http://www.onlineuniversities.com/blog/2012/06/9-signs-that-neuroscience-has-entered-classroom/

Here is a great reference page for everybody seeking for classroom applications based on neuroscience. Off the record, you can also use these ideas as a reference for Özge's 2nd question on the forum:))

might be useful for the online discussion questions on DBR.

http://www.ajesi.anadolu.edu.tr/articles/AJESI_1_1/AJESI_1_1_Article_2.pdf

It was in my master's education when I first heard about Montessori schools. A friend of mine shared her experiences when she was teacher-trained there and I was quite impressed by the radical techniques they were using and surprised by the success of these schools. Here is a very short video showing how Montessori schools provide flow opportunities and experiences to the students.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GcgN0lEh5IA

Hi all! Here is a real story of a basketball trainer working with Kobe Bryant for the Olympics in 2012. Many people might call his talent "innate" but I am sure this story is a remarkable evidence of the importance of deliberate practice.

"From Robert, trainer for Team USA:

I was invited to Las Vegas to help Team USA with their conditioning before they headed off to London. I've had the opportunity to work with Carmelo Anthony and Dwyane Wade in the past, but this would be my first interaction with Kobe.

The night before the first scrimmage, I had just watched "Casablanca" for the first time and it was about 3:30 AM.

A few minutes later, I was in bed, slowly fading away, when I heard my cell ring. It was Kobe. I nervously picked up.

"Hey, uhh, Rob, I hope I'm not disturbing anything right?"

"Uhh, no. What's up Kob?"

"Just wondering if you could help me out with some conditioning work, that's all."

I checked my clock. 4:15 AM.

"Yeah sure, I'll see you in the facility in a bit."

It took me about twenty minutes to get my gear and get out of the hotel. When I arrived and opened the room to the main practice floor, I saw Kobe. Alone. He was drenched in sweat as if he had just taken a swim. It wasn't even 5:00 AM.

We did some conditioning work for the next hour and fifteen minutes. Then, we entered the weight room, where he would do a multitude of strength training exercises for the next 45 minutes. After that, we parted ways. He went back to the practice floor to shoot. I went back to the hotel and crashed. Wow.

I was expected to be at the floor again at about 11:00 AM.

I woke up feeling sleepy, drowsy, and pretty much every side effect of sleep deprivation. (Thanks, Kobe.) I had a bagel and headed to the practice facility.

This next part I remember very vividly. All of the Team USA players were there. LeBron was talking to Carmelo and Coach Krzyzewski was trying to explain something to Kevin Durant. On the right side of the practice facility Kobe was by himself shooting jumpers.

I went over to him, patted him on the back and said, "Good work this morning."

"Huh?"

"Like, the conditioning. Good work."

"Oh. Yeah, thanks Rob. I really appreciate it."

"So when did you finish?"

"Finish what?"

"Getting your shots up. What time did you leave the facility?"

"Oh, just now. I wanted 800 makes. So yeah, just now."

Hi all! Let me introduce two researchers who have made important contributions to learning sciences. The first name is Seymour Papert, who established connections with Piaget's developmental psychology to the current trends in educational technology. He is known by his studies in three fields; child development, artificial intelligence and computational technologies for education. Papert proposed a theory on learning called constructionism, which is built upon the work of Piaget's Constructivism. While working under Piaget, he was influenced by his idea that children make sense of their world as active participants interacting with the world. With this idea in mind, he developed the Logo programming language, which had the idea that children should be programming the computer rather than being programmed by it. In spite of his 50 year dedication and contribution to science, he hasn't been acknowledged by the science world and unfortunately he has been in a rehabilitation treating program for about 8 years because of a motorcycle accident. I really like his idea proposing that many children have trouble in their learning just because they have a model of learning in which you have either got it or got it wrong. But rather than asking whether it is right or wrong, the question that should be asked is if the problem is fixable. And I am impressed by his foresight about the computer technology. Even two decades before the computers entered our houses, Papert was one of the pioneers claiming that computers can be used to give a better education to the children. If you want to get to know more about him, you can click on this link (http://www.media.mit.edu/video/view/spring14-2014-04-24-4) and watch a 1-hour video about his contributions to learning.

The second person is one of the foremost ELT researchers in the 20th century, Stephen Krashen. I am pretty sure that almost all the language teachers and students are familiar with this name. I have added a very short but remarkable video of Krashen, which is about comprehensible input (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4K11o19YNvk). His hypothesis have made it possible for scientists to come up with one of the most popular approaches of today, the communicative approach. According to Krashen, there are two independent systems of second language process, which are acquisition and learning. Acquisition is a subconscious process, similar to a baby acquiring his first language and it is a natural communication. But learning is the product of formal instruction and it is a conscious process of, for example, a student learning grammatical rules. And another well-known hypothesis of Krashen, Monitoring, explains the relationship between acquisition and learning and the effect of acquisition on learning. Anyway, what you are going to watch in the video summarizes all his hypothesis in just one sentence; language acquisition requires meaningful interaction in the target language, which enables the speaker convey and understand the messages.