background preloader

Rethinking the Way College Students Are Taught

Rethinking the Way College Students Are Taught
It's a typical scene: a few minutes before 11:00 on a Tuesday morning and about 200 sleepy-looking college students are taking their seats in a large lecture hall - chatting, laughing, calling out to each other across the aisles. Class begins with a big "shhhh" from the instructor. This is an introductory chemistry class at a state university. For the next hour and 15 minutes, the instructor will lecture and the students will take notes. Students in this class say the instructor is one of the best lecturers in the department. Student Marly Dainton says she doesn't think she'll remember much from this class. "I'm going to put it to short-term memory," she says. One of the Oldest Teaching Methods Research conducted over the past few decades shows it's impossible for students to take in and process all the information presented during a typical lecture, and yet this is one of the primary ways college students are taught, particularly in introductory courses. He knew that Elton was right.

Spaced repetition When should one review? In the morning? In the evening? Any old time? So one reviews at whatever time is convenient. If one is not satisfied with that answer, then on general considerations, one ought to review before bedtime & sleep. Recent advances in our understanding of the neurobiology underlying normal human memory formation have revealed that learning is not an event, but rather a process that unfolds over time.16⁠,17⁠,18,[Squire2003 Fundamental Neuroscience],20 Thus, it is not surprising that learning strategies that repeat materials over time enhance their retention.20,21⁠,22⁠,23⁠,24⁠,25⁠,26 …Thousands of new cells are generated in this region every day, although many of these cells die within weeks of their creation.31 The survival of dentate gyrus neurons has been shown to be enhanced in animals when they are placed into learning situations.16-20 Animals that learn well retain more dentate gyrus neurons than do animals that do not learn well. Prospects: Extended Flashcards

The nine secrets of learning This article originally appeared in Psychology (11th ed.) (2014). Reprinted with permission. Wade, C., Tavris, C., & Garry, M. (2014). The Nine Secrets of Learning. Psychology (11th ed.). Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Pearson Education, Inc. How do you study? Psychological research has uncovered many secrets to learning. Okay, that’s two sentences, but these secrets are so important, we snuck in an extra one. What to do before class Your instructor has assigned you certain readings from your textbook and possibly other sources as well. Secret #1: Use the 3R technique: Read. Let’s say you’re supposed to read a chapter by your next class. Read a section of the chapter. In one study comparing the effectiveness of various study techniques, students in three groups read long, technical encyclopedia entries (McDaniel, Howard & Einstein, 2009). Secret #2: Dig deep. You can’t read your textbook the same way you check your Facebook page, at a quick, superficial level. Secret #3: Use your imagination.

Excel Math Tools for Teachers | Excel Math K-6 Curriculum Excel Math Tools for Teachers New Projectable Lessons and Teacher Edition Pages Click on the links below to download revised Excel Math Lesson Pages (PDF files) Math Resources Click on the links below to view and download samples and related Excel Math documents: Excel Math Quick Start Guide 4 Easy Steps to Getting Started 1. The Teacher Edition includes Answers Keys, Lesson Plans to help guide your student to understand each concept, read-aloud problems, reproducible manipulatives, stretch excercises, and lots more! Order a Projectable Lessons CD by grade level for classroom use (optional). 2. The book covers are color coded by grade level: Kindergarten – Grey 1st Grade – Pink 2nd Grade – Blue 3rd Grade – Green 4th Grade – Tan 5th Grade – Yellow 6th Grade – Orange Look for the 4-digit page number at the bottom center of each Student Lesson Sheet. 3. More questions after watching the video? Also visit our Product Updates page to find any updates for your lessons. 4. More about Excel Math Each week

10 Quick Time-Saving Excel Shortcuts & Mouse Tricks for Marketers Please note, there is a new version of this article, with more up-to-date information: 13 quick time-saving Excel tips and shortcuts. The one thing marketers agree on is there isn’t enough time in the day to accomplish everything. Often the best way to find more time is to save time. Improving your Excel skills is a great place to begin to claw back a few minutes on every project, because Excel is a tool used by most of us on a regular basis. Excel Tip No. 1: Automatically SUM() with ALT + = Quickly add an entire column or row by clicking in the first empty cell in the column. Excel Tip No. 2: Logic for Number Formatting Keyboard Shortcuts At times keyboard shortcuts seem random, but there is logic behind them. Both the SHIFT and 4 keys seem random, but they’re intentionally used because SHIFT + 4 is the dollar sign ($). Excel Tip No. 3: Display Formulas with CTRL + ` When you’re troubleshooting misbehaving numbers first look at the formulas. Create the formula you need in the first cell.

Classic Books - Read.gov Turn the pages to explore bygone eras, time-honored tales and historical narratives. Adventure awaits in these classic books online. "A Apple Pie" Introduces the letters A to Z while following the fortunes of an apple pie. The Four Online Testing Tools We Evaluated | Online Testing Tools for Teachers The only way to truly test a new tool is to make concrete use of it. We went beyond the feature lists and reviews of the testing tools and created a realistic - albeit not real - test. While the test purports to investigate the students' knowledge of the history and basic facts of the lowly and common peanut butter and jelly sandwich (feel free to check your knowledge!), it is of course the testing tools themselves that are put to the test. Our Guidelines for Evaluation: Free: Is the tool free to use (Trial Periods do not count)? Our Testing Test (answers not included) Which of the following ingredients is not found in a peanut butter and jelly sandwich? Please Note: Information concerning the following products was accurate as of November 10, 2009 Tool Evaluation Quick Links: ProProfs Quiz School • Lime Survey • Exambuilder • Google Form ProProfs Quiz School (evaluated by Chris Daniels) Overview Quiz school is a online testing software form ProProfs. Strengths Weaknesses Back to top

No.10 Most Read Article of 2013: 5 Free Excel Add-Ins to Help Digital Marketers Decipher Big Data This story was originally published on May 2, 2013, and comes in at No. 10 on our countdown of the 10 most popular ClickZ stories of 2013. As ClickZ looks back over the past year, we’re celebrating the best of 2013, as determined by you, our readers. Enjoy! Wherever a marketer turns these days she is confronted by the idea of big data. Luckily you likely have a powerful analysis tool at your fingertips – Excel. Excel has become so indispensable that 76 percent of agency media planners rely on it for their media planning, according to Chris O’Hara from NextMark. GeoFlow for 3D geographic visualizationPowerPivot and Power View for massive data crunchingBing Ads Intelligence for rich PPC dataExcellent Analytics pulls in analytics data directly into ExcelSeoTools for Excel for robust SEO-specific tasks All of these can help you harness the power of your data quickly and save time. GeoFlow: Big Data + Great Mapping Visualization click to enlarge PowerPivot: Pivot Tables on Steroids

Ask the Scientist Ask the Scientist: Which is the best way to study? How often? Does cramming work? 1. 2. 3. An Alternative To Cell Comments - FREE Microsoft Excel Spreadsheet Tips and Tutorials Effective learning: Twenty rules of formulating knowledge - SuperMemo Dr Piotr Wozniak, February, 1999 (updated) This article will help you overcome one of the greatest difficulties you will face when trying to accelerate learning: formulating knowledge The speed of learning will depend on the way you formulate the material. The rules are listed in the order of importance. There is an underlying assumption that you will proceed with learning using spaced repetition, i.e. you will not just learn once but you will repeat the material optimally (as in SuperMemo). The 20 rules of formulating knowledge in learning Do not learn if you do not understandTrying to learn things you do not understand may seem like an utmost nonsense. Here is a striking example: You might want to experiment and try to learn two subjects using the two above approaches and see for yourself what advantage is brought by minimum information principle. Note in the example above how short the questions are. Avoid setsA set is a collection of objects. Does it all sound artificial? Summary

Related: