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We are always trying to find ways to motivate sts, but don't you think that it is high time for sts to start motivating their teachers?

Şermin, most of the time I need motivation to motivate the students for learning English:) And also, I question why we ask them to learn something they dislike. I agree with Burcu, when students are demotivated, teachers lose their motivation to teach. But, if they are intrinsically motivated, teaching becomes a joy. For example, I loved teaching to 4th graders. They had such a high level of motivation that I experienced the flow while teaching them:)

I also believe that teacher motivation is mutual.The two parties have to affect each other.Unfortunately we as teachers have to be the stimulators in our classes no matter how we feel during the day.One of the solution to keep teachers improve their skills and better their practises can be initiating positive school climate that is keeping teachers morale high by respecting their identity both as a teacher and valuable person in the community. Social parties,cookie-days can be alternative for teachers to have space to socialize, learn from each other and the sense of belongingness would enhance.It worked for some teachers that I worked with earlier.

The first robot teacher was tested in Tokyo in 2009 to sixth and seventh graders. The robot teacher can express six basic emotions - happiness, surprise, fear, disgust, sadness and anger. As I know a French company has developed a robot teacher, too.

To admit, yes it is an impressive way. However, I got stuck when it was said that robots could replace teachers in case of teacher shortage. It can be used as a tool for teaching-learning but it can not be treated as a teacher in real terms.

I think this is too much technological, where is the interaction? I totally agree with Yelda and Sinem in that a robot teacher cannot provide the effective class environment and fulfill teaching. The communication is really important in learning process, with a robot teacher this is impossible.

There are many theories in this page that we should be interested in in this page as learning sciences students. An example of two groundbreaking research results in learning sciences is (1) Entwistle's Phenomenography theory This conceptual framework focuses on the experience of learning from the student's perspective and is based upon a phenomenological approach to research. Entwistle explains: "Our task is thus to describe more clearly how learning takes place in higher education and to point out how teaching and assessment affect the quality of learning. From these descriptions teachers should be able to draw their own lessons about how to facilitate their students' learning" (Marton, Hounsell & Entwistle, 1984, p.1). (2) Festinger's Cognitive Dissonance Theory According to cognitive dissonance theory, there is a tendency for individuals to seek consistency among their cognitions (i.e., beliefs, opinions). When there is an inconsistency between attitudes or behaviors (dissonance), something must change to eliminate the dissonance. In the case of a discrepancy between attitudes and behavior, it is most likely that the attitude will change to accommodate the behavior.

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.

The tedtalk related to how to learn things especially practical things is very enjoyful. In this video it is emphasized that everyone can learn whatever they want in twenty hours. But there are some requirements for this type of learning that are: deconstruct your skill, learn enough to self-correct or self-edit, remove practise barries, and prastice at least 20 hours. the only barrier to have any skill is only emotional.

2o hours to learn something sounds interesting. But, I don't think 20 hours would be enough to learn some practical things. Learning English can be a good example of that. Despite the many ads claiming to teach English in a short time, I have not come across any method to teach English in a short time.

It was really fun to watch.What drew my attention was the quote `The major barrier to skill acquisition isn`t intellectual...it`s emotional yet the quote reminded me of another quoate :)from the readings of this week `the journey to truly superior performance is neither for the faint of heart nor for the impatient.`Although both shares the view that once should be open, courageous,eager to learn, they differ in the sense that genuine expertise comes with struggle, sacrifice and there aren`t shortcuts as in learning how to play the guitar with `four chords`.Instead, one has to invest time wisely for a bit of a period of time to apply it as an expert.Take for example,art lessons.One cannot learn and paint in 20hrs if he/she is not very talented.

In the video, students are learning and getting expertise concepts by engaging different activities. Through activities students make some research about the topic and teachers help them to get deeper knowledge about topic by asking questions. In the activities, the source of knowledge not only teachers but also students themselves. I mean, students also learn from each other. Moreover, teachers' role is guiding and helping students when they stuck on something.

My conclusions from this video are: for students to develop expertise, teachers should scaffold them. Teachers should question the students and make them articulate their ideas. Moreover teachers should teach students as teams formed from expert teachers.

Investing heavily in school computers and classroom technology does not improve pupils' performance, says a global study from the OECD. The think tank says frequent use of computers in schools is more likely to be associated with lower results. The OECD's education director Andreas Schleicher says school technology had raised "too many false hopes". These results worth to be disscussed. Shall we go back to traditional classrooms or continue with technology? If so, how should we use it in the classroom?

It is an important an overwhelming issue about how we integrate technology into education. A well-balanced implementation is required for successful instruction between the use of technology and traditional methods like paper-pencil activities (Hitt, 2011). We should not force technology and traditional instruments like paper-pencil and blackboards fight against themselves. We may play the role of negotiator between the technology and traditional methods.

Perhaps, we need to focus more on the pedagogy rather than the technology.

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."

"Tell me and I forget, teach me and I may remember, involve me and I learn." ― Benjamin Franklin In the area of adult learning, Ben Franklin turns out to be quite prescient.

That's true. Education is a social-emotional act. As I said in my personal learning theory, teaching humans is not like inserting lines of codes to series of robots to make them behave in a specific way. We all have emotions and our emotions to a specific event may not be same all the time as our point of views to an event are affected by our personal experiences, culture, philosophy, etc. In that sense, for a teacher, it is important to monitor students' feelings to a specific topic and to arrange learning environments in which students have positive feelings about a topic.

"Introduce failure into your learning design." something we appreciate less in our educational system.

The video is very funny and it shows the importance of interest, motivation, self-esteem as well as prior knowledge in learning to me, what do you think?

Thank you for sharing this. Sheldon typically may have aimed to transfer what is written in the books or most probably imitated his teachers as this was the way he was instructed. I say so as the physics teacher at the high school I studied was instructing in the same way and this is why I could not learn physics and developed a kind of prejudice towards that subject matter. As I could not comprehend the abstract terms he was talking about I quitted:(

I think we usually experience such a thing. Teachers want to teach whatever they want without stopping, but they sometimes forget that not every students is very interested in the stuff :( an important thing to keep in mind.

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.

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.

In this video, a teacher shows that using technology (smartboard) and concrete materials/manipulatives help students learn geometrical concepts. Especially in early ages, children can learn abstract concepts better with the proper use of hands-on activities and concrete manipulatives. If we add visualizations to words in our lessons, we can enhance students' learning. Furthermore, using such instruments in class may prevent misconceptions that make difficult to learn new concepts.

I like this video because of two reasons. Firstly, it is good example of effective lesson and good example for using materials.Different types of materials are used in this video and lesson materials are support each other by this way lesson becomes enjoyable and interesting for students who has different learning styles. Secondly, in this video, manipulatives, paper pencil actvities and technogical tools are used together and a good example of how technology should be used in the lessons. Studies shows that in our classrooms, smart board used like projectors and teachers even do not know the function of document camera. Therefore, I think that this video should be used for teacher training in Fatih project.

"John D. Bransford holds the Shauna C. Larson Endowed Chair in Learning Sciences at the University of Washington College of Education in Seattle, Washington. Dr. Bransford is also Founding Director of The Learning in Informal and Formal Environments (LIFE) Center, an National Science Foundation (NSF) Science of Learning Center" Here is a chapter from a book published by National Academy of Education: " Preparing Teachers for a Changing World: What Teachers Should Learn and Be Able to Do" (Edited by John Bransford and Linda Darling Hammond.) The chapter focuses on how to design teachers' learning experiences in a trainig program: http://blog.lib.umn.edu/cehd/teri/Chapter%2011.pdf

I've watched the video twice and in the end I've felt some concerns about the results of the studies. In the "how people learn" part, researchers were testing the storage and connection system of the brain through some high-tech tools. However, does neuropsychology provide enough evidence on the functioning of the brains? Can we generalize the results to all people from all cultures? I am not the one who is against neuropsychology, but for me one discipline may not give an appropriate answer to such a deep question. My second concern is about the integration of computer programs into the curriculum as a major learning tool. We see a program where "Betty" is speaking and giving feedback on the video. The program seems user friendly, but what about the negative aspects and limitations of the integration of technology into learning? Ok, I agree that we have to adapt to the rapid technological changes in the society. However, is technology the key to all learning processes? Plus, the program is designed on the mapping of the concepts. Does concept mapping make a curriculum compelling all the time? I am not sure about all characteristics of the program, but if it hasn't been designed in a challenging style and if all students come up with the same products, then how will they develop their knowledge and reasoning abilities? I couldn't find an answer to that. As for the part "effective teaching", I am in the same opinion with the researchers that there should be a connection between the real world and the subject taught. Moreover, I think the integration of the disciplines is difficult but a very good way of giving meaning to life. Besides, in the video we see teachers as a guide, as a facilitator and there is no doubt that providing individual support to the students helps students feel more involved.

Firstly, even if it is designed by utilizing modern technology and different understanding, which makes it a more developed and complicated one, the program used in the video reminded me the teaching machines of old times. It gives the priority to the cognitive aspect of learning. This seems to be a one-dimensional approach which underestimates the social aspect of learning. I think the value of classroom interaction for effective learning cannot be replaced by any kind of computer programs. Research on brain is really important and it provides very useful insights for learning and instructional activities. However, it should be supported by the findings of research by social psychologists as well. The very same individual may perform at varying levels when he is taught with the same methods in different environments. I personally experienced many times that even the absence of one individual in my classes affected the teaching an learning processes in a negative or positive way depending upon the classroom dinamics.

I am curious about what you think on this. Do you agree?

While reading I felt that the author is somewhat close to new ideas coming from other people, other thinkers, actually coming from the rest of the world. I mean as I understood at some parts, he is not open to accept the judgements or theories of some thinkers because what they said were already out there, they did not bring anything new. However I would name these people as men of action and thinkers ahead of their time. Because they draw attention to critical points that were ignored or missed by others. Maybe yes what they put forth were already out there or maybe some of their methods are not sufficient compared to our current methodologies but still they were the ones to see the complete picture and summarize things.

Thank you Evrim Hocam:) I strongly believe in community, wikinomy, we have to share, we can learn from each other in an informal environment but social constructivism is not working on me:) As he wrote "At University I learned almost everything in the quiet of my own room and the library. In corporate life, I relished the opportunity to learn on trains and planes, havens of forced isolation, peace and quiet. To this day I blog a lot and enjoy periods of intense research, reading and writing. It's not that I've learned everything in these contexts, only that they go against the idea that all learning needs to be social." I always got successful with deliberate practice and with "Learning by Doing". I don't like social media as well, there are many damages than benefits and I'm not so introvert, maybe a little:) but it's not about being introvert or extrovert, it's about talking or doing... I want to tell a real story of my friend who was a novice programmer in a company. There were many experts, novices and they were taking courses, online, offline, with collaboration every time. Everybody were sharing, commenting, discussing but he began a real life project first week by himself and after 6 month they were still asking to each other but he finished his project. After one year he was the best programmer in the company. And everyone began to ask to him. I asked him, he told that he believes in working until suffering and just doing:) And he added this interesting sentence "You will learn and you will be successful when you will be so related, so suffering that one day you will see dreams and solve problems about the topics in your sleep" My friend's opinions are maybe a little bit dramatic but I believe in "doing" too, at least it's working for us:)

A couple of yeras ago, Turkish Ministry of Education declared that some teachers wold be appointed as "experts". At the very beginning, some teachers got the title of "experts"; however, the ministry gave up the idea after a very short time. This can be a topic to be discussed at our class this week. Some of the questions that can be raised: * What is an expert teacher? * Do we need experts at our school? * How should the teachers get the title of "expert", by an exam or by working time? I added a Turkish forum where people discussed the expert teachers at schools.

It can be a good discussion topic, well suited for the week.

Here is an interesting example how learning is practiced in social media. If you want to find out more about the theoretical background, google "Professor Sreenivasan".

Some of social media samples can be used during some spesific classes such as History, English, Biology and likewise. But as a Maths teacher, I do not believe that I can use it as a tool to teach a subject. However, I definately aggree that it is obviously a great thing to exchange new ideas, to make brain storms, to create a discussion platform and broaden ideas according to several perspectives.

I liked the idea of integrating social media into instruction. But the teacher or instructor should be extra careful and strategic as it may be risky. Such devices or technology are mostly to capture the attention of the students or to keep students engaged in the lesson. I still think that the magic is in the hands of the teacher to keep the students attention and ensure effective learning. It may be too much technological to use facebook or tweeter in each lesson, which constitutes a balance issue. The students need to be close to the books, pencils and notebooks, papers etc. The dose of social media should be arranged carefully and strategically.

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.