World-Shaker

"Some people say that we can’t afford to help our kids through school by keeping student loan interest rates low,” said Senator Warren. “But right now, as I speak, the federal government offers far lower interest rates on loans, every single day–they just don’t do it for everyone. Right now, a big bank can get a loan through the Federal Reserve discount window at a rate of about 0.75%. But this summer a student who is trying to get a loan to go to college will pay almost 7%. In other words, the federal government is going to charge students interest rates that are nine times higher than the rates for the biggest banks–the same banks that destroyed millions of jobs and nearly broke this economy. That isn’t right. And that is why I’m introducing legislation today to give students the same deal that we give to the big banks.
Big banks get a great deal when they borrow money from the Fed,” Senator Warren continued. “In effect, the American taxpayer is investing in those banks. We should make the same kind of investment in our young people who are trying to get an education. Lend them the money and make them to pay it back, but give our kids a break on the interest they pay. Let’s Bank on Students… Unlike the big banks, students don’t have armies of lobbyists and lawyers. They have only their voices. And they call on us to do what is right."

— Elizabeth Warren: Students should get the same loan rate as big banks

"We need to create a world where people from Fox News and MSNBC get married."

—

The Right Rev. Michael Bruce Curry

From Elon University’s Spring Convocation, hosted by Lara Logan (live right now)

"Beyond treating individual letters as physical objects, the human brain may also perceive a text in its entirety as a kind of physical landscape. When we read, we construct a mental representation of the text in which meaning is anchored to structure. The exact nature of such representations remains unclear, but they are likely similar to the mental maps we create of terrain—such as mountains and trails—and of man-made physical spaces, such as apartments and offices. Both anecdotally and in published studies, people report that when trying to locate a particular piece of written information they often remember where in the text it appeared. We might recall that we passed the red farmhouse near the start of the trail before we started climbing uphill through the forest; in a similar way, we remember that we read about Mr. Darcy rebuffing Elizabeth Bennett on the bottom of the left-hand page in one of the earlier chapters."

— The Reading Brain in the Digital Age: The Science of Paper versus Screens

"Technology in the classroom is here to stay. Consequently, it is time for educators to begin to have more sophisticated conversations about best practices and to explore the inherent challenges. The learning potential of educational technology is infinite, but as with every learning tool, platform, or approach, educators need to sift through the tensions and talk about the challenges and trade-offs. It’s time to give educators encouragement to apply critical thinking to technology without the fear of being labeled a Luddite."

— Getting Real About Educational Technology

"When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, ‘Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.’ To this day, especially in times of ‘disaster,’ I remember my mother’s words, and I am always comforted by realizing that there are still so many helpers—so many caring people in this world."

— Mr. Rogers

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[leaves this here and backs away]

(Source: reddit.com)

"A long train of failures has brought us to this unfortunate pass. In their pursuit of Federal tax dollars, our legislators have failed us by selling children out to private industries such as Pearson Education. The New York State United Teachers union has let down its membership by failing to mount a much more effective and vigorous campaign against this same costly and dangerous debacle. Finally, it is with sad reluctance that I say our own administration has been both uncommunicative and unresponsive to the concerns and needs of our staff and students by establishing testing and evaluation systems that are Byzantine at best and at worst, draconian. This situation has been exacerbated by other actions of the administration, in either refusing to call open forum meetings to discuss these pressing issues, or by so constraining the time limits of such meetings that little more than a conveying of information could take place. This lack of leadership at every level has only served to produce confusion, a loss of confidence and a dramatic and rapid decaying of morale. The repercussions of these ill-conceived policies will be telling and shall resound to the detriment of education for years to come. The analogy that this process is like building the airplane while we are flying would strike terror in the heart of anyone should it be applied to an actual airplane flight, a medical procedure, or even a home repair. Why should it be acceptable in our careers and in the education of our children?"

— Teacher’s resignation letter: ‘My profession … no longer exists’

"I believe that deeper professor-student shifts are in store for us. It’s not controversial to say that the Web has significantly eroded the special claim that professors have as unique repositories of knowledge. That doesn’t mean we’re useless in the classroom. Quite the opposite, in fact. “It’s not about memorizing the structure of the periodic table,” I tell my students these days, “because that’s all on Wikipedia. It’s about communicating to me that you can solve problems. Because the world has a lot of problems.” In short, the information age makes it easier to make it clear to students that the central pillar of their college education is what we have always believed it to be: their responsibility."

—

It’s a Flipping Revolution

Ninja Update: Infoneer-Pulse beat me to this one.

"No good film is too long. No bad movie is short enough."

— Roger Ebert

"Elias Aboujaoude, a professor of psychiatry at Stanford, notes that our ability tailor the Internet experience to our every need is making us more narcissistic. He observes, “This shift from e- to i- in prefixing Internet URLs and naming electronic gadgets and apps parallels the rise of the self-absorbed online Narcissus.” He goes on to state that, “As we get accustomed to having even our most minor needs … accommodated to this degree, we are growing more needy and more entitled. In other words, more narcissistic."

— The Internet ‘Narcissism Epidemic’

"

In a traditional classroom, when a teacher asks a question, “Who can tell me … ?” usually four or five hands go up. The teacher will call on one student, and perhaps on another few to see if their answers agree with the first, but the teacher will have no way of knowing what is going on in the heads of the other 20 students.

The kinesthetic teacher has a different approach. “Show me … ” Twenty-five students are being asked to respond physically to the question: Show me what comes first, the comma or the closed quotation mark. Show me if this is a series or parallel circuit. Show me an animal that lives in the rainforest; show me how the character feels just before the story’s climax. Immediately, all of the students respond, and their learning is made visible. They have to think about what they are going to do, and literally take a stand. If they want to change their answer, they don’t have to erase anything, they just change their pose. Rather than calling attention to the “mistake,” the focus is on the “re-take,” which lessens the fear of failure that is so prevalent among students today—and teachers can give immediate feedback to students (formative assessment) rather than waiting for a weekly or unit test.

"

— The Power of Movement in Teaching and Learning

"I think we’re all impressed by how stupid humans are,” remarked James Gee, a professor of literacy studies at Arizona State University, who holds degrees in philosophy and linguistics from Stanford. “It reaches almost epic proportions. We’re stupid in dozens and dozens of ways. “But human minds are plug-and-play devices; they’re not meant to be used alone. They’re meant to be used in networks.” Games allow us to do that – they allow us to use what Gee calls “collective intelligence.” Collectively, we’re not so stupid."

— Using games as an educational tool provides opportunities for deeper learning, panelists at Stanford event say

"

Gone are the days of reflecting on an assigned reading for an entire class period—or even expecting that the entire class has done the assigned reading. Examining its structure, debating its logic, and savoring its rhetoric would take up time, require sustained focus, and might not necessarily lead to the “right answer”—impediments to busy, parallel-processing students who are anxious to get it right once and for all. These impediments have been replaced with the quicker, more streamlined approach of fast-paced classes, instructor availability “on demand,” and detailed instructions.

But are these efforts shortchanging my students by reinforcing who they are right now — admittedly, as portrayed by media-hyped generalizations—at the expense of who they might become if guided beyond their current comfortable boundaries?

"

— Millennial Students and Middle-aged Faculty: A Learner-centered Approach

"At the heart of the matter lies technology. My pre-1980 birth date means I do not share my students’ lifelong history with digital technology. Neuroscientists tell us that this history has shaped the cognitive functioning of the millennial generation, strengthening certain neural pathways through repeated use and weakening others through infrequent use. Student comments such as “I don’t like reading” or “I can text and listen to you at the same time” suggest that these strengthened and weakened pathways are the polar opposite of those that exist in my own brain. I am, therefore, despite more than 20 years of postsecondary teaching, sometimes completely confounded by the way my students think— and not always certain that the fault for this confusion is theirs."

— Millennial Students and Middle-aged Faculty: A Learner-centered Approach

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johntspencer:

I love technology, but …

I try to explain this in my presentations when I encourage college students to disconnect from technology. I’m not anti-technology. My job doesn’t exist if students aren’t using it. What I am is pro-balance with technology. You have to find some way to spend time in the real world, and it’s surprisingly hard to do.

(Source: edrethink)