ClassBadges is a new service that aims to help teachers and students track their achievements big and small. Using ClassBadges teachers create goals for their students. When students reach their goals teachers assign a badge to them to keep in their student profiles. Teachers can create goals for things like completing a large research project, for perfect attendance, or for completing an informal learning activity with their parents while visiting a local museum.
"In a nifty set of experiments, three social scientists explored the differences between what they call "declarative" self-talk (I will fix it!) and "interrogative" self-talk (Can I fix it?). They began by presenting a group of participants with some anagrams to solve (for example, rearranging the letters in "sauce" to spell "cause".) But before the participants tackled the problem, the researchers asked one half of them to take a minute to ask themselves whether they would complete the task - and the other half to tell themselves that they would complete the task."
"The idea that full-blown creative contributions emerge effortlessly or naturally from talented and gifted individuals has all but been debunked by researchers who suggest that these great contributions are instead the product of passion, learning, and persistence."