Planting seeds

Friday 4 – March 1

With spring and baseball season right around the corner, (or so I hope!) I thought I would plant a few intellectual seeds with this week’s missive. With a little watering, care and time, perhaps the ideas in this week’s pieces will germinate into new and exciting possibilities for you.

I hope that these seeds germinate and sprout for you and that you are willing to share the harvest.

Friday Four 2/24

 

The cognitive science of learning and the topic of transfer.

  • The Annenberg Learner is a part of the Annenberberg Foundation dedicated to the use of media and telecommunications to advance excellent teaching in American schools. They have a whole bunch of fantastic videos about teaching and the latest research on the neurobiology of learning. The following links are two of my favorites: Minds of Our Own and Neuroscience and the Classroom.
  • Here are links to two articles that were referenced in a blog post I cam across this week on the topic of “transfer” in the classroom. The ultimate goal of all education is transfer of knowledge, skills and understanding to new and different situations. How do we effectively teach transfer? These articles are good starting points as you think about what transfer really is and how to build it into your lessons/curriculum. Article #1 Article #2
  • Here is a short piece from Valerie Strauss who writes a column for the Washington Post website called “The Answer Sheet.” This piece is titled “Seven misconceptions about how students learn.”
  • Here is a link to part 2 of Grant Wiggins’ series of posts on the topic of transfer. In this piece, he explores the research on transfer.
As an added bonus this week, I am going to include a link to some information about the use of audio books for all readers. A colleague asked me about the topic at lunch one day and I thought that it would be a good item to include in the Friday Four, so here is a link to a piece  by Denise Johnson, an assistant professor of reading education at the College of William & Mary in Virginia.