If there is one institution in America that is resistant to change, it just might be higher education. After all, they still wear their medieval clothing
REIMAGINING AND TRANSFORMING EDUCATIONAL LEARNING ENVIRONMENTS IN HIGHER EDUCATION Read More »
Did you get where you intended to in life? Are you as healthy, wealthy and wise as you want to be? If not, perhaps the problem is a lack of motivation. Some studies suggest that motivation – rather than ability or skill – is the best predictor of educational and professional attainment. But what do we
HOW STUDENTS REACT TO CHALLENGES IN SCHOOL ACTIVITIES Read More »
Regret gets a bad press. It is a painful emotion experienced upon realizing that a different decision would have led to a better outcome. And it is something that we strive to avoid. In sharp contrast, our recent research on children’s decision making emphasizes that the ability to experience regret is a developmental achievement associated with learning to make
REGRET HELPS STUDENTS MAKE BETTER DECISIONS Read More »
Psychologist Sigmund Freud famously proposed that our personal development is pretty much determined by events in our early childhood. While many of his ideas are now outdated, some modern psychological theories also suggest that childhood experiences play an important role in shaping our lives. But is there really any evidence that difficult childhood experiences can cause common
ARE PARENTS TO BLAME FOR THEIR KIDS PSYCHOLOGICAL PROBLEMS? Read More »
“Be careful!” “Not so high!” “Stop that!” Concerned parents can often be heard urging safety when children are at play. Recent research suggests this may be over-protective and that kids need more opportunities for risky play outdoors. Risky play is thrilling and exciting play where children test their boundaries and flirt with uncertainty. They climb trees, build forts, roam
PLAY, RISK AND EXCITEMENT HELPS KIDS IN BUILDING SOCIAL SKILLS Read More »
One of the more frustrating assumptions in the mix of modern parenting advice is the idea that all kids are born as identical clean slates. I suspect the increase in this attitude is partly due to the loss of large families. With the total fertility rate in Australia down to 1.88 children per woman, the
FINDING THE RIGHT RESPONSE FOR YOUR CHILD’S PERSONALITY Read More »
Earlier this month California became the seventh state to adopt a new brand set of K-12 science outlines, dubbed Next Generation Science Standards, or NGSS. The “real world” approach to science mastery focuses on engineering, problem solving, modeling, and cause and effect experiments. Other states that are on-board with the science outlines are Maryland, Nevada, Kentucky,
THE FUTURE GENERATION STEM LEARNING IS SMART Read More »
“You’re in engineering!?! Wow, you must be super-smart…” It has been over 10 years since I was a first-year engineering undergraduate student; but when I remember the time a fellow female student made this comment, I can still feel a visceral, bodily reaction: my muscles tense, my heart rate increases, my breath quickens. Comments like
LESS GIRLS IN STEM… HOW THIS AFFECTS THEIR MENTAL HEALTH Read More »
If you have not already started using Facebook in the classroom, now is the time. As teachers strive to keep their students engaged, Facebook is a unique tool that allows teachers and students to interact in a new way. As Kevin Hull explains, “As the most popular social networking website, especially among high school aged students, Facebook
10 WAYS TO USE FACEBOOK IN THE CLASSROOM Read More »
If you gather a room full of teachers and ask if they incorporate smartphones in their lessons, be prepared for a passionate debate. I was reminded of this debate recently when I read two articles, both of which were published in June 2017. In one article, the writer advocated that teachers should never ban using
Smartphones in the Classroom—The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly! Read More »