While some professors seek to exclude the devices from the classroom, others are creating multimedia-rich curricula in which students can draw on online resources and interact with each other. Banning laptops is just plain wrong, according to Don Krug, associate professor at UBC’s department of curriculum studies. He says students are adults, and the best a professor can hope for is a “respectful learning environment,” where students limit their own behaviour. “If they really want to learn the information, they will. They’re paying a lot of money,” he says. “We’re better off teaching them how to be responsible learners.”
Shows two polar solutions to laptop problems: total ban & adapting curricula to include multi-media interaction.
Also presents respectful learning environment as best course for students who are adults.
Having the right mindset is alone not sufficient for growth. I might talk the talk about a growth mindset and believe I can learn a new skill but unless I back that belief with action, it is just talk.
This much-maligned question seems so appropriate for education's recent history. All that was normal, everything that was routine, all of our structures, have been turned upside down and hurled into the wind of COVID19. From having spoken of a future dominated by volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity (VUCA), we have found ourselves living in it. Innovation and creativity became the new normal as we "Apollo 13" schooling into a model that met the demands of emergency remote learning. The pressure, the workload, the demands on our time and the cognitive load have all been immense, and so it seems fitting to ask "Are we there yet?".
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."
Whether their brains have developed differently or not, we still need to teach our students differently than we were taught. They are living in different times with different demands and expectations. If we teach to the demands and expectations of our childhood would not meet our students needs.
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.
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)
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.
"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."
"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
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.
Why do we need anonymity to get to a deeper level of discourse?
"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."
Davis says today's teachers are seeking information when they need it instead of waiting for more formal professional development workshops.
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!"
Today's middle and high school students learn much differently from students just a few years older-and that's mainly because they've never known a world without the internet or cell phones, says psychology professor and author Larry D. Rosen, whose research could give educators valuable insights into the needs of today's learners.
The studying that middle school and high school students do after the dismissal
bell rings is either an unreasonable burden or a crucial activity that needs
beefing up. Which is it? Do American students have too much homework or too
little? Neither, I’d say. We ought to be asking a different question altogether.
What should matter to parents and educators is this: How effectively do
children’s after-school assignments advance learning?
The quantity of students’ homework is a lot less important than its quality.
And evidence suggests that as of now, homework isn’t making the grade. Although
surveys show that the amount of time our children spend on homework has risen
over the last three decades, American students are mired in the middle of
international academic
rankings: 17th in reading, 23rd in science and 31st in math, according to
results from the Program for International Student Assessment released last
December.
“Spaced repetition” is one example of the kind of evidence-based techniques
that researchers have found have a positive impact on learning. Here’s how it
works: instead of concentrating the study of information in single blocks, as
many homework assignments currently do — reading about, say, the Civil War one
evening and Reconstruction the next — learners encounter the same material in
briefer sessions spread over a longer period of time. With this approach,
students are re-exposed to information about the Civil War and Reconstruction
throughout the semester.
Feed readers
are probably the most important digital tool for today's learner because they
make sifting through the amazing amount of content added to the Internet
easy. Also known as aggregators, feed readers are free tools that can
automatically check nearly any website for new content dozens of times a
day---saving ridiculous amounts of time and customizing learning experiences for
anyone.
Imagine
never having to go hunting for new information from your favorite sources
again. Learning goes from a frustrating search through thousands of
marginal links written by questionable characters to quickly browsing the
thoughts of writers that you trust, respect and enjoy.
Feed readers can
quickly and easily support blogging in the classroom, allowing teachers to
provide students with ready access to age-appropriate sites of interest that are
connected to the curriculum. By collecting sites in advance and organizing
them with a feed reader, teachers can make accessing information manageable for
their students.
Here are several
examples of feed readers in action:
Used specifically as
a part of one classroom project, this feed list contains information related to
global warming that students can use as a starting point for individual
research.
While there are literally dozens of different feed reader
programs to choose from (Bloglines andGoogle Reader are two
biggies), Pageflakes is a favorite of
many educators because it has a visual layout that is easy to read and
interesting to look at. It is also free and web-based. That
means that users can check accounts from any computer with an Internet
connection. Finally, Pageflakes makes it quick and easy to add new
websites to a growing feed list—and to get rid of any websites that users are no
longer interested in.
What's even
better: Pageflakes has been developinga teacher version of their tooljust for us that includes an online grade tracker,
a task list and a built in writing tutor. As Pageflakes works to perfect
its teacher product, this might become one of the first kid-friendly feed
readers on the market. Teacher Pageflakes users can actually blog and create a
discussion forum directly in their feed reader---making an all-in-one digital
home for students.
For more
information about the teacher version of Pageflakes, check out this
review:
Teachers are a busy lot. We are a profession whose workload seems to be forever on the rise and as much as you do, there is always more to be done, more to be learned, new challenges to be surmounted and exciting new opportunities to be explored. For all of this it is important to make the most efficient use of the tools we have at our disposal. Google Forms can help.
Understanding the "Why" of any initiative should be a key step prior to implementation. Without a clear understanding of our "Why" how are we to judge the success of what we are implementing. How will we know which steps take us in the right direction if we have no concept of why we are journeying. In our implementation of ICT (Information & Communication Technologies) and now Digital Technologies, a lack of clarity on the matter of "Why" has often been the most significant challenge to success.
Recently I have been diving into the world of Assessment, seeking to better understand how we might design effective processes around this essential phase of the learning cycle. In doing so I have found a wealth of resources and quality reads that offer insights and strategies to be applied into our classrooms. Here then is a sampling of what I have been reading.
This traditional pedagogy results in students developing a negative attitude towards mathematics. Many develop a mathematical phobia and believe that they are not a "maths person". When confronted by challenging mathematics they retreat and have no or only poor strategies with which to approach new ideas. This all leads to a decline in the number of students pursuing mathematical learning beyond the years where it is compulsory.
Fortunately there is a growing body of research that shows there is a better way.
We struggle to achieve balance with so many parts of our lives. We see things in dichotomies and try to weigh one against the other believing that we must give time to one and not the other. This tendency to see things in often false dichotomies leads to the problem of the "want to' vs the 'have to'. Unfortunately, when we are faced with this dilemma we often make a choice in favour of the 'have to' but we chose this option for the wrong reasons.
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Kent Gerber on 02 Mar 09Shows two polar solutions to laptop problems: total ban & adapting curricula to include multi-media interaction. Also presents respectful learning environment as best course for students who are adults.
