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The article has talked about the importance of communication with parents for learning as well as what problems we as educators may confront with by asking parents to help their children in order to enhance learning.

Thanks for sharing this:) Actually, it is not only important but also vital to include parental communication into education procedure. I think school, parents and the student himself/herself compose the core family in education process rather than the biological family of the student. In the literature about this issue, it has been put forward that there is a positive relation between parental communication and student learning or achievement both academically and psychologically.

One of the most difficult tasks that educators are to achieve is ensuring positive parental involvement in education. As parents are very sensitive about their children's education, nowadays most of the teachers have difficulty to create fruitful communication with parents. Parents question and crticize everything at school as they do not have confidence in educators because of improper practices they experienced or witnessed. Having training sessions, meetings and home visits can be useful in this framework. In this way, parents will be informed about the activities at school and can be involved in decision making process which will change their perceptions in a positive way.

It is the most fascinating metaphor for learning according to neuroscientific view. Actually I do not have some much information about how learning takes place in our brains but this video made some parts clear for me. I do not whether it can be an appropriate conslusion from this video or not, but I think that learning without assistance of someone more competent than us could be very difficult, as the older man in the video helped the younger one. so that is why we, teachers are priceless ;)

What a good way of showing an unknown concept through known ways..Thank you, The bridge is a very well-selected metaphor:-) When we think about our own way of learning, isn't it the same? It's always difficult to make the first link but then everything becomes easier...step by step...

In the video, there exists a really interesting metaphor about how we learn. Through this video some neurological concepts and comments about learning became concrete in my mind. I think there is a smooth transition from difficulty to easiness in our brains during the learning process.

LD is frequently mistaken as laziness or associated with disorders of emotion and behavior.

In my undergraduate education, I had chance to be involved in a project on the learning disability; dyslexia, problems of sounds and words. We gathered data from children in various elementary school children in Istanbul. This was a fruitful experience to learn on the topic learning disabilities.

I wanted to share a topic on learning disabilities as I have encountered such students studying at the college I work for and did not know what to do with them. When I tried to involve parents to acknowledge them they preferred blaming the education system or the school itself. It must be very difficult for a parent to accept it but as teachers we need to be more knowledgeable about what to do and how to deal with it to save these learners with learning disabilities from exclusion and failure.

Turkey has been undergoing education reforms because of the same reason" ..the current system was designed and conceived for a different age..." Do you think the reformed curricula meet the requirements of 21st century? I think wee need to reform the minds of people who are designing the curricula in this country...

It is like imitating other countries and take their education systems for granted rathr than reforming. Whatever it is, the education systems not only in East but also in some parts of west are based on social efficiency theory and students are conceived as to-be-workers. Self-actualization and intellectual development are not even in the secondary place.

as it is mentioned in the video, our educattion system also kill the creativity of the students and cause them to behave like robots.I think we loose huge amont of potential to produce artistic, scientific and tecnological productions.

I liked Table1 - Design-based research variants and methods and Table-2 Characteristics of design-based research. Thanks.

"Design-based research and TELE (Technology-enhanced learning environments) designs are reciprocal and, thus, need to be interdependent. In order to stimulate contextually-sensitive practices of learning and instruction in the design and implementation of TELEs, practical, detailed, and contextual advice is necessary. Design-based research, as a pragmatic methodology, can guide TELE designers while generating practical knowledge to be shared among a broad design community. Conversely, TELE design theories, models, and procedures need to ensure that design-based research methodologies can be made operational, formalized, and systematized."

This is an article by Chris Dede (Harvard Graduate School of Education August, 2004). It focuses on the importance and difficulties of DBR. You can get help from this article, while trying to answer the questions on LMS.

There was a case in one of the articles, the researchers were asked to provide an example of their research findings which helped them to solve a problem in practice and they were silent. It is a really good example of the gap between research and practice.When I think that research findings will not help to solve problems in the field, I start to question the things I am doing because being a part of the solution, not the problem" was the starting point of my academic life...

I really like the idea offered by DBR that is against the highly controlled laboratory settings are settings that research settings resembling that. But I still can not grasp how multi number of variables can healthly or in a valid sense can be studied all together in DBR. Maybe the local issue gains importance at this point.

"...being the best requires a lot of time and effort, and few people are willing to dedicate so much of their lives to a single pursuit. So while practice may get some of us close to perfection, for many of us it is an unattainable goal..."

I guite agree with Christian. When I first read the ten thousand hour rule, I felt that this is a hypothetical number that was just used for to emphasize that we need endless effort, hard practice to become good at any field.

As mentioned, the role of talent are still questionable. Also guaranteeing the same amount of hours as a general rule gives me the message of ignoring unique personal factors such as motivation or other internal personal sources.

So, praise is good but we should be careful about what to praise. Yet again, it seems quite hard to praise efforts instead of intelligence considering our education system which is oriented to our success not to our efforts :(

I am now convinced of the opportunities of learning that can be provided by games after reading the following quote: "While commercial video games often offer worlds in which players prepare for the actions of soldiers or thieves, the question arises as to whether other types of games could let players prepare for action from different perspectives or identities such as a particular type of scientist, political activist, or global citizen, for instance. "

Yelda, honestly, I also used to question the contribution of video games to learning and nowadays, as seeing more examples like the one you shared, I guess yes perspective are changing:) I believe as we also discussed in the forum, the most critical thing is how the material, video or something else is presented to the learners and used, not the material itself.

The same material in two differnt hands may serve to two differnt ideologies , beliefs, subject areas hence I do definitely agree with Canan the mentality of the minds who are using those plays the important role.

* Provide authentic context that reflect the way the knowledge will be used in real-life; * Provide authentic activities; * Provide access to expert performances and the modelling of processes; * Provide multiple roles and perspectives; * Support collaborative construction of knowledge; * Provide coaching and scaffolding at critical times; * Promote reflection to enable abstractions to be formed; * Promote articulation to enable tacit knowledge to be made explicit; * Provide for integrated assessment of learning within the tasks.

I am really effected by the construct neuroplasticity as I read. I had read it as neuro-elasticity before but now I believe they are different terminologies or I am not sure:) So this article is about new emerging themes on neuroplasticity and its relation with education and culture. The figure showing the variables influencing brain plasticity is really good I think.

Canan, I was questioning the role of culture in neurosceience when I saw the article you shared, many thanks:) In the figure presenting the variables affecting the brain plasticity, education and culture intersects. For me, culture shapes education in a society (both formal and informal education). It determines people's identity, behaviors, attitudes and thinking patterns. So, it is for sure that it has an influence on brain plasticity.

Yes I agree with you culture is in relation with lots of different elements that can be important for brain development or plasticity, the fact that cognitive structure Of the brain changes with culture seems important to keep in mind.

We now know that practice is a key determiner on the way for being an "expert". In this video, Ellen learns how to dance with constant practice. Please check also how experts behave in the video because we know that being expert does not mean being able to teach. Again, enjoy it! :) Warning: There is a lot of exclaiming in the video and you are recommended to turn the volume down while watching it. I write this because I did not do so. :)

Practice Makes Permanent, Not Perfect =)

The author shares his personal comments and gives clues on how to be perceived as an expert in your field. These steps start with awreness about yourself and terminates with displaying, selling yourself to others in the field=)

This is a nice little newsletter that mentions some characteristics of situated learning. Some resources on situated learning and its usage in learning environments are offered !

Firstly, it was a nice source to read, thanks for sharing it. I agree with you time concerns, teacher and student charateristics are prominent to implement the principles of situated learning in practice. It is really difficult to create authentic learning environment in our classes under the stess of keeping up with the curriculum which is based on traditional theories of learning. Thus, it is the work of the curriculum specialists to revise the curricula to be more in line with the improvements in the field of learning sciences.

There is a case study which I really advise you to look at it. It is about a political course in which they took a government's problem about content and design of websites. He says "given all the considerations at work in municipal government, the students will decide how the power of the web can best be brought to bear on making government work better."

When situated learning theory (SLT) is investigated, it can be seen that most of the articles or documents mention learning by doing within an actual context. The first thing that comes to mind is the real world environment while someone mentions the SLT. What if we want to form a "legitimate peripheral participation" environment to learn a concept by the boundaries of online platforms? How can we design online platforms by using situated learning theory?

"Participation Learning becomes a social process dependent upon transactions with others. Learning is not separated from the world of action but exists in robust, complex, social environments made up of actors, actions, and situations. How to incorporate participation in online learning? *Create discussion boards to enable students to reflect socially *Encourage engagement in discussions and issues presented *Require students to present/defend their arguments in forums, discussion groups, bulletin boards *Encourage students to engage in critical reflection with other *Instructors should continually assess the growth of the student, and let the student know " These are the principles applied in our 542 course. We are experiencing situated cognition in progress.

Research on how deliberate practice combined with innate abilities lead to expertise.

Elanur, Actually, I was trying to find the movie that you mentioned about high-wire actor (Petit). Then I realized that you have already written here. What made me so impressed about him that he worked on that about 6 years. I have read somewhere "experts view mistakes as opportunities to learn", however, this man had no chance to do mistake. the story of the guy in this link http://ny.curbed.com/archives/2015/09/30/the_real_story_behind_philippe_petits_highwire_act_in_the_walk.php

Yes Yasin I totally agree with you about the mistake part but this man dedicated his life to perform on the wire between Twin Towers so I thought that someone who dedicates oneself to perform in a particular area develops expertise in that area eventually and we can call him an expert in being a juggler even he put his life in danger. By the way this is an extreme example of being an expert. I just try to make connections between dedication and developing an expertise through this example.

The first problem is defined by Dan Lortie in The Apprenticeship of Observations (1975) as being acquainted with the task of teaching.The professor on the video emphasizes that in the countries where immagrants are most successful, teachers spend 50% of their work planning lessons, observing other classes and negotiating about the lessons. She also touches the problem of 'Toxic Environment' of schools for teachers where they gossip about their students and colleagues. She gives a successful school example in which professional development is a part of school culture. Can you list additional problems for teacher expertise faced in schools?

Although sharing ideas and instances about the classroom hours and students can be accepted as components of adult learning for teachers, gossiping about them can be a real barrier to develop on those areas. In my teaching experience, we prohibited the conversations about the negative issues happened in the school.

They say "No one else does what we do" while mentioning their interdisciplinary approach. They say that "The learning sciences field emerged more than two decades ago after researchers found that what worked in a laboratory simply did not hold up with real children, teachers, classrooms and workplaces. They saw that learning technologies, which held great promise for solving education's problems, were not being transferred to classrooms and schools. Cognitive scientists, educational and instructional psychologists, and computer scientists worked together to put their ideas and knowledge to use to improve the learning outcomes for a diverse group." The institute basically do two things: 1 - They identify the critical challenges in education, literacy, mathematics, science and the social sciences. 2- They work to find solutions. Their main aim is to create learning systems for 21st century classrooms thanks to interdisciplinary research in teaching and learning. They believe that learning is a complex process and so they get benefit from different disciplines (e.g. anthropology, computer science, education, linguistics, psychology and sociology) to share knowledge and best practices on education. At their another webpage, they define learning science as a science which "focuses on how to create new, improved and equitable learning environments for 21st century learners.". In order accomplish this, they focus on four questions: 1- How do people learn? 2- What do we want them to know and be able to do? 3- How can we design learning environments that help them learn? 4- How can we monitor what they are learning? They offer a Ph.D. program to raise future learning scientists.