Eclectic Technology

How do we learn? New research continues to inform us and we should help our learners discover that making some shifts in their practices may lead them to being more successful learners. This post provides "fifteen steps towards a better brain."

Four of the steps are below.

* Laughter boosts brain function.

* You can improve your memory with one simple step.

* Bilingual brains process information better.

* Higher vocab increases cognition

Some of the steps in this post may be new to you. Each is explained in more detail in the post, and every step includes at least one (or more) links to additional information.

As you read through think about what you can do in your classroom to help your learners and yourself "build a better brain."

Jackie Gerstein has written quite a number of posts that look at The Other 21st Century Skills and Attributes. This post provides an infographic that includes two or three questions that you should ask yourself to see if you are 'facilitating these skills and attributes in the learning environment.

Gerstein also includes links to previous posts where she discusses the specific skills and attributes in more detail.

The number of students participating in online courses continues to grow and for those that currently teach with students in their physical classroom, there are shifts towards blended learning, with part of the day online and part of the day with more direct instruction. This post looks at ways to keep students' attention online, but the same components are also important in the face2face classroom.

What is it that help students pay attention?

* Problem solving

* Comparisons

* Visuals

* Questions

* Emotions

* Stories

* Contrast

* Controversy

* Brevity

* Lists

Each of these areas is described in more depth when you click through to the post and in many cases you will find links to additional resources.

You may already be using some of these strategies, but try combining two or more to see how students react. Many of the strategies promote authentic learning opportunities, which promote high engagement. All are valuable to understand and to use in the classroom, but it online or face2face.

We know the role of a tutor, but do we know the role of an intelligent tutoring system? Can it replace the role of a tutor, of an individual whom works with a students, asking questions, analyzing responses and quickly assessing to finetune instruction and feedback?

This post explores this issue, beginning with a history of intelligent machines (which date back to 1924) and moves on to how they work, providing a list of nine items that an "effective intelligent tutoring system" must have including:

1. Enable the student to work to the successful conclusion of problem solving.

2. Minimize working load.

After this discussion the post moves on and explores the benefits and criticisms of intelligent tutoring systesm.

The final section includes a list of fifteen influential programs in this area. Each program listed has a short description. The one program that is definitely free is ASSISTments (located at https://www.assistments.org/). This program was developed by Worcester Polytechnic Institute in collaboration with Carnegie Mellon and it is worth your time to check it ou. There are a number of videos that explain the program (as well as many tutorials if you choose to sign up). 

The statistics in this report are eye-opening. It shows that Americans have trouble with words, numbers and technology-driven problem solving. In all areas "the United States performed worse than nearly every other country in the group of developed nations."

This post provides five graphs:

* Literacy Proficiency Among 16 - 65 Year Olds

* Numeracy Profiency Among Adults

* Profiency in Problem Solving in Technology-Rich Environments Among Adults

* Profiency in Problem Solving in Technology-Rich Environments Among Young Adults

* Problem Solving Profiency Among Younger and Older Adults

You will also find a link to the full report from the OECD (which is 466 pages in length) so if you want more information it is readily available.

Quandary, a free online game for players ages 8 - 14, won the Game of the Year Honors at the 2013 Games for Change Confernce. This game provides players an opportunity to help shape a new society "while learning how to recognize ethical issues and deal with challenging situations in their own lives."

The websites goes on to state "Players develop skills such as critical thinking, perspective-taking and decision-making. Quandary provides a framework for how to approach ethical decision-making without telling players what to think."

Why use Quandary with your students? This game is designed to help students learn skills in:

* Problem solving

* Communication

* Information literacy

* Global awarenes

* Collaboration

* Creative thinking

There is a teachers page available which provides additional resources including a Game Guide, a sample lesson plan, an opinion tracker as well information on how the learning outcomes match to standards in both the Common Core and the Partnership for the 21st Century.

What are the key elements of design thinking?

* Defining the problem

* Creating/considering multiple options

* Refining selected directions

* Executing best plan of action

Teaching students design thinking "empowers students to realize that they can create their own futures by borrowing frameworks from other areas, which allows them to design their own participation and experiences."

This post provides links to 45 design thinking resources. If you are thinking of using design thinking in your classroom this year, or if you already use it you will find many great resources on this list.

What are the questions students should ask to help them problem solve? What questions should we help students learn to ask at an early age? Warren Berger, who wrote A More Beautiful Question: The Power of Inquiry to Spark Breakthrough Ideas suggests that the "question needs to be phrased openly and positively in order to achieve positive results."

He also suggests three questions:

* Why questions help to find the root of the problem

* What If questions open the floor for creative solutions

* How questions focus on developing practical solutions

The article explores this in more depth and provides directions to The Question Game. You can see the cube you can create in the image above.

Although this was written by a parent and discusses how she used it with his children this could be used in a classroom. You may find that you would like to have more than one cube (and therefore additional questions).

Mosa Mack: Science Detective is a new site that has launched their first science mystery for students in Grades 4 - 8 (although they note students as young as 2nd graders have tested it as have students in high school).

The first mystery, A Growling Stomach, is just over six minutes in length. In addition to the video you will find resources for Band A (Grades 4 and 5) and Band B (Grades 6, 7 and 8). The resources include:

* Class Discussion Guide

* Small Group Discussion Guide/Individual Worksheet

* Vocabulary Cards

* Standards Alignment to Next Generation Science Standards and Common Core Standards

There are also resources for the teacher including:

* Time Codes/Answer Sheets

* Background Information

* FAQ

This is the only video at this point, but they do state that they plan on having more available, with a goal of having "dozens of animated science mysteries" within a few years.

This is inquiry based science where students are asked to use problem-solving techniques. Check out the first video and hope that more show up soon.

For students whom are visual learners this graphical look at the ISTE standards for students and technology. Below are the six areas that are covered by ISTE :

* Creativity and Innovation

* Communication and Collaboration

* Research and Information Fluency

* Critical Thinking, Problem Solving & Decision Making

* Digital Citizenship

* Technology Operation and Concepts

As you design projects, consider how you might incorporate one or more of these skills for your students.

Think about the skills that are defined as 21st century skills:

* collaboration

* communication

* critical thinking and problem solving

* creativity and innovation

Are these skills that can be taught without technology? If we look to the past, we would answer yes, they are skills that can be taught without technology.

We are often asked to teach these skills today with technology. What if we introduce these skills with technology, providing students the opportunity to collaborate and learn how to effectively communicate face-to-face, learn about visual cues and more. This post explores how each of these skills may be taught without technology. You can take the information and consider how to them augment the skills with technology to help your students deepen their understanding.

The Habits of Mind come into play when you think about how to solve problems. They are not performed in isolation. When a problem arises you are drawn to the skills necessary to solve it. As teachers we may choose to use the Habits of Mind as we consider skills we want our students to learn and to use in the classroom. For more information on the habits (with a more thoughtful discussion on each of them) check out Chapter 2 of the book "Learning and Leading with the Habits of Mind" available on the ASCD website at http://www.ascd.org/publications/books/108008/chapters/describing-the-habits-of-mind.aspx.

This post focuses on work published by Tony Wagner back in 2010 but the information is still relevant. Wagner interviewed CEOs of 100 major businesses and was able to come up with seven essential skills students should have for the 21st century (and yes, we are in this century). The skills are listed below and more information may be found in this post, which lists the skill and then discusses how to prepare students to meet this skill.

* Critical Thinking and Problem Solving

* Collaboration Across Networks and Leading by Influence

* Agility and Adaptability

* Initiative and Entrepreneurship

* Effective Oral and Written Communication

* Accessing and Analyzing Information

* Curiosity and Imagination

So creating confusion is good? Why? It turns out that "brain is a pattern-recognition machine." It wants to find connections between "related events or artifacts." To do this we must allow our brain to experience "that confused, confounded feeling...—for two reasons."

For the first reason ask yourself is there only one way to solve a problem, or should one "explore a wide variety of potential explanations"? The second reason is that if we feel confused, not sure of the answer, we are more driven to figure it out. 

So how can we do this? There are three ways that researchers have "induced confusion" and each is listed with an explanation. The three ways:

* Expose yourself to confusing materials.

* Withhold the answers from yourself.

* Test yourself before you learn.

This post provides some great ideas on why confusion is good. You will also find a link to the three research studies mentioned in the article.