TED+Talks

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Wow was this a short talk! I feel short changed… He had a lot of good things to say but I wanted more detail as to what he was talking about. I understand the four ways sound affects you. He made each of those points very clear. I knew them, but I wasn’t aware that I knew them so I appreciate his desire to bring them to the consciousness. It does make me wonder how I can make this work for me in my classroom. My classroom does get loud sometimes and I do feel bad for some of my students who prefer quiet. It is hard to balance because sometimes it is just the dynamic of the group versus the dynamic of one or two. Also, because students aren’t allowed to use their mp3 players during school hours, I wonder if using them could benefit them (if they were listening to the right sound of course). I’ve recently bought an Insight CD which is supposed to be for meditation and it is supposed to help ground you and I would love to use it with my students (it just sounds like rain) but it has to be listened to with headphones otherwise it is just rain (it looses the calming effects because it works with your brain waves through sound). I could try to have them listen to just rain; it might help. There is also a Focus CD that I want to buy but the same situation applies. I know listening to Jay Z or Lady Gaga probably won’t help them focus on math. It is one of those things with technology where it would just be better if we taught kids how to use it instead of simply banning it.

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His overall point in this video was “children will learn to do what they want to do.” He made his point very well and he was very convincing.

He quoted someone who said that a teacher that can be replaced by a machine should be. I guess in theory, this is correct. What good am I if I won’t go to these places that need teachers especially if a machine is as good as having me there. Just send them the machine!

As he was talking I was wondering if what he was talking about is sort of like the philosophy of Montessori schools. I don’t know much about them; but I do know that they wait for the kids to be “ready” to learn before they move them on. Are they talking about the same things here?

Also, as he was talking about how the scores went up so dramatically I thought of something I learned in one of your other classes (the Multimedia class I believe). The principles mostly helped lower achievers or struggling learners; they didn’t really help the higher achievers. So all this that he is talking about, would it work at Male/Manual? or would it even transfer to the US at all? Even at a school like Fairdale? I almost think that our kids have either had the curiosity educated out of them (sort of like Sir Ken Robinson with his creativity) or they are so entitled because they have so much already (some do, not all; and even at Fairdale, they may not have a lot at home but they have everything provided for them at school), would they be motivated as easily as the kids in India were? The Gateshead kids appeared to be, but they were still young… would my high schoolers respond that way? I thought it was great that the test scores stayed at 76% with no review of the material over two months… I thought that was great! What a liberating thought it is to not have to review material constantly. I think the comment at the bottom of one of his last slides hits the nail on the head, and he didn’t even read it. It said, “a question of attitude, not technology.” Would an apathetic attitude be changed if we approached things like this? And could we just start it in high school? Or would it have to start earlier because is the damage too much if you wait? I have so many questions about this and I would love to experiment with this. It’s such a liberating idea and I look forward to investigating more of his research in the future.

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I found this talk to be very frustrating!!! When he explained what he thought math was, I did not disagree at all!! I oddly agreed! But why is he telling me this? I can’t do anything that he is proposing. Why you ask? But because of standardized testing of course! Right now, I have to teach what they tell me to teach and I have to teach according to how they are assessed (which is different than teaching to the test, not really, but that is what they say). I appreciate that he says if kids want to learn to do it by hand, then let them. I appreciate that very much. I guess an argument I’ve recently heard against that is “I hate to track kids,” I never thought of it as tracking! As long as they have the freedom to move up/down/across classes, there is nothing wrong with tracking. If I have kids going into Pre-calculus that would like to learn to do things by hand and I teach them to do things by hand, but the applied math kids I teach them a different way, why is that wrong?!?!?!? I got a bit of resistance for this idea. This talk actually made me want to teach Applied Math next year so I can try to apply his idea math.

I am currently very frustrated with all my math classes because I am at the point of realizing that they have little problem solving skills and this is because we prompt sooo much. We do spend all of our time teaching his step 3, but they magically want us to do the other steps also. However, because they are not tested on all 4 steps, they non-tested steps get pushed aside.

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Experiential learning works well without testing pressure... which is exactly the point she makes at the end of the video (and I appreciated that point). Allowing kids to fail? I forget that it being okay to fail is not a normal pattern of thought for some people. I often try to convince kids that it's okay to mess up I think my new co-teacher isn’t uncomfortable, but not used to the idea. She prompts students more than I normally would and it’s rubbed off on me; I realized that when I got observed by my AP and he mentioned we try to not prompt students as much and we should ask them deeper more rigorous questions. I began paying attention to myself and to her and found many instances where I would question them and she would prompt them. I’ve had to try to pull back prompting and try to replace it with questioning. Students are uncomfortable with constructive criticism which is why they like the idea of ‘one right answer’. We as adults aren’t necessarily comfy with it, so how can we teach students to be? I sometimes get defensive when I get suggestions for improvements, but I am able to rationalize back to reality. I don’t know how many people can do that. It is also interesting because the way she uses information sounds like she is talking about facts… I’d like to ask her how dos this apply to math? Math is a lot of facts, but it processes… I do a lot of inquiry learning… but is that the same thing as experiential learning? It’s something I’d have to do more research on.