Posts
" 'We have known these principles [for improved study] for some time, and it's intriguing that schools don't pick them up, or that people don't learn them by trial and error,' said Robert A. Bjork, a psychologist at the University of California, Los Angeles. 'Instead, we walk around with all sorts of unexamined beliefs about what works that are mistaken.' (...)
Take the notion that children have specific learning styles, that some are 'visual learners' and others are auditory; some are "left-brain" students, others "right-brain." In a recent review of the relevant research, published in the journalPsychological Science in the Public Interest, a team of psychologists found almost zero support for such ideas. (...)
Cognitive scientists do not deny that honest-to-goodness cramming can lead to a better grade on a given exam. But hurriedly jam-packing a brain is akin to speed-packing a cheap suitcase, as most students quickly learn - it holds its new load for a while, then most everything falls out. ... [In contrast] an hour of study tonight, an hour on the weekend, another session a week from now - so-called spacing - improves later recall without requiring students to put in more overall study effort or pay more attention, dozens of studies have found."
Our nonprofit has entered the race to win a Chase Community grant, and we need your help! The grants are given to the top 200 nonprofits based on votes.
We heard about this just recently, and still need about 800 votes before 7/12 to make it, we've done great so far... but we need to get many more votes.
Can you help us out by voting for our Vocabulary Junction campaign, making free tutoring available to third graders nationwide? Please also repost this on facebook, via email, in forums/networks, etc.
As a thank you for taking time to vote, we will credit 10 learning credits to you.
In the near future, when www.LearnThatWord.org replaces www.eSpindle.org, users will only pay for measured learning results, and 10 credits represent about a month of free tutoring!
Here's how it works:
1 - Click on this link: http://bit.ly/learnthatword. (You have to be logged into your Facebook account)
3 - On the next screen, approve that Chase can connect with you and get access to your public Facebook info (they will list your name and profile images after you vote). 4 - On the following screen, click "like" by clicking on the highlighted button (you can "unlike" Chase at any time). Click on the verification required link and fill in the captcha.
5 - Please share this info with your friends and everyone who cares about education: Facebook, emails, forums, networks. http://bit.ly/learnthatword... this is urgent!!
Let's start closing the Vocabulary Divide that causes so many elementary students to struggle. We still need about 800 votes before 7/12... just a little miracle that should be well possible with a little help of our friends!
Thank you for your support!!
I just heard from one of our members. He's heading for the National Spelling Bee finals in Washington D.C. in early June and very excited.
Over the last few years, our site has become a major hub for these amazing mental athletes, since we are the only comprehensive and fully managed spelling program to help them manage their ambitious goal.
We also offer a forum for spelling bee contestants: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/eSpindle_SB/
This particular child just emailed me saying "I am using your website as my personal coach. It is such an amazing program!" He has studied over 17,000 words with LearnThatWord so far... what an amazing achievement! There are only two members who have studied more -- you can see the highest scoring users by moving your mouse over the blue round "1" icon on the home page or next to the quiz.
I was wishing him good luck, but then thought how inappropriate the term seemed compared with his level of preparedness. Luck is so often looked at as something random. However, contrary to popular folk myth, luck very rarely just drops on people. Instead, it follows a formula.
l = p x o
Luck = Preparedness x Opportunity
Of course, this child may encounter one of the few words he has not yet studied or that his brain has forgotten under the onslaught of vocabulary data. He may be making a mistake. But he has taken every step to minimize the likeliness of that by making sure he is prepared to the highest degree.
And from what I can see of his character so far, I'm sure that even if he hears the bell and not the questions of the media this year, he's likely to be back next year.Luck is not blind. She only has serious trouble seeing clearly. Get up and try to stand right in front of her by striving to increase your preparedness and opportunities wherever you can. Don't give up. Every action you take to either increase your preparedness or your opportunity will seriously increase your chances of being tagged by "luck."
Here a quote from the article: “There’s not much to this notion of learning styles,” said Daniel Willingham, of the University of Virginia, and no evidence that categorizing children by such terms as “visual, auditory, or kinesthetic learners,” for example, helps them learn. The notion that we can categorize people by how they prefer to learn has seeped into popular culture; 90 percent of the undergraduates in Willingham’s classes raise their hands when he asks them if they know what their learning style is. But research has not proved the categories are useful. For example, in one study researchers divided children into “auditory learners" and “visual learners,” and then gave them an “auditory task” and a “visual task,” expecting the auditory learners to ace the first and the visual learners to ace the second. They got the opposite results. “In many of these studies, the original classifications don’t always work,” he said; one person might be classified a “serialist learner” one day, but would meet the standard for its opposite, a “holistic learner,” the next. “The theories at hand aren’t effective,” Willingham said; perhaps another learning theory will appear that is, but he doesn’t see one on the horizon. His talk had the tables buzzing; many teachers and administrators said they at least consider learning styles when they design curricula or make lesson plans. Willingham said relying solely on such a perspective might lead to less-effective teaching, but he does promote the idea of “changing-up,” using a range of different modes in the lesson.The newsletter from the Dana Foundation is always highly interesting. Today's news stream debunked the "fancy myth" of learning styles and that somehow somewhat somebody could actually made sense out of all that hype and turn it into results.
What are you calling a learning style?
The boat is rocking at Wikipedia.
The media is upset that images deemed child pornographic were allowed to persist on the site.
The Wikimedia team is upset because Jimmy went in and deleted them without lengthy consensus discussions.
Wikipedia is a great resource in many regards, but this conflict highlights the problem of free--not only are you bound to be surprised by content that is of low quality or worse, but the article also mentions that Fox News stepped out, calling major donors to Wikimedia and complaining about the offensive material.
Depending on donations entirely, this "free" site depends on funding like everyone else on this planet.
Without consistent sustainability build in and substential maintenance costs, could the site tumble if the "big bad wolf" blows the house down?
Or would a situation like that cause people to rethink the glitzy appeal of "free"?
