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The principles of the Vittra School revolve around the breakdown of physical and metaphorical class divisions as a fundamental step to promoting intellectual curiosity, self-confidence, and communally responsible behavior. Therefore, in Vittra’s custom-built Stockholm location, spaces are only loosely defined by permeable borders and large, abstract landmarks. As the architects explained, “instead of classical divisions with chairs and tables, a giant iceberg for example serves as cinema, platform, and room for relaxation, and sets the frame for many different types of learning,” while “flexible laboratories make it possible to work hands-on with themes and projects.”

Learning public_education

I’m really convinced that this moves us on. We have to bounce teachers and learners out of that mindset that sees teaching as one to many and adopt the wisdom of the network. Pamela Katona at the University of Utrecht showed that students are less than satisfied with the teaching and feedback they receive. So many learners wait too long for feedback, receive cursory feedback, don’t have access to the marking scheme and often don’t see the final marked paper.
Arum, in Academically Adrift, has presented good research to show that critical thinking, complex reasoning and communications skills are all too lacking in our universities. So here’s a technique that moves us on, combing the best of teaching with the best of learning. All it takes is just that first step towards student interactivity and participation. And, to repeat, it’s SCALABLE, indeed, the more the merrier.

public_education higher_ed learning

The vast majority of undergraduates are in a peculiar and as yet unresolved bind. On the one hand, a college education will likely saddle them with crippling debt and consign them to four underwhelming years in classrooms with fluorescent lighting and drop-tile ceilings. On the other hand, opting out will likely consign them to a lifetime of unsatisfying, low-wage employment. What’s an average kid to do?

public_education higher_ed

Nearly all of the studies that purport to provide evidence for learning styles fail to satisfy key criteria for scientific validity. Any experiment designed to test the learning-styles hypothesis would need to classify learners into categories and then randomly assign the learners to use one of several different learning methods, and the participants would need to take the same test at the end of the experiment. If there is truth to the idea that learning styles and teaching styles should mesh, then learners with a given style, say visual-spatial, should learn better with instruction that meshes with that style. The authors found that of the very large number of studies claiming to support the learning-styles hypothesis, very few used this type of research design.  Of those that did, some provided evidence flatly contradictory to this meshing hypothesis, and the few findings in line with the meshing idea did not assess popular learning-style schemes.

Learning public_education higher_ed

The study serves as an example to educators that their effectiveness must be evaluated beyond the satisfaction with which students view them and raises the possibility of training actors to give "legitimate" lectures as an innovative approach toward effective education. The authors conclude by emphasizing that student satisfaction with learning may represent little more than the illusion of having learned.

learning public_education training

In Mr. Ipeirotis’ view, if there’s one big lesson from his semester in the cheating trenches, it’s this: Rather than police plagiarism, professors should design assignments that cannot be plagiarized.

How? He suggested several options. You could require that projects be made public, which would risk embarrassment for someone who wanted to copy from a past semester. You could assign homework where students give class presentations and then are graded by their peers, ratcheting up the social pressure to perform well. And you could create an incentive to do good work by turning homework into a competition, like asking students to build Web sites and rewarding those that get the most clicks.

public_education

The real bottom line is that no institution can replace the responsibility we alone have for finding our right path in life. We pick and choose, through our interactions and experiences, who we will be. As one set of researchers found, it is not IQ that matters; the key factor is self-discipline. Our willingness to defer action and sometimes refuse the immediate to achieve a later goal is the skill that makes the real difference in what we will become (see “Teaching Children the Art of Self-Control”).

Brain research has revealed that we are very plastic; learning and change continue throughout our lives. Identity is created, and it, too, is subject to new inputs, new learning and new conclusions. Old memories and habits that entrap us can be discarded at both the societal and individual levels. Likewise, we are collectively and individually responsible for seeing ourselves clearly and taking appropriate steps to change what we find out of place. The gaps we find need diligent, self-disciplined repair, not a temporary patching over. For both parent and child, and indeed for all of us no matter what our family circumstances, this is our most important creative enterprise.

learning public_education unschooling

How to Get a Real Education http://ur1.ca/3uo0v

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"Content isn't king .. Conversation is king. Content is just something to talk about." Cory Doctorow via Ewan McIntosh http://bit.ly/eJbLFk

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“The cautious 60 percent fail to explain the nature of scientific inquiry, undermine the authority of established experts, and legitimize creationist arguments.” As a result, “they may play a far more important role in hindering scientific literacy in the United States than the smaller number of explicit creationists,” the researchers conclude.

public_education critical_thinking

Very interesting question from Henry Jenkins: What Constitutes an Open-Book Exam in the Digital Age? http://bit.ly/hx2qGt

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1AlgebraAlgebra (Spanish)American GovernmentBiologyCalculusCalculus (Spanish)Environmental SciencePhysicsPsychologyReligionStatisticsUS History

public_education student_resources unschooling

You go @cgreen "You saw what happened with Craigslist and newspapers, We are going to get there with or without you." http://bit.ly/hrXPvZ

Mr. Green, of the state community-college board, says the Open Course Library is very much a work in progress, and may always be. Indeed, its success depends upon the academic community to continually review, revise, and improve the courses, and then post them back online for others. (The idea of freely sharing information, he concedes, might just be the more challenging cultural shift.)

But "getting there" is not in question, says Mr. Green. He says he's been blunt with textbook publishers and has encouraged them to get on board if they can.

"You saw what happened with Craigslist and newspapers," he says, referring to the free classified advertising that has helped force some newspapers out of business and required others to reinvent themselves. "We are going to get there with or without you.

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RT @datruss: Less is more. Teach less, learn more. http://bit.ly/elVMDj

The Finnish School example

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Students could boost marks by showing 'corporate skills' http://bit.ly/gZ2X0n <can academics assess? and will they be relevant when needed?>

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Yes, a "must read"RT @garystager: A must-read article to widely share by @alfiekohn - http://wapo.st/i7kHLS

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True education flowers at the point when delight falls in love with responsibility. If you love something, you want to look after it. Common sense has much to learn from moonshine.

Learning public_education

When it comes to “me” as a professional, the place where I spend the majority of my waking hours is rather not “we.” Or, perhaps it is a bit too “we” - but the “we” that schools have created to mean “us in the corner twiddling our thumbs

public_education

Lets get serious. We don’t need more math and science. We need more people who can think. We need to teach job skills, people skills, and reasoning skills. And we need to make education exciting and interesting. We need performance tests not competence

public_education

Fifty per cent drop out rates in high school reflect the irrelevance of what is being taught in high school. The kids know it, but the system, which is defended by nearly everyone associated with it, does not. Here are some obvious truths:

* To te

public_education