Archive for the ‘Learning (general)’ Category

A lot of teaching time is spent managing student behavior. Dos and Don'ts of Behaviour Management by Roger Dunn gives some insights.

According to Yr 8 students in Britain, a good teacher... is kind is generous listens to you encourages you has faith in you keeps confidences likes teaching students likes teaching their subject takes time to explain things helps you when you're stuck tells you how you are doing allows you to have your say doesn't […]

I attended the International Conference on Computers in Education today. Brief responses: Why do education conferences start with a transmissionist Keynote? Today's was only so-so (by Joseph Krajcik on using gadgets in schools for integrated understanding). There was no attempt to engage the audience. Why don't presenters check everything before presenting? Almost every speaker today […]

Some of our students recently went on a service learning project in Cambodia. They travelled to Banlung, a very remote area of eastern Cambodia. The main activity was to document local culture, including legends, stories, myths, etc. They were obviously moved by this maturing experience. By living there, they had to learn some survival skills. […]

The ideas in Sydney Finkelstein's book "Why Smart Executives Fail" could also apply to educational institutions. In a recent article, he described a company that was very positive and where divisions were very supportive of each other, but said they could be heading for disaster, since: [The] company has created an insulated culture that systematically […]

Maish Nichani recently gave an interesting talk on designing e-Learning using case studies. A summary: Case studies should require students to take action or make a judgement based on what they are given. (based on "Why Wisdom Can't be Told" and Dewey). The case therefore needs to be some kind of emergency - where the […]

Improving the Quality of Teaching and Learning Ed by John Hart and Martin Smith Staff and Educational Development Association (SEDA) Paper 91, Sep 1995 A Summary Review Students struggle with programming. Are we teaching it correctly? What are the barriers to learning? This collection of papers "...provide[s] a forum for the exchange of ideas, reports […]

Most text-book knowlege is unrelated to students' lives - and "old". (Nothing wrong with old, but if it is superseded knowledge, then it doesn't belong in a classroom, except for historical study). One way to ensure interest, and relevance, is to get the students to write the textbooks. Heck, they may even experience some enthusiasm […]

SquareCircleZ is one year old. One of my first rants was about learning - and I remain passionate about the need for reform of institutional education. Looking back on this blog: The posts that got the most reaction were on √16 - how many answers?, my critical post on Heymath! and my Review on Game […]

This is not bad: Commodities Trading Simulation. You can buy and sell various goods and the aim is to make money as a trader. I like the fact that you need to make decisions and live with those decisions. You learn as you go. it's much better than "tell and test". But I'm wondering why […]