Ordo Amoris: Norms and Nobility Prologue IV: I Am, I Can, I Ought, I Will Some 100 years before David Hicks penned Norms and Nobility , in the Lake District of England, Charlotte Mason wrote these words as an educational philosophy: "I am, I can, I ought, I will." We moderns like to say," I am and I can," but we lose even the little we have by not adding, "I ought and I will." From those 4 phrases we can move towards a philosophy of education as Charlotte Mason did in her original series and as David Hicks does in Norms and Nobility. It is appropriate that Hicks ends his prologue with that nasty word "ought." I don't mean to embarrass anyone but we have the great fortune to have picked up Krakovianki for some of this study. Also please link to your posts in the comments. I will end this section with a couple of quotes from section IV. "David Halberstan (The Best and the Brightest )warns against the pride and blindness that operational brilliance is heir to. Question: Does it?
Inquiry-based Learning: Explanation What is inquiry-based learning? An old adage states: "Tell me and I forget, show me and I remember, involve me and I understand." The last part of this statement is the essence of inquiry-based learning, says our workshop author Joe Exline 1. Inquiry implies involvement that leads to understanding. Furthermore, involvement in learning implies possessing skills and attitudes that permit you to seek resolutions to questions and issues while you construct new knowledge. "Inquiry" is defined as "a seeking for truth, information, or knowledge -- seeking information by questioning." A Context for Inquiry Unfortunately, our traditional educational system has worked in a way that discourages the natural process of inquiry. Some of the discouragement of our natural inquiry process may come from a lack of understanding about the deeper nature of inquiry-based learning. Importance of Inquiry Memorizing facts and information is not the most important skill in today's world. The Application of Inquiry
Intro Curriculum Update « Existential Type In previous posts I have talked about the new introductory CS curriculum under development at Carnegie Mellon. After a year or so of planning, we began to roll out the new curriculum in the Spring of 2011, and have by now completed the transition. As mentioned previously, the main purpose is to bring the introductory sequence up to date, with particular emphasis on introducing parallelism and verification. A secondary purpose was to restore the focus on computing fundamentals, and correct the drift towards complex application frameworks that offer the students little sense of what is really going on. (The poster child was a star student who admitted that, although she had built a web crawler the previous semester, she in fact has no idea how to build a web crawler.) The solution was a complete do-over, jettisoning the traditional course completely, and starting from scratch. The main parallelism example is the Barnes-Hut algorithm for solving the n-body problem in physics. Like this:
Inquiry Based Learning Effective inquiry is more than just asking questions. Inquiry-based learning is a complex process where students formulate questions, investigate to find answers, build new understandings, meanings and knowledge, and then communicate their learnings to others. In classrooms where teachers emphasize inquiry-based learning, students are actively involved in solving authentic (real-life) problems within the context of the curriculum and/or community. These powerful learning experiences engage students deeply. Research suggests that inquiry-based learning increases student creativity, independence, and problem solving skills, and it improves student achievement. A model for inquiry was developed by Alberta Education to support the work of teachers and students. Explore other Education and Government initiatives and resources: Resources related to Inquiry from National Organizations: Resources related to Inquiry from International Organizations:
This is your brain on Jane Austen, and researchers at Stanford are taking notes Stanford Report, September 7, 2012 Researchers observe the brain patterns of literary PhD candidates while they're reading a Jane Austen novel. The fMRI images suggest that literary reading provides "a truly valuable exercise of people's brains." By Corrie Goldman The Humanities at Stanford L.A. Researcher Natalie Phillips positions an eye-tracking device on Matt Langione. The inside of an MRI machine might not seem like the best place to cozy up and concentrate on a good novel, but a team of researchers at Stanford are asking readers to do just that. In an innovative interdisciplinary study, neurobiological experts, radiologists and humanities scholars are working together to explore the relationship between reading, attention and distraction – by reading Jane Austen. During a series of ongoing experiments, functional magnetic resonance images track blood flow in the brains of subjects as they read excerpts of a Jane Austen novel.
What Is Inquiry? Read Article in Spanish Inquiry is a dynamic process of being open to wonder and puzzlement and coming to know and understand the world. As such, it is a stance that pervades all aspects of life and is essential to the way in which knowledge is created. Inquiry is based on the belief that understanding is constructed in the process of people working and conversing together as they pose and solve the problems, make discoveries and rigorously testing the discoveries that arise in the course of shared activity. Misconception Alert “Inquiry is not a “method” of doing science, history, or any other subject, in which the obligatory first stage in a fixed, linear sequence is that of students each formulating questions to investigate. Inquiry is a study into a worthy question, issue, problem or idea. There are several dimensions of inquiry: These are taken from the Inquiry Rubric Reference (1) Wells, Gordon (2001).
Diane Ravitch's blog Learning - About Us Project Based Instruction in STEM Education The Case Against Grades November 2011 The Case Against Grades By Alfie Kohn [This is a slightly expanded version of the published article.] "I remember the first time that a grading rubric was attached to a piece of my writing….Suddenly all the joy was taken away. -- Claire, a student (in Olson, 2006) By now enough has been written about academic assessment to fill a library, but when you stop to think about it, the whole enterprise really amounts to a straightforward two-step dance. You say the devil is in the details? Why tests are not a particularly useful way to assess student learning (at least the kind that matters), and what thoughtful educators do instead, are questions that must wait for another day. The Effects of Grading Most of the criticisms of grading you’ll hear today were laid out forcefully and eloquently anywhere from four to eight decades ago (Crooks, 1933; De Zouche, 1945; Kirschenbaum, Simon, & Napier, 1971; Linder, 1940; Marshall, 1968), and these early essays make for eye-opening reading.
Learning and thinking - World History & Geography Learning and thinking: what science tells us about teaching Editor's Note: According to a 2012 Education Week report* about "brain-based education," the situation has changed little since the following article was published in 2001. Two kinds of research Learning implies the acquisition of knowledge from experience, while thinking involves the conscious processing and use of knowledge. In recent years there has been a great deal of interest among educators in a newer kind of research coming from a branch of the biological sciences called neuroscience. Brain research and education Based on pure science, and possessing the potential to transform our understanding of the brain, brain research was quickly embraced by many in the education community. A minor industry grew up around brain research to bring its purported benefits to the classroom. "Companies sell learning kits 'based on the latest brain research,' and professional development consultants peddle the concept to teachers. John T.
The 10,000 Hour Elite Excellence Dilemma 10,000 Hours is a Lot of Hours The 10,000 Hour Rule, as it applies to gymnastics, stated simply, is that to become an excellent gymnast and successful Elite athlete, gymnasts must have completed 10,000 hours of practice. 10,000 hours of practice is normally stated, in this context, as being equivalent to working full-time, 8 hours per day for five years or working 20 – 25 hours per week for ten years. Where Did the 10,000 Hour Rule Come From? Anders Ericsson was, apparently, the first to develop the 10,000 Hour Rule. He correlated excellence with hours of practice, in a study of three groups of students, ranked at the Berlin Academy of Music. He discovered the elite group of students had all put in approximately 10,000 hours of practice. The 10,000 Hour Rule Applies in a Wide Variety of Areas of Excellence Ericsson researched his rule, in relation to other areas of expertise, and found that it proved valid in all of them. Talent is Overrated Belief in “Natural” Talent Remains Widespread
The Theory of Change Last week, we kicked off Measurement Month with a discussion of why measurement matters. This week, we’ll dig into connecting measurement and design to build the metrics in from the beginning. Throughout this post I’ll use an example from a training program I worked with earlier in my career to illustrate how the measurement models can be put to work in training. The Alaska Example: Job Training for Teens In a my last job, I worked with Anchorage Youth Employment in Parks (YEP), a program hiring Anchorage teens to complete park improvement projects while learning job skills in trail building, construction, and habitat restoration. As program partners secured public job training funds for this program, it was essential to ensure YEP was successfully developing employment-ready teens. YEP used the Theory of Change model to guide the development of program metrics and evaluation. Step One: Identify GoalsStart your program design with the basics: Goals. Further reading: