Study skills articles
5 Teaching Practices I'm Kicking to the Curb
So many of us teach the way we were taught. We may not even realize we’re doing it. And that means certain practices get passed down year after year without question, methods that are such a normal part of the way we do school, we perpetuate them without realizing there are better alternatives. Today I’m going to roll out five of these for your consideration: five teaching practices used every day that are not backed by research. In many cases, these practices are not only ineffective, they can be downright harmful. A few caveats before I start: First, I have used every single one of these methods. A.K.A.: Round-Robin Reading, Volunteer Reading What it is: A teacher wants her class to read a text—a short story, a chapter in a textbook—so she has each student take a turn reading out loud while the others follow along silently. Why I did it: I used popcorn reading occasionally as a language arts teacher, when we were doing a whole-class novel, to “get through” the text. Learn More: A.K.A.
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40 Places for College Students to Find Free Unabridged Books Online
Jul 11, 2011 The cost of books can add up quickly for college students. Fortunately, there are a lot of great sites that offer free unabridged books online. Here are 40 of the best places to find free textbooks, audio books and full-text works of fiction and nonfiction. Bartleby - Bartleby has one of the best collections of literature, verse and reference books that can be accessed online for no charge. Where to Find Free Audio Books Online The following websites offer free audio books online. Audio Literature Odyssey - Complete and unabridged novels, poems, short stories and literary podcasts read by voice actor Nikolle Doolin.
12 Useful YouTube Accessories for Teachers and Students
If you can access it in your school, YouTube has a ton of useful educational content. Here are ten tools that can make using YouTube in your classroom a better experience for everyone. Removing Related Content and Banner Advertisements. A Cleaner YouTube is a browser extension for Chrome, Firefox, and Safari. Once installed A Cleaner YouTube allows you to display YouTube videos without any of the "related videos," comments, or display advertising. There are other tools that do the same thing, but what makes A Cleaner YouTube different is that not only can you display videos without the related materials, but you can also search YouTube without viewing any of the "related videos," comments, suggested videos, or advertisements. View Pure is a simple little tool that strips way all of the distractions of related videos, comments, and promoted videos. SafeShare.tv makes it possible to view YouTube videos without displaying the related videos and associated comments.
40 websites that will make you cleverer right now
The indexed web contains an incredible 14 billion pages. But only a tiny fraction help you improve your brain power. Here are 40 of the best. whizzpast.com – Learn about our awe inspiring past all in one wonderful place. khanacademy.org – Watch thousands of micro-lectures on topics ranging from history and medicine to chemistry and computer science. freerice.com – Help end world hunger by correctly answering multiple-choice quizzes on a wide variety of subjects. artofmanliness.com – Blog/site dedicated to all things manly, great for learning life skills and good insights. unplugthetv.com – Randomly selects an educational video for you to watch. coursera.org – An educational site that works with universities to get their courses on the Internet, free for you to use. mentalfloss.com – Interesting articles guaranteed to make you smile and get you thinking. feelgoodwardrobe.com – Find out how the world of fashion really works and what you can do to combat it. lifehacker.com – Learn to hack life!
10 places where anyone can learn to code
Teens, tweens and kids are often referred to as “digital natives.” Having grown up with the Internet, smartphones and tablets, they’re often extraordinarily adept at interacting with digital technology. But Mitch Resnick, who spoke at TEDxBeaconStreet, is skeptical of this descriptor. Sure, young people can text and chat and play games, he says, “but that doesn’t really make you fluent.” Mitch Resnick: Let's teach kids to code Fluency, Resnick proposes in this TED Talk, comes not through interacting with new technologies, but through creating them. The former is like reading, while the latter is like writing. The point isn’t to create a generation of programmers, Resnick argues. In his talk, Resnick describes Scratch, the programming software that he and a research group at MIT Media Lab developed to allow people to easily create and share their own interactive games and animations. While we’re at it: bonus!
