“Playing games makes your child clever”
A must read article from the Times of London. Playing Games Makes Your Child Clever
intelligence
“Can we have a bake sale?”
“George, can we have a bake sale?” That was Wednesday last week, in the hallway, right at the start of school. And this afternoon we wired a check for $1124 to the Red Cross. It’s over a week now since we first heard the news of the catastrophic consequences of the earthquake in Haiti. That … Read more
Problem-solving is what you do when ….
Problem solving is what you do when you don’t know what to do. – Alinda. That’s just one of the things we learned yesterday at the new teachers orientation in Kenyon. Each teacher had five minutes to present a lesson to the group. These were videotaped and the playback classes used as a starting point … Read more
What’s Your EQ?
Empathy – the ability to understand and identify with another’s situation, feelings, motives. Emotional Intelligence – the ability to understand your own emotions and those of people around you. To be emotionally intelligent means having a self-awareness that enables the recognition of feelings and helps you manage emotions. At a personal level, it involves motivation … Read more
Testing: There are Better Ways to Identify Gifted and Talented Students
It’s testing season and here’s a timely reminder that traditional testing for ability is not the last word in thinking about what makes for success. This is from a May edition of Education Week Robert J. Sternberg often writes about a lecture-style psychology course he took as a college freshman in which he got a … Read more
The Effort Effect Part Two: What do we tell the kids?
Part One: The Audacity of High Hopes Part Two: What to do If praising kids for being smart saps motivation what are we to do? Here’s the sidebar to the article and Dweck’s advice on what to do. What do we tell the kids? You have a bright child, and you want her to succeed. … Read more
The Effort Effect: The Audacity of High Hopes
The effort effect on display at Buttercup Farm Nature Reserve, near Poughkeepsie. See below for a photo of the dam. Intelligence is not fixed. It is it is learnable and teachable. It can be changed. The way we approach learning and thinking makes all the difference. It is our ‘mindset” that keeps us back. If … Read more
The Cathedral of Complexity
The Complex Workings of the Human Brain Medical and cognitive sciences, new technologies, and pedagogic research are helping us appreciate how the brain works. The human brain is the most complex living organism on Earth. Coveney and Highfield (1995) call it the “Cathedral of Complexity.” Although it weighs only about three pounds, it contains billions … Read more
College Admissions: Which is more interesting: Gorillas or Guerrillas??
That question is one the prompts from the new Tufts University optional essay section. It’s part of its Kaleidoscope program based on the psychometric work of Robert Sternberg who is now the Dean of the School of Arts and Sciences at Tufts. Sternberg’s work has long focused on notions of successful intelligence and creativity. ‘If … Read more