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Showing posts from June, 2012

What's New in Brain-based Learning

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              BASED      In an earlier post, I explained the new trend of “neuro-education.” Science is discovering many things about learning and memory that have not yet been incorporated into school programs. Schools are so focused on teaching kids what to know to pass government-mandated tests that they don’t seem to get around to teaching students how to develop their capacity to learn and remember. On-line Universities.com has just posted a very nice item on how “neuroscience is changing the classroom.” The post explains nine neuro-education interventions: 1.       Cognitive Tutoring . There is a current system for algebra that  employs computer-based AI to adjust to student needs as well as to track student progress and thought processes so teachers can better help them learn. 2.       High School Starts Later in the Day . Because adolescents don’t get enough sleep and are...

Teaching Kids to Think

Learning how to learn is a major objective of schooling. Yet, in my view, the emphasis in most schools is on WHAT to learn, not HOW to learn. My Improve Your Learning and Memory blog is aimed at filling that gap, yet these useful ideas have a hard time penetrating curricula that are designed to teach to government-mandated tests. Yet another, apparently unmet, challenge in education seems to exist: teaching students how to think. A recent U.S. Dept. Education survey reported in the Nation’s Report Card suggests that science students may be learning how to perform simple investigations but do not do well  in thinking about the meaning and implications of the results and how to use data to make decisions. About 2,000 students in each grade level 4, 8, and 12 were tested in three real-life science  problem-solving scenarios in an interactive computer test environment. Anybody can take the tests, which are posted on the NRC website; the tests are easy and fun. The test records r...