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Jim Connolly

Viewpoint: Why education is not like business | Featured on eSchool News | eSchoolNews.com - 59 views

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    Very clear explanation as to why schools- and other government services- shouldn't be run like businesses.
Greta Oppe

A Vision for 21st Century Learning - 112 views

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    TED@Palm Springs presentation on game-based learning; creation of "immersive learning environments." Meyers, A. (2009). A Vision for 21st Century Learning [Video]. Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mirxkzkxuf4
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    I disliked this video. Is my classroom extraordinary? The rest of the classrooms in the U.S. have unmoving, silent children stuck in desks all day? The students don't talk to each other? They don't collaborate to solve problems? They don't read? They don't write in order to analyze and express opinions? They don't use math manipulatives, do science experiments, build, draw, and do projects? They don't laugh together, digress, and then get back on track? Because that's what we do. It doesn't strike me as a response to the Industrial Revolution as much as a response to students' curiosity and to their future needs. "If we get it right, kids won't even know they're learning something." So, we're doing it wrong if the kids are actually aware that they're learning? Better they should be metaphorically anesthetized by the computer experience? We don't want them inoculated against feeling the discomfort of struggle. Every respected neuroscientist on the planet says struggle is necessary to wire neurons together, which is the physical manifestation of learning. The simulation of the village looks very cool. I love computers. But if all their learning about ancient Rome is based on this simulation, where are the primary sources? Will students encounter any? Or is their experience of the village based on someone else's interpretation of primary sources? If so, then someone else gets to decide what is important to include in the Roman village. They get to choose and interpret the facts that are used to create the virtual ancient Roman experience. That goes against best practice teaching of the social sciences.
Chai Reddy

Let Kids Rule the School - NYTimes.com - 110 views

  • We want young people to become independent and capable, yet we structure their days to the minute and give them few opportunities to do anything but answer multiple-choice questions, follow instructions and memorize information. We cast social interaction as an impediment to learning, yet all evidence points to the huge role it plays in their psychological development.
  • They named their school the Independent Project.
  • Finally, they embarked on a collective endeavor, which they agreed had to have social significance.
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  • They are remarkable because they demonstrate the kinds of learning and personal growth that are possible when teenagers feel ownership of their high school experience, when they learn things that matter to them and when they learn together.
D. S. Koelling

Teaching to the Text Message - NYTimes.com - 50 views

  • learning how to write concisely, to express one key detail succinctly and eloquently, is an incredibly useful skill, and more in tune with most students’ daily chatter, as well as the world’s conversation.
  • A lot can be said with a little — the mundane and the extraordinary. Philosophers like Confucius (“Learning without thought is labor lost. Thought without learning is perilous.”) and Nietzsche were kings of the aphorism.
  • I’m not suggesting that colleges eliminate long writing projects from English courses, but maybe we should save them for the second semester. Rewarding concision first will encourage students to be economical and innovative with language.
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    College English prof advocates teaching students to write concisely with text-like assignments.
Maureen Greenbaum

College is a waste of time - CNN.com - 49 views

    • Brian Mull
       
      Marketing oneself in society today is a skill that all students MUST have, but too many schools are ignoring.
  • Of course, some people want a formal education. I do not think everyone should leave college, but I challenge my peers to consider the opportunity cost of going to class. If you want to be a doctor, going to medical school is a wise choice. I do not recommend keeping cadavers in your garage. On the other hand, what else could you do during your next 50-minute class? How many e-mails could you answer? How many lines of code could you write?
    • Brian Mull
       
      The key is balance. We don't need to throw the baby out with the bathwater. What we need is to construct learning environments and experiences that connect with the real world. NOt the world within the school's four walls.
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    • Brian Mull
       
      People who are successful in this area have a drive to be successful. We need to meet our students where they are, and we need to construct learning experiences in a way that engages their passions and promotes this drive. Schools and teachers can do this, but school and classroom structures need to change. 
    • Brian Mull
       
      I rather think of this as many schools are failing to give students the skills they need to empower themselves. We can't take the responsibility away of students empowering themselves. It's a small, but vital thinking shift.
  • I left college two months ago because it rewards conformity rather than independence, competition rather than collaboration, regurgitation rather than learning and theory rather than application. Our creativity, innovation and curiosity are schooled out of us.
  • 36% of college graduates showed no improvement in critical thinking, complex reasoning or writing after four years of college.
  • college as a stepping-stone to success rather than a means to gain knowledge. College fails to empower us with the skills necessary to become productive members of today's global entrepreneurial economy.
  • Failure is punished instead of seen as a learning opportunity.
  • Learning by doing
  • A major function of college is to signal to potential employers that one is qualified to work. The Internet is replacing this signaling function.
  • creating personal portfolios to showcase their talent.
  • document our accomplishments, and have them socially validated with tools such as LinkedIn
Leslie G. Perry

Five myths about America's schools - The Washington Post - 97 views

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    A good synopsis of the issues.
Kate Pok

Collecting, Annotating and Redistributing Student Work using an iPad, GoodReader, Dropbox (and optionally Jotform) | Wandering Academic - 129 views

    • Kate Pok
       
      Google docs and rubrics vs. annotating in iPad- now set comments in iPad...in the rubric, I can quickly mark it up and send it back to students...I would have to do all the markups by hand in iPad. Advantage in iPad of course is that it's portable.
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    iPad workflows for teachers helps you figure out how to get things done with an iPad. Goodreader, Dropbox and Jotform. Not just a review of apps, but a way to use them together.
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    This is the dream classroom in my opinion! Less bulk to carry home at night and available everywhere.
Casey Finnerty

Why College Graduates Are Irrationally Optimistic - NYTimes.com - 31 views

  • When we learn what the future may hold, our neurons efficiently encode unexpectedly good information, but fail to incorporate information that is unexpectedly bad.
Casey Finnerty

The Poor Quality of an Undergraduate Education - NYTimes.com - 40 views

  • large numbers of the students were making their way through college with minimal exposure to rigorous coursework, only a modest investment of effort and little or no meaningful improvement in skills like writing and reasoning.
  • Simply put: academic investments are a lower priority.
  • When 18-year-olds are emboldened to see themselves in this manner, many look for ways to attain an educational credential effortlessly and comfortably. And they are catered to accordingly. The customer is always right.
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  • Too many institutions, for instance, rely primarily on student course evaluations to assess teaching. This creates perverse incentives for professors to demand little and give out good grades
  • Most of all, we hope that during this commencement season, our faculty colleagues will pause to consider the state of undergraduate learning and our collective responsibility to increase academic rigor on our campuses.
Ruth Howard

About | Edge - 0 views

  • Edge is different from the Algonquin Roundtable or Bloomsbury Group, but it offers the same quality of intellectual adventure. Closer resemblances are the early seventeenth-century Invisible College, a precursor to the Royal Society. Its members consisted of scientists such as Robert Boyle, John Wallis, and Robert Hooke. The Society's common theme was to acquire knowledge through experimental investigation. Another inspiration is The Lunar Society of Birmingham, an informal club of the leading cultural figures of the new industrial age — James Watt, Erasmus Darwin, Josiah Wedgewood, Joseph Priestly, and Benjamin Franklin. The online salon at Edge.org is a living document of millions of words charting the Edge conversation over the past fifteen years wherever it has gone. It is available, gratis, to the general public.
  • Edge.org offers "open-minded, free ranging, intellectually playful ... an unadorned pleasure in curiosity, a collective expression of wonder at the living and inanimate world ... an ongoing and thrilling colloquium." 
  • encourages people who can take the materials of the culture in the arts, literature, and science and put them together in their own way. We live in a mass-produced culture where many people, even many established cultural arbiters limit themselves to secondhand ideas, thoughts, and opinions. Edge.org consists of individuals who create their own reality and do not accept an ersatz, appropriated reality. The Edge community consists of peole who are out there doing it rather than talking about and analyzing the people who are doing it.
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    If you love TED this is possibly more rivetting!
Carol Mortensen

Free learning videos go viral - CNN.com - 2 views

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    STORY HIGHLIGHTSSalman Khan: I had no idea my learning videos would go viralHe says he's given up hedge fund work, dedicated himself to nonprofitKhan: Videos and software don't replace teachers but can make them more effectiveTeachers can cut lecturing time and work with students one on one, he says
Steve Ransom

Extraordinary teachers can't overcome poor classroom situations - latimes.com - 7 views

  • Still, it's become a popular fantasy that all you need is a superstar teacher, and that he or she will be just as effective even as budget cuts force us to pack more kids into each classroom.
  • we can't demand that teachers be excellent in conditions that preclude excellence.
Jackie Rippy

Soviet Psychology: Psychology and Marxism Internet Archive - 14 views

    • Jackie Rippy
       
      This points to stark differences - what about subtle differences between cultures. Do our symbols affect brain development - do our tools affect brain development?
  • Other Gestalt psychologists emphasized the common properties of mind in all cultures
  • shifts
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  • 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
Jon Tanner

Corporate Interests Threaten Children's Welfare - NYTimes.com - 17 views

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    Now that corporations are considered "people," their interests are trumping the traditional protections of children, to the detriment of children's health and welfare.
Gregory Wood

The University of Wherever - NYTimes.com - 75 views

  • the day is growing nearer when quality higher education confronts the technological disruptions that have already upended the music and book industries, humbled enterprises from Kodak to the Postal Service (not to mention the newspaper business), and helped destabilize despots across the Middle East.
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