse, the purposes and design of the most common forms of assessment--both within classrooms and across schools--often lead to disastrous consequences.
  • grades, which by their very nature undermine learning. The proper occasion for outrage is not that too many students are getting A’s, but that too many students have been led to believe that getting A’s is the point of going to school.
  • research indicates that the use of traditional letter or number grades is reliably associated with three consequences.
  • Iowa and Comprehensive Tests of Basic Skills,
    • Benjamin Light
       
      I wonder how the MAP test is set?
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    The message of Daniel Pinks book "Drive" applies here. Paying someone more, i.e. good grades, does not make them better thinkers, problems solvers, or general more motivated in what they are doing. thanks for sharing.
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    Excellent summary!
Marc Patton

dy/dan - 72 views

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    My name is Dan Meyer and I like to teach.
rief61

There's Something in the Air: Podcasting in Education (EDUCAUSE Review) | EDUCAUSE - 1 views

  • magine a busy commuting student preparing both emotionally and intellectually for class by listening to a podcast on the drive to school, then reinforcing the day’s learning by listening to another podcast, or perhaps the same podcast, on the drive back home.
    • rief61
       
      Can I use video camera to capture in class reading? What kind of parental permission is needed?
  • native expressiveness,
  • s there a noncommercial alternative to Podshow, Odeo, or other such services? Yes: “Ourmedia: The Global Home for Grassroots Media” (http://www.ourmedia.org/).
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  • Apple’s iTunes version 4.9, which incorporates an extensive podcast directory-and-subscription service into the structure of the iTunes Music Store.
  • Why is Apple’s embrace of podcasting troubling to educators? Because this easy-to-use audio-content manager just happens to sit inside a store that sells music.
    • rief61
       
      So what...kids don't buy music anyway.
  • Listening is an activity. No good audience is passive.
    • rief61
       
      In class, students must learn to listen. Podcasts can be repeated.
  • Done well, podcasting can reveal to students, faculty, staff, communities—even the world—the essential humanity at the heart of higher education. Among the impressive facilities and intricate processes, colleges and universities are essentially collections of human beings who seek to share the fruits of their labors with the world that helps support them. If this position seems extreme or sentimental, consider Todd Cochrane’s assertion: “Podcasting represents a new way for individuals to communicate about the things they love. They can actually broadcast content that comes from their hearts.”10 If a mass-market text on podcasting begins by stressing the affective dimension of this new medium, educators would do well to think about how they might harness that energy in their teaching and learning practices.
Karen Balnis

Another Look at the Weaknesses of Online Learning - Innovations - The Chronicle of High... - 86 views

shared by Karen Balnis on 28 Jul 11 - No Cached
  • have been lucky enough to have taught the full range of our freshman / sophmore undergraduate offerings as both an onsite and online instructor. While I have thoroughly enjoyed both formats - and very much so - I must admit that my experiences online have been *much* more positive than onsite instruction. Let me try and elucidate:1. While in the onsite classroom you have the opportunity to think on your feet and challenge and be experiential on your feet to reactions to the students who speak, in the online classroom, you are able to meet *every* class member and challenge their minds and ideas. The students who would normally be lost in a classroom of 35-40 are met and developed each day or week at their level and pushed to consider ideas they might not have considered. 2. I am able to reach the entire class through multimedia exhibits in each of the weekly units - journal articles, non-copyrighted film clips (and many from our university's purchased collection under an agreement for both onsite classroom and online classroom use), photography, art, patents, etc, that the students would not see - or would otherwise ignore - in an onsite classroom. We incorporate this information into our discussions and make it part of the larger whole of history.3. Each student and I - on the phone during office hours or in e-mail - discuss the creation of their term papers - and discuss midterm and final "anxiety" issues - and as they are used to the online format, and regular communication with me through the discussion boards, they respond much more readily than onsite students, whom I have found I have to pressure to talk to me. 4. I am able to accommodate students from around the country - and around the world. I have had enrolled in my class students from Japan, Indonesia, India, England - and many other countries. As a result, I have set up a *very* specific Skype address *only* for use of my students. They are required to set up the time and day with me ahead of time and I need to approve that request, but for them (and for some of my students scattered all over the state and US), the face time is invaluable in helping them feel "connected" - and I am more than happy to offer it. 5. As the software upgrades, the possibilities of what I can offer become more and more amazing, and the ease of use for both me - and for the students -  becomes astronomically better. Many have never known the software, so they don't notice it - but those who have taken online courses before cheer it on. Software does not achieve backwards. As very few of these issues are met by the onsite classroom, I am leaning more and more toward the online classroom as the better mode of instruction. Yes, there are times I *really* miss the onsite opportunities, but then I think of the above distinctions and realize that yes, I am where I should be, and virtually *ALL* the students are getting far more for their money than they would get in an onsite classroom. This is the wave of the future, and it holds such amazing promise. Already I think we are seeing clear and fruitful results, and if academics receive effective - and continuing - instruction and support from the very beginning, I cannot imagine why one would ever go back. The only reason I can think of *not* doing this is if the instructor has his or her *own* fear of computers. Beyond that - please, please jump on the bandwagon, swallow your fears, and learn how to do this with vigor. I don't think you will ever be sorry.PhD2BinUS
  • have been lucky enough to have taught the full range of our freshman / sophmore undergraduate offerings as both an onsite and online instructor. While I have thoroughly enjoyed both formats - and very much so - I must admit that my experiences online have been *much* more positive than onsite instruction. Let me try and elucidate:
  • While I have thoroughly enjoyed both formats - and very much so - I must admit that my experiences online have been *much* more positive than onsite instruction. Let me try and elucidate:
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    I am a graduate student at Sam Houston State University and before I started grad school I never had taken an online course before. My opinion then was that online courses were a joke and you couldn't learn from taking a course online. Now my opinion has done a complete 180. The teachers post numerous youtube videos and other helpful tools for each assignment so that anyone can successfully complete the assignment no matter what their technology skill level is. I do not see much difference between online and face-to-face now because of the way the instructors teach the courses.
Sasha Thackaberry

E-learning on the rise - 28 views

  • ​E-learning is a growing trend at community colleges, according to survey results from the National Association for Community College Entrepreneurship (NACCE) and Hewlett-Packard (HP).
  • E-learning is already used at 47 percent of community colleges and is expected to increase to 55 percent within two years. The survey of 578 community college faculty was conducted by Eric Liguori, an assistant professor at California State University.
  • Eighty-four percent of respondents believe e-learning is a valuable educational tool.
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  • The top five benefits of e-learning identified by respondents are: It increases access through location and time-flexible learning. More resources and information are available to students 24/7. Teachers can use a wide variety of tools and methods for teaching. It is a good supplement to face-to-face curriculum. It can lead to a richer learning experience if integrated correctly, freeing up class time for more engaging activities. This experience is often referred to as “flipping the classroom.”
  • When asked about the barriers to adopting online learning, faculty cited such concerns as doubt about its capability and reliability, acceptance by students and teachers, and lack of resources, such as time and technical support.
  • Twenty-three percent of respondents said the effectiveness of e-learning depends on the resources available, including the format and features of courses. For example, e-learning is best when teachers are adequately trained to use it, there is high-quality content and curriculum design, it’s used in conjunction with real-world situations and there is opportunity for student-teacher interactions, discussion boards and collaborative projects.
  • “Our survey looked at how community college faculty members are using e-learning as a cost-effective means” to increase completion rates and ensure that “students walk away with credentials that are meaningful in the workplace and that they are prepared for the careers they hope to pursue, including, for many, the start of entrepreneurial endeavors,” said NACCE President and CEO Heather Van Sickle.
Deborah Baillesderr

Gamestar Mechanic - 46 views

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    Play, design and share games.  Focuses on game design
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    a very popular web-based game design environment. Global Kids http://olpglobalkids.org/ is using it to run social benefits game design contests and badging programs. They are getting 100+ new game design entries per week. From the parents' guide: Gamestar Mechanic is currently supported by a partnership between the Institute of Play and E-Line Media. The game was originally developed by Gamelab in partnership with the Institute of Play and the Academic Advanced Distributed Learning Co-Lab (AADLC) at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Initial funding for the game and companion learning guides came from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. The design of the game is based on research by some of the leading academics in the field including Katie Salen (Executive Director of the Institute of Play and curriculum author for the New York City Public School Quest To Learn) and James Paul Gee (author of What Video Games Have to Teach Us About Learning and Literacy).
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    This site has students creating games from scratch and putting them out into the world for feedback within the Gamestar Mechanic community. Students use math, problem solving, writing skills and more to make their games interesting. I think this could be used in the classroom as a theme-based project or just to get students interested in coding.
meghankelly492

Music That Represents Culture: Selecting Music with Integrity: EBSCOhost - 4 views

  • The term authenticity has been applied to music in various ways. It might be used to describe a piece of music (recorded, notated, performed); the process by which the music is taught and learned ( through recordings, live models, notation); or the manner in which it is performed (venue, dress, behaviors).
  • In other words, authenticity lies within the perceptions of the individual.
  • Anthony Palmer, who teaches music education at Boston University, has said that music with "absolute authenticity" is performed (a) by and for members of the culture; (b) in a typical setting, as determined by the members of the culture; (c) with instruments specified by the creator(s) of the music; and (d) in its original language.[ 8] Inarguably, and as Palmer recognizes, attaining this level of authenticity is impossible in a school music program (unless we consider "school music" residing within a unique culture of its own). In school, music is separated from its primary source many times over. Music is passed from its primary source (composer, grandmother) to an intermediary (arranger, performer, notation, recording) and channeled through a publisher or presenter to the teacher and finally to students. To confound matters, there are variants of melodies, lyrics, dances, games, and performance styles.
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  • Ethnomusicologist Bruno Nettl explains that "societies differ, however, in their attitude toward musical stability; to some it is important that a song remain stable and unchanged, while in others individual singers are encouraged to have their personal versions."
  • but he believes educators must determine at what point that musical experience is no longer acceptable as representative of that culture.
  • Having clear visions of educational goals and the broad curriculum is vital to making these determinations.
  • Bennett Reimer states, "Those inner workings are themselves the project of cultural systems, so they must be revealed in their contexts, historical, cultural, and political, in order to be grasped appropriately; that is, 'knowing about' becomes an essential ingredient of artistry and of listening."[ 15] For example, children might not fully understand the meaning of "Take Me Out to the Ball Game" unless they understand what baseball is or realize that the song is traditionally sung at baseball games.
  • text in an unfamiliar language should include a translation so students understand the meaning of the words.
  • However, a culturally valid work is not necessarily bias free; and conversely, bias-free music is not necessarily culturally valid.
  • Selecting the best music to represent a culture in an unbiased manner is a process of discovery. You will first need to educate yourself before you can educate others.
Julie Golden

Have you taught online? Your opinion is needed! - 16 views

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    https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/WKZGXX6 Please consider taking my survey. It is anonymous, so I won't be able to send a proper thank you. Please know that I will pay your kindness forward to another doctoral student in need and will send warm thoughts out into the universe for you. Thank you for your consideration and for passing this on to eLearning faculty!
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