Group items tagged

By David Brooks, The Opinion Pages, The New York Times, March 7, 2011. Growing interdisciplinary research into the importance of the unconscious parts of our minds, emotions and our relationships, and how these lead to a different view of human capital.

R.A. posted the link to this article in March's coffee klatch. "[article] seems to capture the complexity of our pedagogy and our classrooms..."

Subtitle: Employers' Perspectives on the Basic Knowledge and Applied Skills of New Entrants to the 21st Century U.S. Workforce. Prepared by The Conference Board, Partnership for 21st Century Skills, Corporate Voices for Working Families and Society for Human Resource Management, 2006.

TM uses this report in her class to stress the importance of writing in the work world.

Scientists have discovered proof that the evolution of intelligence and larger brain sizes can be driven by cooperation and teamwork, shedding new light on the origins of what it means to be human. The study appears online in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B and was led by scientists at Trinity College Dublin: PhD student, Luke McNally and Assistant Professor Dr Andrew Jackson at the School of Natural Sciences in collaboration with Dr Sam Brown of the University of Edinburgh.

Scientific study of how working collaboratively enlarges brain size

Edited by Angela T. Ragusa, published by Information Science Reference, 2010. Ragusa is a sociologist at Charles Stuart University (Australia). With contributions from Europe, North America, and the South Pacific, the book "looks at how we communicate and interact in a computerised, connected and inter-connected world..."

Smilkstein writes on "brain-compatible" teaching. Her best-known publications, Born to learn (2003) and Igniting student potential (2007) are both described on this site, along with a "Natural human learnings process guidelines" document for educators.

Humanities, Arts, Sciences, and Technology Advanced Collaboratory (HASTAC). This page highlights the Digital Media & Learning Competition. Winners are making a difference in 21st century learning.

By Kara Spak, Chicago Sun-Times, May 31, 2011. This article cites a recent report released by the Alliance for Excellent Education, which finds that "as many as one-third of students entering higher education need to take some sort of remedial or developmental course...." Putting a human face on these statistics is the profile of one student who graduated from high school with a 3.0 GPA and a B in "College Algebra" but still needed to take a non-credit developmental math course when she got to community college.

By Tom Bissonette in The Chronicle of Higher Education, Commentary, August 14, 2011. The author brings attention to the fact that many students enter college with a variety of developmental issues and that these are not properly addressed. Faculty members are often lacking pedagogical education and knowledge of human development. The author argues for assessment of incoming students in several areas, including academic ability, social skills, study skills, vocabulary, general knowledge, work history, and community involvement. Results of these assessments would be used to identify appropriate support. The author believes that the concept of retention is misguided. When faculty and administration partner with students on the front end, the odds decrease that students will be unable to persist.

J.E.C. mentioned article in Summer 2011 Coffee Klatch

By Susan Imel, published in ERIC Digest No. 200, 1998. This paper traces the concept of "transformative learning" from its development by Mezirow in 1978 through Robert Boyd and other contemporary thinkers.

By Roger T. and David W. Johnson, published in In Context: A Quarterly of Humane Sustainable Culture. Originally published in in Transforming Education (IC#18)\nWinter 1988, Page 34. The article discusses the social and cooperative aspects of learning.