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Posts Tagged ‘education’
Wednesday, April 25th, 2012
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As I’ve reported in the past, IQ scores are on the move, rising nearly ten points with each generation. Known as the Flynn effect, after James Flynn, a cognitive scientist, the reason behind the rise in scores is widely debated, but answers focus on one area that should be of interest to teachers: Scores are increasing because children are showing greater capacity for fluid intelligence. That’s the ability to see patterns and solve novel problems without prior information, which relies on better working memory (the capacity to manipulate information) and a longer attention span. Intelligence researchers consider fluid intelligence to be the ultimate cognitive ability—a kind of gold standard for smart. Until a few years ago, fluid intelligence was considered immutable, but research in 2008, using computer programs, showed that it may be improved through training.
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Tags: collaboration, creativity, education, education reform, innovation and education, intelligence, whole child
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Saturday, April 14th, 2012
Embracing revolution is a quick way to be terminated in education. More than most jobs, teaching demands fealty to higher powers, no matter their expertise, fidelity to the standard curriculum, harmful or otherwise, and the willingness to narrow your horizons to fit the prevailing winds of politicians and other suits who can best decide whether you’re doing a good job or not.
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Tags: 21st century skills, creativity, education, education reform, innovation and education, new schools, Project Based Learning, school reform
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Thursday, April 12th, 2012
A decade ago, project based learning was popular in a few schools and with a few teachers, but hardly widespread. And the movement was growing very slowly. At that time, education was caught up by standards and high stakes testing, a focus that discouraged teachers and schools from implementing inquiry-based learning.
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Tags: 21st century skills, education, innovation and education, Project Based Learning, school reform
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Monday, October 31st, 2011
It’s surprising to me, but I see little discussion within education of why PBL succeeds. To experts in the field of human performance, however, there is no mystery. Three decades of research—including findings from youth development, organizational psychology, positive psychology, and emotional intelligence—has identified three core factors that maximize individual effort and the desire to achieve:
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Tags: 21st century skills, collaboration, education, PBL, peak performance, Project Based Learning, school reform
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Thursday, December 2nd, 2010
Like many other problems facing us today, solutions will come only after a deep rethinking process. I believe this is true of education: How we retool education for the 21st century hinges on how we define the nature of intelligence itself. The standard ‘scientific’ approach of measuring intelligence through IQ tests feeds the notion that performance is a fixed commodity, and that learning can be defined and measured in terms of numbers. This drives the testing mania that most educators now see as counterproductive—and which results in a narrowed curriculum that shortchanges kids and stifles creativity.
The recent resurrection of the whole child approach to education is a first response to these concerns. Intuitively, we recognize that integrating both academic and human development into schools helps students act more ‘intelligently.’ We also can see that our children, who are growing up in the throes of searing change and fragmented values, need stronger emotional support systems than ever before if they are to have the opportunity to demonstrate their abilities.
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Tags: education, heart intelligence, new schools
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Saturday, October 30th, 2010
Like the heated debates over politics, financial systems, health care, and the environment, the arguments about the future of education have devolved into a divisive, either/or, left/right, you’re wrong/ I’m right, I’m an expert/ no, I’m the expert contest that obscures or prevents true solutions.
I propose that no one is right. How could they be? The global age has arrived in the blink of a geological eye. The information age is barely a decade old. The environment for children is shifting exponentially. Institutions can’t possibly cope or adapt, and the pace of change exceeds the speed of our thought processes and, at least temporarily, has outstripped our powers of imagination. Most often, old industrial assumptions weigh us down and prevent imaginative thinking.
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Tags: education, innovation and education, school reform
Posted in default | 1 Comment »
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