You are viewing the category: Pedagogy

Research Shows Multitasking Makes you Dumb

I think I can now shed a little light on part of a quote from this previous post (from a Time Magazine article): …students remember just 20% of the content of class lectures a week later… It seems that research has revealed that multitasking makes you dumb. Once you have read the quotes below, you […]

More on Motivation

After going through the archives of podcasts at EdTechTalk, I recently listened to Women Of Web 2.0, Episode 7. 56 minutes in, they have an interesting discussion about intrinsic vs extrinsic motivation related to the concept of Locus of Control. As this is related to two of my previous posts (here and here) I though it was worthy of mention. Being a podcast, it is hard to give you a simple reference to the discussion point, so […]

The Dark Side of Rewards and Praise

My previous post (on a child’s outlook influencing their intelligence) made me recall a segment in a BBC documentary (I think it was either Human Body or Child of our Time, both hosted by Robert Winston) about how using rewards too much can actually demotivate a child. It seemed that by promising a reward while assigning a task, the child would focus on how to […]

The Secret to Raising Smart Kids

SlashDotReview mentioned an item on SlashDot (which has a vibrant conversation on the topic) quoting Hugh Pickens, who summarises an article in Scientific American on the secret to raising smart kids. Dang – talk about quoting your sources! Anyway, Hugh Pickens writes: Scientific American has an interesting article on the secret to raising smart kids that says that more than 30 years of […]

Memorable Quotes from a NECC Live Discussion

Its great to see the NECC Conference releasing stuff to the wider world that cannot make it to the conference. In NECC Live 2006 (only 2007 content is currently available), the item called “One Laptop Per Child: Hope or Hype?” had a number of interesting comments that I have transcribed below. The three pannelists were: Ian Jukes […]

Rhizomatics in Discovery 1

I think I have stumbled across a parallel that is worthy of note between the idea of rhizomatics and the Discovery 1 school. The idea of rhizomatics is briefly mentioned in a seminar I blogged about, and detailed more in some of Dave Cormier’s blog entries, starting with this introduction. The Discovery 1 school is […]

Discovery 1 Experimental School - Inspiration on my Doorstep

I recently had the good fortune to visit the Discovery 1 school in my home town, Christchurch, New Zealand. It is an experimental primary level school, which leads into an experimental secondary school called Unlimited. It really was an inspirational tour, as they have changed so many of the tried and true tennants of public […]