Digital Literacy for St. Cloud State University
https://www.facebook.com/groups/onlinelearningcollective/permalink/705490370081664/
Question for the brilliant hive-mind: I am looking for an in-depth, thought-provoking and non-didactic essay on learning to share with my students. Doesn’t have to be long, doesn’t have to be academic, per se. What are some of your favorites?
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https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/12/17/chinas-education-system-produces-stellar-test-scores-so-why-do-students-head-abroad-each-year-study/
Education scholars have already critiqued PISA as a valid global measure of education quality — but analysts also are skeptical about the selective participation of Chinese students from wealthier schools.
Second, Chinese students, on average, study 55 hours a week — also No. 1 among PISA-participating countries. This was about 20 hours more than students in Finland, the country that PISA declared to have the highest learning efficiency, or reading-test-score points per hour spent studying.
But PISA analysis also revealed that Chinese students are among the least satisfied with their lives.
Students look overseas for a more well-rounded education
Their top destination of choice, by far, is the United States. The 1.1 million or so foreign students in the United States in 2018 included 369,500 Chinese college students
hostility in U.S.-China relations could dampen the appeal of a U.S. education. Britain, in fact, recorded a 30 percent surge in Chinese applicants in 2019, challenging the U.S. global dominance in higher education.
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https://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2019/12/03/us-students-gain-ground-against-global-peers.html
Immigrant students, who made up 23 percent of all U.S. students taking PISA, performed significantly better compared to their native-born peers in the United States than they did on average throughout the OECD countries.
The survey found that 15-year-old students from Beijing, Shanghai, and the eastern provinces of Jiangsu and Zhejiang ranked top for all three core subjects, achieving the highest level 4 rating.
Students from the United States were ranked level 3 for reading and science, and level 2 for math, while teens from Britain scored a level 3 ranking in all three categories.
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Andreas Schelicher, director of education and skills at the OECD—the Paris-based organization behind PISA wrote that “students who disagreed or strongly disagreed with the statement ‘Your intelligence is something about you that you can’t change very much’ scored 32 points higher in reading than students who agreed or strongly agreed.”
Those results are similar to recent findings published by Carol Dweck, a Stanford education professor who is often credited with making growth mindset a mainstream concept.
“Growth mindset is a very important thing that makes us active learners, and makes us invest in our personal education,” Schleicher states. “If learning isn’t based on effort and intelligence is predetermined, why would anyone bother?”
It’s “absolutely fascinating” to see the relationship between teachers’ enthusiasm, students’ social-emotional wellbeing and their learning outcomes, Schleicher notes. As one example, he noted in his summary report that “in most countries and economies, students scored higher in reading when they perceived their teachers as more enthusiastic, especially when they said their teachers were interested in the subject.”
In other words, happy teachers lead to better results. That’s hardly a surprising revelation, says Scheleicher. But professional development support is one thing that can sometimes be overlooked by policymakers when so much of the focus is on test scores.
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https://nces.ed.gov/surveys/pisa/
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America’s education system is not bad. It is above average, in fact. https://t.co/O8msa0ZT8l
— Noah Smith 🐇 (@Noahpinion) December 9, 2019
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more on Estonia in this IMS blog
https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims?s=estonia
The 10,000-hour rule says intense, dedicated practice makes perfect – at that one thing. But what if breadth actually serves us better than depth?
con?:with the advent of personal assistants like Siri and Google Now that aim to serve up information before you even know you need it, you don’t even need to type the questions.
pro: Whenever new technology emerges — including newspapers and television — discussions about how it will threaten our brainpower always crops up, Harvard psychology professor Steven Pinker wrote in a 2010 op-ed in The New York Times. Instead of making us stupid, he wrote, the Internet and technology “are the only things that will keep us smart.”
Pro and con: Daphne Bavelier, a professor at the University of Geneva, wrote in 2011 that we may have lost the ability for oral memorization valued by the Greeks when writing was invented, but we gained additional skills of reading and text analysis.
con: Daphne Bavelier, a professor at the University of Geneva, wrote in 2011 that we may have lost the ability for oral memorization valued by the Greeks when writing was invented, but we gained additional skills of reading and text analysis.
con: A 2008 study commissioned by the British Library found that young people go through information online very quickly without evaluating it for accuracy.
pro or con?: A 2011 study in the journal Science showed that when people know they have future access to information, they tend to have a better memory of how and where to find the information — instead of recalling the information itself.
pro: The bright side lies in a 2009 study conducted by Gary Small, the director of University of California Los Angeles’ Longevity Center, that explored brain activity when older adults used search engines. He found that among older people who have experience using the Internet, their brains are two times more active than those who don’t when conducting Internet searches.
the Internet holds great potential for education — but curriculum must change accordingly. Since content is so readily available, teachers should not merely dole out information and instead focus on cultivating critical thinking
make questions “Google-proof.”
“Design it so that Google is crucial to creating a response rather than finding one,” he writes in his company’s blog. “If students can Google answers — stumble on (what) you want them to remember in a few clicks — there’s a problem with the instructional design.”
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more on use of laptop and phones in the classroom in this IMS blog
https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims/2017/04/03/use-of-laptops-in-the-classroom/
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https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims/2019/08/27/reading-teenagers-electronic-devices/
Children who use smartphones, tablets, and video games for more than seven hours a day are more likely to experience premature thinning of the cortex, the outermost layer of the brain that processes thought and action, a 2018 study found. https://t.co/OJe6ZTBVkx
— EdWeek Teacher (@EdWeekTeacher) August 1, 2019
research showing how laptops can be more of a distraction than a learning enabler. Purdue University even started blocking streaming websites such as Netflix, HBO, Hulu and Pandora.
But others say banning laptops can be counterproductive, arguing these devices can create opportunity for students to discover more information during class or collaborate. And that certain tools and technologies are necessary for learners who struggle in a traditional lecture format.
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The professor is upset. The professor has taken action, by banning laptops.
Bruff, whose next book, Intentional Tech: Principles to Guide the Use of Educational Technology in College Teaching, is set to be published this fall, is among the experts who think that’s a mistake. Why? Well, for one thing, he said, students are “going to have to graduate and get jobs and use laptops without being on Facebook all day.” The classroom should help prepare them for that.
By Jack Grove Twitter: @jgro_the April 4, 2017
findings, published in the journal Economics of Education Review in a paper, based on an analysis of the grades of about 5,600 students at a private US liberal arts college, found that using a laptop appeared to harm the grades of male and low-performing students most significantly.
While the authors were unable to definitively say why laptop use caused a “significant negative effect in grades”, the authors believe that classroom “cyber-slacking” plays a major role in lower achievement, with wi-fi-enabled computers providing numerous distractions for students.
April 07, 2006
http://www.chronicle.com/article/A-Law-Professor-Bans-Laptops/29048
by Anne Curzan http://www.chronicle.com/blogs/linguafranca/2014/08/25/why-im-asking-you-not-to-use-laptops/
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0360131512002254
March 13, 2017
http://www.chronicle.com/article/The-Distracted-Classroom/239446
http://www.chronicle.com/article/Welcome-Freshmen-Look-at-Me/237751
October 28, 2015
http://www.chronicle.com/article/Memorization-Cheating-and/233926
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intrinsic motivation:
https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims/2019/11/13/intrinsic-motivation-digital-distractions/
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Blended Learning – the idea of incorporating technology into the every day experience of education – can save time, raise engagement, and increase student retention.
Lets face it, our students are addicted to their phones. Like…drugs addicted. It is not just a bad habit, it is hard wired in their brains(literally) to have the constant stimulation of their phones.
If you are interested in the research, there is a lot out there to read about how it happens and how bad it is.
a Scientific American article published about a recent study of nomophobia – on adults (yes, many of us are addicted too).
http://www.chronicle.com/blogs/profhacker/best-practices-for-laptops-in-the-classroom/39064
September 11, 2016
http://www.chronicle.com/article/No-Banning-Laptops-Is-Not-the/237752
http://www.chronicle.com/blogs/conversation/2014/09/23/dont-ban-laptops-in-the-classroom/
https://tomprof.stanford.edu/posting/1157
http://techist.mcclurken.org/learning/on-not-banning-laptops-in-the-classroom/
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F January 26, 2001
http://www.chronicle.com/article/Colleges-Differ-on-Costs-and/17848
http://www.chronicle.com/blogs/profhacker/bring-your-own-device-policies/42732
June 13, 2014, 2:40 pm By Robert Talbert
https://www.edutopia.org/article/3-tips-managing-phone-use-class
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more on mobile learning in this IMS blog
https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims?s=mobile+learning
http://www.facultyfocus.com/articles/teaching-professor-blog/learning-outside-comfort-zone
When we learn something outside the comfort zone, we attempt to acquire knowledge or skills in an area where we’re lacking. Part of the discomfort derives from learning something we anticipate will be difficult. We have no idea how to do it, or we think it requires abilities we don’t have or have in meager amounts. Moreover, poor performance or outright failure lurk as likely possibilities.
I wonder if learning outside the comfort zone isn’t especially difficult for faculty. Theoretically, it shouldn’t be. We’ve devoted years to learning, but most of what we know resides in one area. We’re experts at learning more about what we already know and love. And we’re used to having our learning expertise recognized—by students, colleagues, and sometimes even at home. However, plop us down in a discipline unlike our own, task us with learning a skill we don’t have, and suddenly, we look and act exactly like our students. And that’s the very reason this kind of learning has all sorts of positive implications for teaching. It’s good every now and then to be reacquainted with feeling stupid.
My note. Eventually, I had to tell a [already departured] library director: it is better to throw stones in the swamp of mediocrity then to sink slowly into it. To the objection of my colleague that throwing stones does NOT improve the situation, I could only say: making ripples until someone more diplomatic will draw the attention means more then just slowing sinking into the swamp of mediocrity. That swamp is determined by the inability / unwillingness of faculty the leave their comfort zone.
In regard to the teacher, who has students memorize and recite a poem – I will never forget Herr Klenske, who made us memorize in 10th grade of high school “Erlkoening” (http://ingeb.org/Lieder/werreite.html). It made us hate him as much, as now I, at least, appreciate his unique approach to fostering to high school students persistence and will.
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more about learning in this IMS blog
https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims?s=learning
http://www.muskingum.edu/~psych/psycweb/history/adler.htm
Adler examined personality around the same time as Carl Jung and Sigmund Freud. They worked on some theories together until Adler rejected Freud’s emphasis on sex, and maintained that personality difficulties are rooted in a feeling of inferiority deriving from restrictions on the individual’s need for self-assertion.
by Saul McLeod published 2007, updated 2016
http://www.simplypsychology.org/maslow.html
http://www.simplypsychology.org/carl-rogers.html
agreed with the main assumptions of Abraham Maslow, but added that for a person to “grow”, they need an environment that provides them with genuineness (openness and self-disclosure), acceptance (being seen with unconditional positive regard), and empathy (being listened to and understood).
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more about psychology in this IMS blog
https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims?s=psychology
This article pleads for a consideration what now is a full-blown reform in Finland (replacing subjects with topics) and seriously considered in the UK, as reported in this IMS blog: https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims/2015/03/24/education-reform-finland/
there’s a long-standing and still fairly widely held belief that the teaching needed for a particular kind of content is unique. Unless you know the content, you can’t know how to teach it.
What and how we teach are linked, but there are other connections besides those between method and material, and those connections aren’t all unique to the discipline. All (well, almost all) teachers want students engaged, and student engagement in physics and philosophy doesn’t look all that different. All teachers are concerned with classroom management issues. If students are dealing more with their phones than the material, the content is irrelevant. All teachers have a responsibility to prevent cheating. All teachers aspire to use fair and equitable grading practices. Course design principles transcend disciplines. The features of a good multiple-choice question are not discipline specific. And then there are those student characteristics that challenge teachers in every field: passivity, lack of motivation, low self-esteem, less than adequate study skills, and excessive grade-orientation start the list.
is this REALLY the new way of learning?
