Group items tagged

students learn

To some, that term can mean a scripted, day-to-day lesson plan, while to others, it’s a lean set of big ideas that can be tackled in many ways

multiple meanings of the word “curriculum.”

Meanwhile, rates of anxiety and depression have also risen in tandem with self-esteem. Why is this? “Narcissists are happy when they’re younger, because they’re the center of the universe,” Twenge explains. “Their parents act like their servants, shuttling them to any activity they choose and catering to their every desire. Parents are constantly telling their children how special and talented they are. This gives them an inflated view of their specialness compared to other human beings. Instead of feeling good about themselves, they feel better than everyone else.” In early adulthood, this becomes a big problem. “People who feel like they’re unusually special end up alienating those around them,” Twenge says. “They don’t know how to work on teams as well or deal with limits. They get into the workplace and expect to be stimulated all the time, because their worlds were so structured with activities. They don’t like being told by a boss that their work might need improvement, and they feel insecure if they don’t get a constant stream of praise. They grew up in a culture where everyone gets a trophy just for participating, which is ludicrous and makes no sense when you apply it to actual sports games or work performance. Who would watch an NBA game with no winners or losers? Should everyone get paid the same amount, or get promoted, when some people have superior performance? They grew up in a bubble, so they get out into the real world and they start to feel lost and helpless. Kids who always have problems solved for them believe that they don’t know how to solve problems. And they’re right—they don’t.”

I asked Wendy Mogel if this gentler approach really creates kids who are less self-involved, less “Me Generation.” No, she said. Just the opposite: parents who protect their kids from accurate feedback teach them that they deserve special treatment. “A principal at an elementary school told me that a parent asked a teacher not to use red pens for corrections,” she said, “because the parent felt it was upsetting to kids when they see so much red on the page. This is the kind of self-absorption we’re seeing, in the name of our children’s self-esteem.”

research shows that much better predictors of life fulfillment and success are perseverance, resiliency, and reality-testing

e is an HNAP, or a high-need-for-achievement professional, according to Harvard Business

DeLong believes the tendency to be a high-need-for-achievement type is embedded in the DNA, an addiction that spans across socioeconomic groups. Instead of experiencing happiness or well-being, HNAPs seek "relief in the accomplishment of tasks." Moving immediately to the next task on the list, they never savor accomplishments for long, he says. This creates a vicious cycle marked by a feeling of little or no real sense of purpose and a "flatness"—in career and in life. They often go through patches of life without creating or enhancing meaningful relationships, and even lack strength to deal with life's failures.

So is there relief for HNAPs from all this obsessive comparing and competing?

n ideal classroom to me would be one where teachers were all given tablets in a wi-fi or, ideally, a satellite-based classroom where that tablet was connected to the school intranet and Internet. From there, an app would connect me to the school’s Student Management System (SMS) where I could see vital student info

What I talk about is not science fiction. I could mention countless products that do at least one part of what I have described. The technology exists today for all of this to become a reality. We can make it a reality—we only need more educators involved in productive discussions stating what they really need, and helping those in industry to create these products for us. Keeping track of data and sharing it with others should not be such a tedious task. Let us together build the next big learning management system, assessment tool, data dashboard and performance indicator all in one. We’re closer to achieving that reality than you might think.

“killer applications

Competition

The Scientific Revolution

But the past couple of weeks there’s been a rolling stone gathering lots of moss- and that stone is Scoop.it.

Well, I haven’t seen much happen with Scoop.it and educators for the past few months, but then something big happened: Scoop.it launched Scoop.it for Education.

I know many educators are fond of Paper.li, another link/newspaper tool, but I’ve never found  that paper-like experience to be of much value, because it’s so… bland.

while the learning style theory—that individual students might have a style that helps them learn better—may be complete bunk, presenting material in a variety of ways does have a lot of merit.

just because a person learns one item of information according to a certain style doesn’t mean they can only learn through that style, or that that style is their best learning tool.

important not to conflate preferential learning styles with diagnosable learning disabilities. Someone who is dyslexic doesn’t have an aural learning style, they have a reading disorder that hinders them from being able to process textual information rapidly. Similar can be said of learners with visual or auditory impairments. They will need to access your content through a variety of different methods, not because they prefer one style over another, but because they are unable to consume certain kinds of content.