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Conditioning - Resources - TES - 2 views

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    Interesting lesson on conditioning that leads into a conversation about Pavlov's dogs.
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Grading and Its Discontents - Do Your Job Better - The Chronicle of Higher Education - 8 views

  • Most students bring with them an unhealthy attitude toward grading that has been instilled in them by parents and schoolteachers, an attitude based on the flawed assumption that grades are supposed to function as "carrots and sticks." Consequently, it's not enough for me to simply convey the mechanics of my grading policy; I must also ensure that students acquire a more accurate conception of grading, one that will enhance—rather than impede—their learning.
  • Since grades have only instrumental value—rather than any intrinsic value—they must be treated as only means to some end, and never as ends in themselves. I tell my students: If your primary goal in college is to receive good grades, you will probably view the required work as an onerous obstacle and you're not likely to feel very motivated to do the work. But you are most likely to receive good grades when you are so focused on learning that grades have ceased to matter.
  • The students seems to be assuming that they already had a full score and that the professor is therefore responsible for taking away some of what rightfully belonged to them. Needless to say, that is a mistaken assumption.
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  • Learning is never directly caused by anything that a professor does. It happens as a result of the student's own activities (reading, thinking, writing, etc.), while the professor can only facilitate that process. Since the responsibility for learning lies with the student, so does the burden of demonstrating that he or she has actually achieved that learning.
  • You are not your grades. I want my students to avoid defining themselves in terms of a grade. I want them to know that grades represent nothing more than someone's assessment of one or more instances of their academic performance. Given the nature of the grading process and the limited purposes for which it is designed, the grades they receive are in no way a reflection of who they are as people or even what they are capable of achieving in the long run.
  • Professors rarely observe their students outside of the classroom or lab, which is why we are in no position to judge how hard or long someone has studied. We can only assess their actual performance. A student using ineffective methods of study would have to work a lot harder and a lot longer than a student who is using effective methods
  • Some students must invest more time and effort than other students in order to receive the same grade. That may seem unjust, I tell students, but it simply mimics the way "real life" functions
  • being told that the entire life plan of a young man or woman depends on what grade I give them does put me in an awkward situation psychologically: I don't wish to be the person who destroys someone's dream, but I also have a strong need for integrity. It would be best for both parties if students simply do not share this kind of information with faculty members.
  • I believe that when students see their grades as pieces of information, rather than as external rewards or punishments, or as mechanisms of control, they are much more likely to discover the joy that is inherent in the very experience of learning.
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Articles | What Makes Them Click - 13 views

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    What if we applied the psychology of what makes technology attractive to students...to our face-2-face practices in the classroom? Using this idea, instead of using more technology in the classroom, why not design the traditional human / face-to-face classroom experience to be more like what makes technology so engrossing to modern students? Do these principles sound familiar... Deliver information in bite sized chunks, Create mental models, Use short stories to help process information, Learning happens and is remembered through repetition, People are motivated by Progress and Mastery, Sustained attention lasts 10 minutes, and the use of Progressive Disclosure. Progressive Disclosure an interaction design technique often used in human computer interaction to help maintain the focus of a user's attention by reducing clutter, confusion, and cognitive workload. This improves usability by presenting only the minimum data required for the task at hand. Here are 100 little articles that could have big implications in the classroom.
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Hamlet and the Power of Beliefs to Shape Reality | Literally Psyched, Scientific Americ... - 9 views

  • the more someone believes in improvement, the larger the amplitude of a brain signal that reflects a conscious allocation of attention to mistakes. And the larger that neural signal, the better subsequent performance. That mediation suggests that individuals with an incremental theory of intelligence may actually have better self-monitoring and control systems on a very basic neural level: their brains are better at monitoring their own, self-generated errors and at adjusting their behavior accordingly. It’s a story of improved on-line error awareness—of noticing mistakes as they happen, and correcting for them immediately.
  • If we think of ourselves as able to learn, learn we will—and if we think we are doomed to fail, we doom ourselves to do precisely that, not just behaviorally, but at the most fundamental level of the neuron.
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You Can Easily Learn 100 TED Talks Lessons In 5 Minutes Which Most People Need 70 Hours... - 2 views

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    If you want to learn some very cool things here is a synopsis of watching more than 70 hours of TED talks with links. I love these types of summary posts (any wonder?)
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What Parents Can Do To Avoid Passing Anxiety On To Their Kids | MindShift | KQED News - 2 views

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    "Children of anxious parents are more at risk of developing an anxiety disorder. But there's welcome news for those anxious parents: that trajectory toward anxiety isn't set in stone. Therapy and a change in parenting styles might be able to prevent kids from developing anxiety disorders, according to research published in The American Journal of Psychiatry Friday."
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Debbie Meier and the Dawn of Central Park East by Seymour Fliegel, City Journal Winter ... - 3 views

  • “I’ve got a problem in the Central Park East School between Debbie Meier and some of her parents,” he said. “Go see what it’s about.”
  • In 1976
  • I went over to Central Park East, which was then a fledgling alternative school just completing its second year, to introduce myself to Debbie Meier, the school’s director
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  • Debbie Meier has since become a nationally known authority on education, the recipient of a MacArthur Foundation “Genius” award, but in June 1976 that wasn’t the case.
  • . What was not yet clear to outsiders was that it had been deliberately designed to thrive on conflict.
  • From the first moment I walked into a public school I was intrigued.
  • . “The principals paid lip service to us and our aspirations,” she remembers, “but the changes didn’t last.” By the end of 1973, just as she was becoming disgusted by her lack of progress working within the established system, she got a call from Bonnie Brownstein, a science coordinator in District Four. Brownstein told Meier that Superintendent Alvarado had heard about her work and wanted her to start a new school in East Harlem. Meier, attuned to the ways of educational bureaucracies, was skeptical at first, but when she met with the new superintendent, he convinced her that he was serious.
  • and she had tried to create “open classroom” programs
  • an educational method which she believed reflected the cognitive development of children, combining John Dewey’s learning theory with more recent psychological investigations of Jean Piaget.
  • Meier and her associates proposed a pedagogy based on “open classrooms” where teachers would provide children with stimulating materials, observe them working and playing with those materials, and, guided by their observations, offer each child assistance to extend his or her skills and interests.
  • Neither the parents in the neighborhood nor the other teachers in District Four understood what the school was trying to accomplish, and they regarded Meier’s efforts with attitudes ranging from indifference to outright hostility.
  • Local educational conservatives, on the other hand, were equally mistrustful of what they saw as the school’s permissiveness.
  • There would be one rule: Children would come to Central Park East because their parents chose that school for them
  • parents were required to visit with their children in order to gain admission. Beyond that, Meier set forth no policies and promised no particular results.
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Force field analysis - 5 views

  • Force field analysis is a management technique developed by Kurt Lewin, a pioneer in the field of social sciences, for diagnosing situations. It will be useful when looking at the variables involved in planning and implementing a change program and will undoubtedly be of use in team building projects,when attempting to overcome resistance to change.
  • driving
  • restraining
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  • initiate a change and keep it goin
  • acting to restrain or decrease the driving force
  • Equilibrium is reached when the sum of the driving forces equals the sum of the restraining forces
  • present level of productivity
  • This equilibrium, or present level of productivity, can be raised or lowered by changes in the relationship between the driving and the restraining forces.
  • Managers are often in a position in which they must consider not only output but also intervening variables and not only short-term but also long-term goals. It can be seen that force field analysis provides framework that is useful in diagnosing these interrelationships.
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    Force field analysis is a management technique developed by Kurt Lewin, a pioneer in the field of social sciences, for diagnosing situations. It will be useful when looking at the variables involved in planning and implementing a change program and will undoubtedly be of use in team building projects,when attempting to overcome resistance to change.
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Mind - Research Upends Traditional Thinking on Study Habits - NYTimes.com - 3 views

  • instead of sticking to one study location, simply alternating the room where a person studies improves retention. So does studying distinct but related skills or concepts in one sitting, rather than focusing intensely on a single thing. “We have known these principles for some time, and it’s intriguing that schools don’t pick them up, or that people don’t learn them by trial and error,” said Robert A. Bjork, a psychologist at the University of California, Los Angeles. “Instead, we walk around with all sorts of unexamined beliefs about what works that are mistaken.”
  • The brain makes subtle associations between what it is studying and the background sensations it has at the time, the authors say, regardless of whether those perceptions are conscious. It colors the terms of the Versailles Treaty with the wasted fluorescent glow of the dorm study room, say; or the elements of the Marshall Plan with the jade-curtain shade of the willow tree in the backyard. Forcing the brain to make multiple associations with the same material may, in effect, give that information more neural scaffolding.
  • Cognitive scientists do not deny that honest-to-goodness cramming can lead to a better grade on a given exam. But hurriedly jam-packing a brain is akin to speed-packing a cheap suitcase, as most students quickly learn — it holds its new load for a while, then most everything falls out. “With many students, it’s not like they can’t remember the material” when they move to a more advanced class, said Henry L. Roediger III, a psychologist at Washington University in St. Louis. “It’s like they’ve never seen it before.”
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  • cognitive scientists see testing itself — or practice tests and quizzes — as a powerful tool of learning, rather than merely assessment. The process of retrieving an idea is not like pulling a book from a shelf; it seems to fundamentally alter the way the information is subsequently stored, making it far more accessible in the future.
  • “The idea is that forgetting is the friend of learning,” said Dr. Kornell. “When you forget something, it allows you to relearn, and do so effectively, the next time you see it.”
  • An hour of study tonight, an hour on the weekend, another session a week from now: such so-called spacing improves later recall, without requiring students to put in more overall study effort or pay more attention, dozens of studies have found.
  • “Testing not only measures knowledge but changes it,” he says — and, happily, in the direction of more certainty, not less.
  • “Testing has such bad connotation; people think of standardized testing or teaching to the test,” Dr. Roediger said. “Maybe we need to call it something else, but this is one of the most powerful learning tools we have.”
  • The harder it is to remember something, the harder it is to later forget. This effect, which researchers call “desirable difficulty,”
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How to Change People's Attitudes - 0 views

  • You sure you sure?” It turns out, we’re not sure we’re sure according to the classic 1973 study by Goethals and Reckman.In the study, researchers invited high schoolers to discuss their opinions on an issue—in this case, school segregation and whether bussing would help racial integration. Some time later, study participants returned for another discussion. This time, however, they were divided into pro and con groups. Inside each separated groups, Goethals and Reckman placed a “confederate,” a person armed with arguments for the opposing viewpoint. The goal was to reverse the groups’ outlook.In the end, both confederates successfully reversed the groups’ opinions.
  • groups couldn’t accurately recall their original position. Many claimed their previous beliefs were less definite than researchers originally observed.
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    Fascinating Article about how to change people's attitudes.
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FOXNews.com - Trading Nude Photos Via Mobile Phone Now Part of Teen Dating, Experts Say... - 0 views

  • The instant text, picture and video messages have become part of some teens' courtship behavior, police and school officials said.
  • "I've seen everything from your basic striptease to sexual acts being performed," said Reynoldsburg police Detective Brian Marvin, a member of the FBI Cyber Crime Task Force of Central Ohio. "You name it, they will do it at their home under this perceived anonymity."
  • "This happens a lot," said Kelsey, author of Generation MySpace: Helping Your Teen Survive Online Adolescence. "It crosses every racial socio-economic group. Christian kids are doing it. Jewish kids are doing it." Male teens are also doing it.
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  • A study last year found teens are placing more of an emphasis on image and fame than in the past. Jean Twenge, a psychology professor at San Diego State University who studies young people's trends, found that teens are more confident and assertive than ever before.
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    Teens are really moving a lot of their relationships to cell phones as Danah Boyd said recently on a Wow2 show. This example of teenage habits of sharing photographs on cell phones is an example. Discussions of cell phone use should be a part of what parents and teachers do with kids. This makes me think twice about allowing cell phone cameras on my children's phones, but I'd rather help them be wise in using it.
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John Dewey: School and Society: Chapter 4: The Psychology of Elementary Education - 0 views

  • To refuse to try, to stick (97) blindly to tradition, because the search for the truth involves experimentation in the region of the unknown, is to refuse the only step which can introduce rational conviction into education.
    • Marisa P
       
      great quote
  • It should also be stated that practically it has not as yet been possible, in many cases, to act adequately upon the best ideas obtained, because of administrative difficulties, due to lack of funds —difficulties centering in the lack of a proper building and appliances, and in inability to pay the amounts necessary to secure the complete time of teachers in some important lines. Indeed, with the growth of the school in numbers, and in the age and maturity of pupils, it is becoming a grave question how long it is fair to the experiment to carry it on without more adequate facilities.
  • The aim, then, is not for the child to go to school as a place apart, but rather in the school so to recapitulate typical phases of his experience outside of school, as to enlarge, enrich, and gradually formulate it.
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  • Since the aim is not "covering the ground," but knowledge of social processes used to secure social results, no attempt is made to go over the entire history, in chronological order, of America
  • His experiments are modes of active doing—almost as much so as his play and games. Later he tries to find out how various materials or agencies are manipulated in order to give certain results. It is thus clearly distinguished from experimentation in the scientific sense—such as is appropriate to the secondary period —where the aim is the discovery of facts and verification of principles.
  • means to ends
  • These subjects are social in a double sense. They represent the tools which society has evolved in the past as the instruments of its intellectual pursuits. They represent the keys which will unlock to the child the wealth of social capital which lies beyond the possible range of his limited individual experience. While these two points of view must always give these arts a highly important place in education, they also make it necessary that certain conditions should be observed in their introduction and use. In a wholesale and direct application of the studies no account is taken of these conditions. The chief problem at present relating to the three R's is recognition of these conditions and the adaptation of work to them.
  • 1) The need that the child shall have in his own personal (105) and vital experience a varied background of contact and acquaintance with realities, social and physical. This is necessary to prevent symbols from becoming a purely second-hand and conventional substitute for reality.
  • The need that the more ordinary, direct, and personal experience of the child shall furnish problems, motives, and interests that necessitate recourse to books for their solution, satisfaction, and pursuit. Otherwise, the child approaches the book without intellectual hunger, without alertness, without a questioning attitude, and the result is the one so deplorably common: such abject dependence upon books as weakens and cripples vigor of thought and inquiry, combined with reading for mere random stimulation of fancy, emotional indulgence, and flight from the world of reality into a make-belief land.
  • The final use of the symbols, whether in reading, calculation, or composition, is more intelligent, less mechanical; more active, less passively receptive; more an increase of power, less a mere mode of enjoyment.
  • third period of elementary education
  • the second period
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ABC News: Could MySpace Be Your Kid's Social Key? - 0 views

  • They're very self-motivated.
    • Vicki Davis
       
      Quite the opposite of what many are saying -- I agree with this.
  • This world encourages us to multitask. I think it encourages kids to be much less patient. More terse.
  • This generation spends time at home — connected. Kids have to be social. It's all part of the preteen and teen years and young adult years
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  • Because they have a combination of people they know face-to-face in the real world and people they don't, (those of the Net generation) get a lot of chances to bounce ideas and to test out things on a social network that they probably wouldn't do face-to-face.
    • Vicki Davis
       
      And we need to make networks so they can bounce of ideas related to a novel or something they are learning in school too.
  • Larry Rosen, professor of psychology at California State University-Dominguez Hills, has long studied "the Net generation," the first to have grown up with the Internet, not to mention cellphones. In Me, MySpace and I: Parenting the Net Generation (Palgrave Macmillan), he helps parents understand social networks. His advice: Talk to your kids, learn the technology and don't panic. USA TODAY's Janet Kornblum spoke with the author.
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    This is an interesting article that presents some interesting commentary on students today. It is very brief but makes some excellent points.
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    Alice shared this earlier, but I went back and added annotations AND the tagging standard -- this will show up in the links and make this article rise to the top as we discuss it.
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Memory - Mapping Memory 3D Interactive - National Geographic Magazine - 1 views

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    Visuals of brain and memory functions/dysfunctions
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