đšď¸ Do Something Great! đ
In 1957, notable science fiction author Robert A. Heinlein was asked to appear before a joint committee of the House and Senate after recovering from one of the earliest known carotid bypass operations to correct a blocked artery that was causing transient ischemic attacks; in his testimony, reprinted in the book Expanded Universe, he characterized the technology that made the surgery possible as merely one of a long list of spinoff technologies from space development.
Tang is not one of them.
Attention, Teachers! Why Students Are Bored | Grant Wiggins:
PowerPoint. Yes, I agree that PowerPoint is a very valuable tool, but this only applies in certain situations. When a teacher writes paragraphs upon paragraphs on a single PowerPoint slide, and then proceeds to read them all verbatim to “teach” the class, I completely zone out.
And please, teachers, take special heed on the PowerPoints. This was the #1 disliked practice in our student survey:
Too much text on each slide; and reading directly from the slide.
Via: @mguhlin
Finally, vindication!
Game Play Has No Negative Impact on Kids, UK Study Finds
A massive study of some 11,000 youngsters in Britain has found that playing video games, even as early as five years old, does not lead to later behavior problems.
via: @avantgame
Lectures Didn’t Work in 1350âand They Still Don’t Work Today
You point out that weâve been using the lecture-based model since the 1300s. Why have we kept replicating a model that doesnât suit everyoneâs needs?
Itâs a fascinating question. Thereâs a painting of a classroom by Laurentius de Voltolina from 1350 that shows itâs not working. Students are talking to each other or falling asleep while the teacher drones on. Why has this perpetuated? I donât know. In our workshops we tell people to go to Second Life and check out a classroomâand theyâre exactly like they are in the real world. Itâs strange, because this is a place you can move by teleporting, you can do whatever you want. So using space in the same way is strange.
via: @chamady
How a Radical New Teaching Method Could Unleash a Generation of Geniuses:
School had never been challenging for her. She sat in rows with the other students while teachers told the kids what they needed to know. It wasnât hard to repeat it back, and she got good grades without thinking too much. As she headed into fifth grade, she assumed she was in for more of the sameâlectures, memorization, and busy work.
One day JuĂĄrez Correa went to his whiteboard and wrote “1 = 1.00.” Normally, at this point, he would start explaining the concept of fractions and decimals. Instead he just wrote “1/2 = ?” and “1/4 = ?”
“Think about that for a second,” he said, and walked out of the room.
Via: @schinker
Purely Paperless: Tech Tip Tuesday: Split Screen Chrome Extension writes:
One extension that I have been loving lately is the Split Screen extension. With Split Screen, you can view two different web pages simultaneously without have to toggle between two different tabs or constantly resize your screens. As a recovering browser-tab abuser, I am pretty notorious for having WAY too many tabs open at once. Split Screen appeals to the “multi-tasker” in me.
Via: @CurtRees
Googleâs Python Lessons are Awesome:
The lovably geeky Nick Parlante â a Google employee and CS lecturer at Stanford â has written some awesomely succinct tutorials that not only tell you how you can use Python, but also how you should use Python. This makes them a fantastic resource, regardless of whether youâre just starting, or youâve been working with Python for awhile.
via: @seankaiser
The importance of selling your vision writes:
A team aligned behind a vision will move mountains. Sell them on your roadmap and don’t compromiseâââcare about the details, the fit and finish. Only work with those that have (as Larry Page puts it) “a healthy disregard for the impossible,” and push everyone on your team until itâs uncomfortable.
Kevin Rose writes about how he failed at selling his vision. Digg almost failed, and is still not as big as it once was.
The 5 Rules of Storytelling Every Teacher Should Know about
A good story does have to abide by certain rules and these rules are learned through practice. Andrew Stanton, the Pixar writer and director behind both Toy Story and WALL-E, talks some of these rules in his popular TED Talk, The clues to a great story.
Also related, Kurt Vonnegutâs 8 Rules For Writing Fiction, including one that’s really hard for me:
Be a sadist. Now matter how sweet and innocent your leading characters, make awful things happen to them â in order that the reader may see what they are made of.
China Enters âTesting-freeâ Zone: The New Ten Commandments of Education Reform writes:
No standardized tests, no written homework, no tracking. These are some of the new actions China is taking to lessen student academic burden. The Chinese Ministry of Education released Ten Regulations to Lessen Academic Burden for Primary School Students this week for public commentary. The Ten Regulations are introduced as one more significant measure to reform Chinaâs education, in addition to further reduction of academic content, lowering the academic rigor of textbooks, expanding criteria for education quality, and improving teacher capacity.
More information was posted by Yong Zhao at Education Week
China has been held as an example of a high performing education system and a model worth imitating (e.g., a call for longer school days and years). But, the Chinese apparently think otherwise. They have been eager to be rid of the primary factor contributing to their outstanding test scores and the very aspect of education that Western countries are eager to borrow. The reason is very simple: The Chinese have seen enough damage done by an overemphasis on testing and academic work on creativity, innovation, and student psychological and physical well-being.
The second lesson comes from the difficulty of moving away from a testing culture once it takes root. In China, test scores determine a student’s life–scores in primary schools determine which middle school a student can attend; scores in middle school determine which high school a student can go to; and scores at the end of high school, the infamous College Entrance Exam or Gaokao, determine which college a student can attend, if at all, and such a decision also determines one’s future career and social status. Consequently, tests dominate a child’s life and by association, the reputation of a school and teachers.
Although I do disagree with some of these commandments (such as minimizing supplemental materials, but I don’t know what is a supplemental material). The “no homework” commandment is intriguing also.
