Here's an article by the speaker I'm listening to now: Kurt Fischer (from Harvard).
Can the Differences Between Education and Neuroscience be Overcome by Mind, Brain, and Education?
A stunningly meaty article on the rise of a new field. Neuromyths; the history of education's relation to use of science to inform practice; philosophy, epistemology, a transdisciplinary collaborational framework..…
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Added by Connie Weber on November 21, 2009 at 4:37pm —
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the current speaker, Kenneth S. Kosik, is talking about
"The Wikification of Knowledge."
"
An External Hard Drive for the Brain
As a neuroscientist who spends time thinking about how people’s brains process information, this technology—and the information overflow it brings—are without a doubt changing the way human beings make decisions. Neuroscientists have increasingly come to understand memory as a fun…
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Added by Connie Weber on November 21, 2009 at 3:35pm —
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I'm at the Learning and the Brain Conference in Cambridge. Just want to post this link immediately. I learned of Mary Helen as a study group leader in Harvard Project Zero and Future of Learning last summer. When our group participants would come back from her sessions, there were stars in their eyes. They were dazzled, stunned. It's as if they had been deep sea diving and had just come to the surface, astonished at the worlds they had seen. I wondered,
what in the world? Now I know why p…
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Added by Connie Weber on November 20, 2009 at 8:00pm —
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The first pictures are of the current week's projects, an overview, and then records of a few discussions we've had in class, about the Big Ideas for the year. The rest of the photos are from a project that goes with our group reading of
Finn Family Moomintroll, a fantasy by Tove Jansson. The exercise that's shown here is the result of a Project Zero approach, a Thinking Skills Routine called Headlines. How the students loved it!
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Added by Connie Weber on September 22, 2009 at 7:00am —
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Added by Connie Weber on September 4, 2009 at 10:25am —
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This morning I got to engage in my idea of bliss, start off the day with a peak experience.
Running along the country road, a brisk morning, beautiful misty sunrise... I was wearing earphones, listening to NPR's Open Mic Discussion, and who should be doing the interview but Will Wright, one of the most important game-designers ever. And who should he be interviewing but E. O. Wilson, one of the most important naturalists of all time. Just listening to them talk, what a privilege....
Beautiful…
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Added by Connie Weber on September 1, 2009 at 10:30am —
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Deborah Meier for solid feet-on-the-ground perspective: know what matters, which is relationships and their processes. Working together within the purposefulness and messiness of democracy.
Carol Dweck because she makes is absolutely clear that how you think about yourself as a learner may be the most import…
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Added by Connie Weber on September 1, 2009 at 10:26am —
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Hmmm.... maybe the word should be something other than "framing." I plan to network it, synergize it, make it a web. I won't box it in but will have central themes. I'll let the study be the way William C. Morse proposed: ameboid. It changes shape as it goes--gets long and narrow in some points, rounded and thick in others.
The central theme is (drum roll, please, it took me weeks to arrive at this):
Change.
Hanging onto that theme is a huge look back: evolution/life history.
And also equall…
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Added by Connie Weber on August 25, 2009 at 10:00am —
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This story hit our area bigtime, and the fact that it has been in the news is a sign of community health to me. Actually, the news is a sign of
community, which is healthy. Who would think there'd be a community of commuters?
It's a sad story, actually. There's a pond next to the road on one of the main arteries into Ann Arbor, one that people regularly drive by as they commute between the city and their rural residences or bedroom communities. On the pond there was a pair of trumpeter s…
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Added by Connie Weber on August 16, 2009 at 8:30am —
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Added by Connie Weber on July 30, 2009 at 12:36pm —
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Random thoughts, unfiltered, simply steam of consciousness reflections...
Assessment of assessment. What do we need to think about assessment? Here's what I think: that maybe it's more about
focusing on the process
than the end
snapshop, the
one-moment
result.
How do you focus on the ongoing?
I continue to resonate with something Ron Ritchhart and others have developed called Cultures of Thinking, something I see as very promising for schools. Ron, forgive me if I mash up your theory; I'll just…
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Added by Connie Weber on July 27, 2009 at 9:00pm —
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Today I settled into my dorm room. It's on the corner of the building so I have two windows, a step up from previous years. Real air, too, not air conditioning: open windows and cross-breezes. That's important to me. I like to take in the smells and sounds of my locality. (Today by the way I listened to a mother robin giving her chirping feeding calls to her adolescent youngster and noticed a Boston accent--really, I mean this, the robins here have a different dialect. Now that's quite fascinati…
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Added by Connie Weber on July 25, 2009 at 9:00pm —
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After about a year of being hugely-invested in reading, these are the books I've selected as most influential and important to me... reread them all back-to-back, trying for some kind of a synthesis.
Left Back is primarily for reference; it helps me get the eras in perspe…
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Added by Connie Weber on July 9, 2009 at 7:30am —
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May look like a hodgepodge, but somehow this is where I've settled in my studies the last three weeks. Taking it in, taking it in, taking it in. A knowledge fest. All of these books I've read and am now rereading my underlines, to sift and sort through the major ideas. Preparing for…
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Added by Connie Weber on April 20, 2009 at 6:30am —
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Here are some questions from my current student self-evaluation. I give a 6 page handout that the students fill out, written directly to me. We first talk about the what the questions mean, in a group discussion--and by the way, the students designed much of the form themselves. So although the questions may seem too open-ended here, they're embedded in the classroom culture and the students know what we're asking.
I think our self-evaluations say a lot about overall purpose and mission. (Know o…
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Added by Connie Weber on March 18, 2009 at 11:30am —
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Many of us are already closely connected to David's network, EFL Classroom 2.0, but some people might not have seen it yet-- Just recently I wrote this on his wall:
"Hi David,
Hey, I'm doing a workshop on Friday about Networking for Professional Development, and of course wanted to show what you've got going on EFL Classroom. Any particular parts you think would be most beneficial to show people who are just getting in to networking? There are riches here; it's very difficult to choose. What ar…
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Added by Connie Weber on March 18, 2009 at 7:00am —
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It has been an extraordinary conference. I'm just drinking it all in, happy to be in "student mode." At last count I had filled 68 notebook pages. What an exercise it is, to track and record a speaker. And whew--I'm tired! Today is the final day. Tomorrow I'll have to counterbalance all this heady activity: go for a LONG run, watch some oldtime comedy shows, do some art.
Here's the lineup for this morning:
The Science Behind What Makes Us Unique: Navigating the Social World
Dr. Michael Ga…
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Added by Connie Weber on February 21, 2009 at 8:00am —
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Look what's on the docket today, the stuff of dreams:
Emotional Awareness
This talk will describe four emotional skills and provide information on how to acquire them. Those skills include: (1) Recognizing the emotions others are experiencing; (2) using that information constructively; (3) Recognizing your own emotional state and what is triggering emotional episodes you regret afterwards; and (4) exploring your own unique way of experiencing emotions -- your emotional profile.
Paul Ekman,…
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Added by Connie Weber on February 20, 2009 at 11:00am —
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Ooooooo, totally geeked. This morning's keynotes, here at the Fairmont Hotel in San Francisco:
Sam Goldstein: Hardwired to Connect: Creating Classrooms that Nurture Social Minds
"Dr. Sam Goldstein will cover our current understanding of the importance of socialization and its relationship to learning, normal adjustment and transition into adulthood, and touch on issues related to resilience genetics, stress and learning."
John Medina: Brain Rules: Principles for Surviving and Thriving in Scho…
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Added by Connie Weber on February 19, 2009 at 11:18am —
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"A Smarter Stimulus" by James Surowiecki
A part of my current "economics phase" --which I'm beginning to think isn't a phase at all and is here to stay.
I love thinking about how people think about money. Windfall? Income? How we think about it affects what we do with it.
"Where the money comes from can have a big impact on whether people spend it or save it: casino winnings are more likely to be spent t…
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Added by Connie Weber on January 27, 2009 at 12:30pm —
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