Building A New Culture Of Teaching And Learning
Are schools designed to help people learn? Are universities really institutions of higher education? Do people actually learn any science in science classes? Can skateboarding give us a better model for teaching and learning?
Here are links to references and additional resources related to my talk.
If you’ve never seen Sir Ken Robinson’s TED Talk “Do Schools Kill Creativity?” you should watch it here:
“Universities are not doing a good job.”
Watch the entire interview with Dr. Leon Lederman on The Science Network.
Education, Politics, Einstein, and Charm: a conversation with Nobel Laureate Leon Lederman.
Depersonalization 101: “They’re…checking Facebook or their email…”
Is the digital revolution turning us into delusional multitaskers who can’t focus?
Watch “Digital Nation” from Frontline on PBS
“Increasing number of educators found to be suffering from teaching disabilities”
“Over 90% of middle school science teachers in this country have never taken a science course outside of high school.”
Watch the entire discussion between Dr. Lawrence Krauss and Dr. Richard Dawkins:
“…the difference between certifications and qualifications.”
Malcolm Gladwell has argued that if we don’t have a good way of predicting who will become great teachers, we must drastically change hiring practices in schools.
“Most Likely To Succeed: How do we hire when we can’t tell who’s right for the job?”
“I’m not telling you stories about shiny new buildings, or computer labs, or interactive wipeboards that really had an influence on me.”
Our priority should be finding great teachers, but we shouldn’t ignore the importance of environment in teaching and learning.
The Third Teacher
“…the most effective thing we can do to improve the quality of physics instruction…is to hire, honor, and promote good teachers.”
Dr. David J. Griffiths ( http://academic.reed.edu/physics/faculty/griffiths.html )
“Is There A Text In This Class?”
“Do they just sit there?”
Dr. Dean Zollman ( http://www.phys.ksu.edu/personal/dzollman/ )
“Do They Just Sit There? Reflections on helping students learn physics”
“Congratulations! You haven’t learned a damn thing about science.”
I grabbed that diagram of the citric acid cycle ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citric_acid_cycle ) from http://library.thinkquest.org/C004535/media/kreb_cycle.gif
Watch Richard Feynman for a more insightful view of science.
“The Pleasure of Finding Things Out”
“MythBusters is the most scientific show on television.”
What? You’ve never seen MythBusters?
“Maybe lawyers are getting in the way of science education.”
Watch Geyver Tulley’s TED Talks about
“Five Dangerous Things You Should Let Your Kids Do”
“Life Lessons Through Tinkering”
“Work your ass off until you figure it out.”
Dr. Carol Dweck might call this having a “growth mindset.”
“How Not To Talk To Your Kids”
Mindset by Dweck
Branford Marsalis thinks some students don’t understand the idea of hard work.
Dr. Kurt Wiesenfeld ( http://www.physics.gatech.edu/people/faculty/kwiesenfeld.html )
“Making The Grade: Many students wheedle for a degree as if it were a freebie T shirt”
“That’s a long time”
by Malcolm Gladwell
Dr. Alan Schoenfeld
“Teach For America Chews Up, Spits Out Another Ethnic-Studies Major”
“You can polish a turd.”
MythBusters: Polishing A Turd
Distributed Computing on Wikipedia
Dr. Tae’s New Video-Blog-Podcast Thingy