Filter & Sort
Uncertain stories
The evidence that stories are effective and efficient teaching tools is generally based on test results -- improved reading, writing, science and math scores. But in terms of teaching sustainability concepts, stories have an additional advantage. To the extent that they describe real-world (or seemingly real-world, or even imaginably real-world) characters and actions, each story situation is inherently trans-disciplinary.
MLA, Face-to-Face
How being there was in some ways better, some ways worse.
Burying the Lede
Bloomberg news yesterday ran a story about the University of Phoenix, in which it reported drops in quarterly earnings and share price as a function of a drop in enrollment. The headline reflected net income and enrollment. But the real news was buried in the fifth paragraph.
Teaching an Unmotivated Audience
In Turkey, students are admitted into universities through a nationwide test. After the students take the test and receive their scores, they submit a list of choices of the institutions and programs they want to attend to a nationwide center which places them to one of their choices. This placement is a result of not only the test score of the student but also the relative scores of all other students who made the same choice across the country.
Amplifying Lev Gonick's 'The Year Ahead in IT'
Like many of you, I took the time to print out and carefully read Lev Gonick's essay "The Year Ahead in IT, 2013". The entire essay is worth spending time with, as you will find a number of challenging ideas and insights embedded in Gonick's writing.
Astrobites Communicating Science 2013 Workshop
What did you do yesterday? I can tell you exactly what I did, because it's the same way I spend almost all my time as a graduate student.
Shifting towers
Since moving to one of the most expensive housing markets in North America eight years ago, we’ve had to learn...
What's the story?
Just before the holidays, I started reading about the teaching power of stories. That's "stories" in the sense that probably first popped into your mind -- enthralling tales of interesting characters facing challenges in pursuit of a goal. Children learn to understand pattern, cause-and-effect, motivation, etc., not by having these things explained to them in some form of abstract exposition -- children learn these things (and many more) by seeing/hearing/vicariously experiencing them in action. Along the way, their brains learn to expect a certain sort of information in a certain form, and configure themselves to process and store such information efficiently. Memory works by story. Our lives work by stories.