Yule Heibel's Library tagged education →  View Popular, Search in Google

Hoping there's a good follow-up online about Head's research findings; the topic is intriguing:
QUOTE
Our findings indicate that nearly all students intentionally use a small compass for navigating the ever-widening and complex information landscape they inhabit. These and other findings of Project Information Literacy have profound implications for teaching, learning, work, and play in the 21st century.
UNQUOTE

education research berkman alison_head socialtheory

Sure, university professors provide a service. But are they really just service providers? And if that's all they have turned into, what does it say about the nature of universities? Change, change, change...
QUOTE
Because "Harvard students are generally pragmatic and hyper-concerned about maximizing their Return On Time Investment," Gandhi writes, they log onto the site... Besides, he says, students no longer have to pay attention to the professor's lecture to learn the subject matter because "much of knowledge has become commoditized on the web." To solve the problem, Gandhi believes professors must "start thinking of themselves as service providers who must constantly innovate to serve students better."
UNQUOTE

socialmedia university professors lecturing teaching harvard facebook education

Interesting. Will it work as well for less quantitative/ more interpretative fields?
QUOTE
The way the software works is that first the instructor inputs the concept she wants students to discuss. The program then helps create either multiple choice or "open-ended questions that ask for numerical, algebraic, textual, or graphical responses." Students then respond to these questions using electronic devices they're already bringing to class, like a laptop or smartphone.

The instructor can see a snapshot of who "gets" a concept and who still needs extra help, and then pair up students accordingly. The students even receive personalized messages on their devices telling them who to talk to in class, like "turn to your right and talk to Bob," until they master the concept. And, when it's time to study, they can access questions and answers from the class discussions.
UNQUOTE

harvard teaching pedagogy lectures good_mag education eric_mazur learning_catalytics

Amazing photographs...
QUOTE
As much as the project is about the quirkiness of childhood, it is, more strikingly, a commentary on class and on poverty. But the diversity also provides a sense of togetherness.

Everybody sleeps. And eventually, everybody grows up.
UNQUOTE

Grows up into what...?

education childhood children james_mollison nyt photography class

OMG...
QUOTE
At the end of the season, the league finds a way to “honor each child” with a trophy. “They’re kind of euphemistic,” the coach said of the awards, “but they’re effective.” The Spirit Award went to “the troublemaker who always talks and doesn’t pay attention, so we spun it into his being very ‘spirited,’” he said.
UNQUOTE

atlantic_monthly therapy narcissism child_rearing psychology parenting education children

Important reading for 'girls,' irrespective of age (it seems):
QUOTE
Girls, who develop self-control earlier and are better able to follow instructions, are often praised for their "goodness." When we do well in school, we are told that we are "so smart," "so clever, " or "such a good student." This kind of praise implies that traits like smartness, cleverness and goodness are qualities you either have or you don't.

Boys, on the other hand, are a handful. Just trying to get boys to sit still and pay attention is a real challenge for any parent or teacher. As a result, boys are given a lot more feedback that emphasizes effort (e.g., "If you would just pay attention you could learn this," "If you would just try a little harder you could get it right.") The net result: When learning something new is truly difficult, girls take it as sign that they aren't "good" and "smart," and boys take it as a sign to pay attention and try harder.

We continue to carry these beliefs, often unconsciously, around with us throughout our lives. And because Bright Girls are particularly likely to see their abilities as innate and unchangeable, they grow up to be women who are far too hard on themselves -- women who will prematurely conclude that they don't have what it takes to succeed in a particular arena, and give up way too soon.

Even if every external disadvantage to a woman's rising to the top of an organization is removed -- every inequality of opportunity, every chauvinistic stereotype, all the challenges we face balancing work and family -- we would still have to deal with the fact that through our mistaken beliefs about our abilities, we may be our own worst enemy.
UNQUOTE

education gender gifted girls psychology heidi_halvorson huffington_post

One of the best, most thought-provoking articles on education I've read in a long time, by Maria H. Andersen. Brilliant, brilliant insights and suggestions...

QUOTE
Mass education is adequate, as long as students are highly motivated to learn and get ahead of their peers. In developing countries, a student who is successful in education will be able to climb the ladder of personal economic prosperity faster than those who are not successful. But in industrialized countries, where prosperity is the norm, an education does not necessarily translate into a significantly higher standard of living. In these countries, there is no longer a large economic incentive to learn, so the motivation to learn must become intrinsic. As we redesign en masse education, we must address learners’ intrinsic motivations, which means that education must circle back to being personal again.
UNQUOTE

maria_h_andersen education trends futurismo innovation disruption socialtheory socratic socrait

Love this 2010 TED talk by Sugata Mitra on education: "Education is a self organising system, where learning is an emergent phenomenon..."

From the description on the TED page:
QUOTE
Education scientist Sugata Mitra tackles one of the greatest problems of education -- the best teachers and schools don't exist where they're needed most. In a series of real-life experiments from New Delhi to South Africa to Italy, he gave kids self-supervised access to the web and saw results that could revolutionize how we think about teaching.
UNQUOTE

ted_conference sugata_mitra education learning

Interesting nuggets on studying and study habits and techniques. For example:

QUOTE
...individual learning is another matter, and psychologists have discovered that some of the most hallowed advice on study habits is flat wrong. For instance, many study skills courses insist that students find a specific place, a study room or a quiet corner of the library, to take their work. The research finds just the opposite. In one classic 1978 experiment, psychologists found that college students who studied a list of 40 vocabulary words in two different rooms - one windowless and cluttered, the other modern, with a view on a courtyard - did far better on a test than students who studied the words twice, in the same room. Later studies have confirmed the finding, for a variety of topics.

The brain makes subtle associations between what it is studying and the background sensations it has at the time, the authors say, regardless of whether those perceptions are conscious. It colors the terms of the Versailles Treaty with the wasted fluorescent glow of the dorm study room, say; or the elements of the Marshall Plan with the jade-curtain shade of the willow tree in the backyard. Forcing the brain to make multiple associations with the same material may, in effect, give that information more neural scaffolding.

"What we think is happening here is that, when the outside context is varied, the information is enriched, and this slows down forgetting," said Dr. Bjork, the senior author of the two-room experiment.
UNQUOTE

nyt studying research learning education

Seth Godin delivers a well-deserved kick to traditional college education's kneecaps.
QUOTE
Why do colleges send millions (!) of undifferentiated pieces of junk mail to high school students now? We will waive the admission fee! We have a one page application! Apply! This is some of the most amateur and bland direct mail I've ever seen. Why do it?

Biggest reason: So the schools can reject more applicants. The more applicants they reject, the higher they rank in US News and other rankings. And thus the rush to game the rankings continues, which is a sign that the marketers in question (the colleges) are getting desperate for more than their fair share. Why bother making your education more useful if you can more easily make it appear to be more useful?
UNQUOTE

seth_godin education college tuition

File under "resources": a collection of links for learning about journalism.
QUOTE
Ambitious journalists don’t have to worry about affording extra education when free open courses are available for anyone to take online. Spend some time studying and exploring the various aspects of journalism with these classes before forging your own future as a journalist. These courses will help you learn about writing, reporting, photojournalism, multimedia, and more.
UNQUOTE

journalism resources education

QUOTE
Barry Schwartz makes a passionate call for "practical wisdom" as an antidote to a society gone mad with bureaucracy. He argues powerfully that rules often fail us, incentives often backfire, and practical, everyday wisdom will help rebuild our world.
UNQUOTE
Inspiring ~22min. TED presentation by Barry Schwartz, about planning and incentives, and individual virtue, and practical wisdom. It's interesting to watch & ponder this video side-by-side with Roger Scruton's article on architecture and urban planning (also bookmarked today).

ted_conference barry_schwartz wisdom virtue ethics education

The "Did You Know?" video, which has been making its viral rounds through various social networks. Breathless, admittedly amazing facts, prepare to meet a firehose of information. ("What does it in-form?" is another question...)

youtube education technology google internet video

Rob blogged about Amsterdam's re-think of its liberal laws regarding drug use (and prostitution, too). I left a *long* comment, a thinking-out-loud about how the factory system of education, coupled with a repression of creative risk-taking and innovation in the culture, enables and exacerbates turning to drugs.

robert_randall drugs socialcritique drug_addiction education innovation risk youth comments

Portal page for the Digital Youth Research :: Kids' Informal Learning with Digital Media project.
QUOTE
"Kids' Informal Learning with Digital Media: An Ethnographic Investigation of Innovative Knowledge Cultures" is a three-year collaborative project funded by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. Carried out by researchers at the University of Southern California and University of California, Berkeley, the digital youth project explores how kids use digital media in their everyday lives.
UNQUOTE

web2.0 research socialtheory youth danah_boyd education learning

Slide show presentation from John Moravec, U. of Minnesota, on getting schooling (? education) into the 21st century and into a 3.0 mode.

slideshare education web2.0 innovation john_moravec educationfutures

This is an open thread on the Diigo "direct messaging service," which highlights some of the ways that teachers/educators on Diigo are using this application.

diigo socialmedia distributed_education education distance_education socialcomputing

Richard Florida quotes from a WSJ article (http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120425355065601997.html) that describes how successful Finnish high schoolers are compared to other students in other countries. I left a very long comment on this entry, as it's a topic obviously close to my area of concerns.

Click through to read Florida's post, and the numerous comments this one generated.

education finland finnish_schooling kids oecd oecd_pisa richard_florida

- profile/ overview of Michelle Rhee, the D.C. schools chancellor who's rocking the traditional bureaucratic boat of public schooling:
"She says she keeps hearing from worried city council members that some teachers and administrators are frightened of her. They are feeling pressure and that's a problem. Her answer? Get used to it. 'I'm going to hold people accountable and I'm going to hold their feet to the fire. If they're feeling pressure--good! I feel pressure every day because I have the education of 49,000 kids in my hands.'"
- I say go for it, and damn all the complaining from some sectors. Any time a bureaucracy serves primarily itself instead of its clients/ constituents, it needs a wake up kick in its nether regions, as well as a major dismantling. You can't decentralize centrally (Marshall McLuhan, paraphrased).

education michelle_rhee reform school washington_dc wsj_opinion

education university