Parents' Phone Use Is Taking a Toll on Their Children's Development We see parents on their phones at playgrounds, at restaurants, in cars, seated around dinner tables, on mass transit, on vacation—everywhere. For about five years, I've researched what happens when parents are on their phones, with findings that you might expect: When parents' attention is directed at a smartphone, we talk to our children less, miss their bids for attention, overreact to their annoying interruptions, and think less clearly about what their behavior means. Some cities and municipalities have begun public-service campaigns to increase parents' awareness of the toll their heavy technology use may be taking on child development and well-being. A German boy even organized a rally to protest modern parents' preoccupation with technology. There's good reason to want parents to talk, play, and relate to their children more positively and sensitively. Yet many still felt compelled to dive back into their devices. As parents, we can act, for our own good and as role models.
Why students should study sign language | IB Community Blog It is a common misconception that there is only one universal sign language. In fact, there is an estimated 144 different signed languages, according to the Ethnologue. American Sign Language (ASL), for example, is quite different from British Sign Language (BSL), despite the fact that English is spoken in both countries. Sign languages are as rich, complex and creative as spoken languages, and are composed of hand movements, facial expressions and body language. They were probably the first ways humans communicated, but the first formal sign language alphabet system can be traced back to 17th-century Europe, where it was used for educating deaf children. Today, sign languages are the primary language of many people who are deaf and are also learned by hearing individuals who want to communicate with the deaf community. Learning sign language at school gives students the chance to explore a rich aspect of the cognitive, creative, linguistic and cultural diversity of humanity.
Thinking Routines in the Classroom Today Karen Voglesang @NBCTchr teaches children to use thinking routines in her classroom. After participating in Harvard’s Project Zero, she is applying and using the methods in classrooms and with teachers. Learn some thinking routines and how to apply these valuable techniques in your classroom. Karen was the 2015 Tennessee State Teacher of the Year and I interviewed her at the NNSTOY Conference in DC this summer. Listen Now How to Teach Thinking Routines in the Classroom What are thinking routines? 00:09 Vicki: Today we are with Karen Vogelsang or Ms V from Tennessee. 00:39 Karen V: Thinking routines are really an opportunity to allow students to ask questions and really give teachers an opportunity to deepen their understanding of different content knowledge. Karen included photos of students using thinking routines for this post. The “Compass Points” thinking routine is a great way to open up a school year1 01:01 Vicki: So give me an example of how it’s used in your classroom.
Promoting Study Skills | Sheridan Center | Brown University Instructors can have a deep positive impact on their students’ learning by helping them develop the study skills they need to succeed in their courses. Below we list several roadblocks that students at Brown commonly encounter while studying and tips for faculty to help students overcome these issues. Metacognitive Mismatch - Students fail to accurately judge their understanding of course materials and stop studying before they master the content. Provide students with frequent opportunities for feedback to help them understand their own knowledge and where to target their study. Cramming – Students believe that learning is fast and wait to complete assignments or to study at the last minute. Encourage students to work throughout the semester by designing assignments & milestones that prompt students to engage with and review materials regularly. Provide a conceptual framework to reinforce the connectedness of knowledge. Articulate the connections between assignments and learning.
How did the qwerty keyboard become so popular? Image copyright Getty Images It isn't easy to type "QWERTY" on a qwerty keyboard. My left-hand little finger holds the shift key, then the other fingers of my left hand clumsily crab sideways across the upper row. Q-W-E-R-T-Y. There's a lesson here: it matters where the keys sit on your keyboard. Many people think that qwerty is a bad one - in fact, that it was deliberately designed to be slow and awkward. Could that be true? It turns out that the stakes are higher than they might first appear. Find out more: 50 Things That Made the Modern Economy highlights the inventions, ideas and innovations that helped create the economic world. It is broadcast on the BBC World Service. But let's start by figuring out why anyone might have been perverse enough to want to slow down typists. In the early 1980s, I persuaded my mother Deb to let me use her mechanical typewriter, a miraculous contraption which would transcend my awful handwriting. Fun for a nine-year-old boy, less so for a professional typist.
'You did not act in time': Greta Thunberg's full speech to MPs | Environment My name is Greta Thunberg. I am 16 years old. I come from Sweden. And I speak on behalf of future generations. I know many of you don’t want to listen to us – you say we are just children. Many of you appear concerned that we are wasting valuable lesson time, but I assure you we will go back to school the moment you start listening to science and give us a future. In the year 2030 I will be 26 years old. I was fortunate to be born in a time and place where everyone told us to dream big; I could become whatever I wanted to. Now we probably don’t even have a future any more. Because that future was sold so that a small number of people could make unimaginable amounts of money. You lied to us. Is my microphone on? Around the year 2030, 10 years 252 days and 10 hours away from now, we will be in a position where we set off an irreversible chain reaction beyond human control, that will most likely lead to the end of our civilisation as we know it. Did you hear what I just said?
Modern language teaching ‘under threat from tough exams’ | Education The exams regulator in England, Ofqual, is “killing off” modern languages by failing to address the excessive difficulty of language GCSE and A-level exams, according to more than 150 academics. In a letter published in the Guardian, the 152 academics – from 36 universities – warn that the exams are graded too severely and the stress for pupils is “disproportionate”. “They will have to sit excessively difficult exams and accept that their grade may well end up lower than their performance deserves,” the letter says. “Where’s the incentive to choose a language if you’re systematically made to feel rubbish at it?” In schools in England over the past 15 years, entries for language GCSEs have dropped by 48%, with German down 65% and French down 62%. The introduction of the English baccalaureate (Ebacc) in 2010, a group of more traditional subjects at GCSE which includes a compulsory language, was meant to help stem the decline in languages.
Meditation Can ‘Debias’ the Mind in Only 15 Minutes A new study finds that just 15 minutes mindfulness meditation can help free the mind of biased thinking. The research, published in the journal Psychological Science, tested the effects of meditation on a well-established mental bias called the ‘sunk cost’ bias (Hafenbrack et al., 2013). The sunk cost bias refers to the fact that people find it difficult to give up on a goal into which they’ve already made a large investment. Even once the goal has gone stale or proven unworkable, there’s a tendency to throw good money (or effort) after bad, simply because a significant investment has already been made. “Well,” people say to themselves. “We’ve come this far…” The effects of the ‘sunk cost’ bias can be seen in public projects that go way over budget and in military campaigns which continue long after their objectives have proven unworkable. Thinking clearly One of the strengths of meditation is that it shifts mental focus into the present moment. The negativity bias Image credit: AlicePopkorn