by Scott McLeod | Aug 29, 2009 | Learning and Teaching, Quotes, Tech Integration |
I have two favorite quotes from Pamela Livingston’s excellent book, 1-to-1 Learning: Laptop Programs That Work. Here's the first one:
If it takes 40 minutes for an environmental science class to gather weather data from atlases and almanacs and turn it into pencil and paper charts, how much time is left to think about what the chart is saying? How much time is there to consider “what if” scenarios, such as, “What if the mean temperature rose by ten degrees?” Equipped with a laptop computer, access to the Internet, and a spreadsheet/graphing program, however, students can quickly find and analyze current data. They can plug that data into spreadsheet templates and prepare charts for half a dozen different “what if” scenarios in the same amount of time it would take to make a pencil and paper chart. [Laptops] allow students to get to the thinking faster. [emphasis added]
We waste so much time in school doing things on paper that are more efficient on the computer. One of the primary reasons that adults use computers instead of paper is enhanced productivity. What could teachers do with all of the time that we’d free up if schools made a significant shift away from paper and pencil?
If you haven’t checked out Pamela’s book, it’s well worth the read!
by Scott McLeod | Aug 19, 2009 | Leadership and Vision, Learning and Teaching, Our Changing World, Quotes, Research and Evaluation, Reviews |
Here are two quotes from Education and Learning to Think, an interesting little research-based book published by the National Research Council way back in 1987!
Higher order thinking is nonalgorithmic. That is, the path of action is not fully specified in advance.
Higher order thinking tends to be complex. The total path is not “visible” (mentally speaking) from any single vantage point.
Higher order thinking often yields multiple solutions, each with costs and benefits, rather than unique solutions.
Higher order thinking involves nuanced judgment and interpretation.
Higher order thinking involves the application of multiple criteria, which sometimes conflict with one another.
Higher order thinking often involves uncertainty. Not everything that bears on the task at hand is known.
Higher order thinking involves self-regulation of the thinking process. We do not recognize higher order thinking in an individual when someone else “calls the plays” at every step.
Higher order thinking involves imposing meaning, finding structure in apparent disorder.
Higher order thinking is effortful. There is considerable mental work involved in the kinds of elaborations and judgments required. (p. 3)
The seventh item on the list, self-regulation, is one that I think is particularly lacking in many K-12 schools because the teachers “call the plays” so much of the time…
Here’s what I think is the money quote:
The goals of increasing thinking and reasoning ability are old ones for educators. . . . But these goals were part of the high literacy tradition; they did not, by and large, apply to the more recent schools for the masses. Although it is not new to include thinking, problem solving, and reasoning in someone’s school curriculum, it is new to include it in everyone’s curriculum. It is new to take seriously the aspiration of making thinking and problem solving a regular part of a school program for all of the population . . . It is a new challenge to develop educational programs that assume that all individuals, not just an elite, can become competent thinkers. (p. 7)
I liked this book. It's very short, but it made me think. I give it 4 highlighters.
by Scott McLeod | Aug 17, 2009 | Leadership and Vision, Learning and Teaching, Our Changing World, Quotes |
Seth Godin is one of my favorite thinkers. I’ve learned a ton from him. Here are a couple of quotes from his post today on education.
School was the big thing for a long time. School is tests and credits and notetaking and meeting standards. Learning, on the other hand, is ‘getting it’. It’s the conceptual breakthrough that permits the student to understand it then move on to something else. Learning doesn’t care about workbooks or long checklists.
For a while, smart people thought that school was organized to encourage learning. For a long time, though, people in the know have realized that they are fundamentally different activities.
and
If you think the fallout in the newspaper business was dramatic, wait until you see what happens to education.
Happy reading!
![Biosciences will hire no dropouts]()
by Scott McLeod | Jun 7, 2009 | Law, Policy, and Ethics, Leadership and Vision, Our Changing World, Quotes, Reading, Reviews |
Richard Longworth says…
Men and women who carried lunch pails and spent their days on assembly lines could earn good wages, own their own homes, feed their families, and keep a cottage by the lake. It was a safe, solid way of life, and it didn’t require much book learning. One step up the ladder stood the trades, the jobs in construction and nursing and repair. The junior colleges and vocational schools taught these trades and taught them well. If they didn’t teach much science or math, that was all right, because only students going to universities needed that knowledge. . . . The Midwest has lost the knack to compete in the new economy, and the schools have lost their ability to teach it. (pp. 179–180)
Globalization may be the most egalitarian force in history. . . . If you’re good, you’ve got a chance. If you've got the education and the skills, the door is open. But if you don’t . . . you’re out of luck. . . . If the Midwest’s future contains manufacturing, it will be high-end, high-tech manufacturing, demanding two-year degrees at the least. Biosciences will hire no dropouts. (pp. 172–173)
[Caught in the Middle: America’s Heartland in the Age of Globalism]
This is an important book for anyone who lives in the Midwest (or any other primarily rural area). It's a depressing book, but an important book. I learned a ton. I give it 5 highlighters.
![Biosciences will hire no dropouts]()
by Scott McLeod | Jun 6, 2009 | Law, Policy, and Ethics, Leadership and Vision, Our Changing World, Quotes, Reading |
Richard Longworth says…
State officials know perfectly well that globalization will swallow their traditional industries. But they’re stuck. Workers vote, and a voter who has just lost his job will be an angry voter. . . . Every time a factory dies, its workers go from a private payroll to the public dole; . . . unemployment pay and retraining costs take money away from programs, such as education, that might offer some advantage in the new economy. And so the pressure builds to subsidize the old industries, to do anything to keep them from moving away. . . . The time and money [states] spend trying to keep twentieth-century jobs prevent them from creating twenty-first century jobs. (pp. 35–36)
The dirty little secret of Midwestern manufacturing is that many workers are high school dropouts, uneducated, some virtually illiterate. They could build refrigerators, sure. But they are totally unqualified for any job other than the ones they just lost. (p. 56)
[Caught in the Middle: America’s Heartland in the Age of Globalism]
![Biosciences will hire no dropouts]()
by Scott McLeod | Jun 5, 2009 | Law, Policy, and Ethics, Leadership and Vision, Our Changing World, Quotes, Reading |
Richard Longworth says…
Most of [the] earlier outsourcing dealt with manufacturing and factory workers. . . . The newest wave is different. It’s white-collar outsourcing . . . and it can hit anyone whose job isn’t absolutely nailed down. . . . Basically, any job that does not require face-to-face contact with a customer can be outsourced. Defense attorneys who must appear in a Wisconsin court cannot be in India, but real estate lawyers searching titles can. An Indiana X-ray technician has to be in the same room with the patient; the doctors who read the X-rays can be anywhere. Barbers in Columbus, taxi drivers in Chicago, and kindergarten teachers in Des Moines are outsource-proof. Stockbrokers and tax accountants aren’t. All this is happening now. . . . ‘Anything that can be sent over a wire can be outsourced, anything fungible is up for grabs, any tradable service anywhere in the world. Fifty percent of global GDP is services, and a lot of that is tradable.' (pp. 11–12)
[Caught in the Middle: America’s Heartland in the Age of Globalism]
by Scott McLeod | Jun 4, 2009 | Leadership and Vision, Quotes, Reading, Reviews |
Michael Port says…
When we are thinking small, we crave preordained outcomes. We want to know what’s going to happen before we begin. Control is an illusion. The need to know how and where prevents all progress. Outcomes are not the starting point. . . . When we seek to control it, it’s because we fear the unknown, the out of control. What we fear is reality because ultimately it can never be controlled. [The Think Big Manifesto, pp. 106–107]
Related posts
I had hoped for more from this book. Although it had a few good quotes, I felt that much of it was fairly uninspiring. It just never grabbed me. I give it 2 highlighters.
by Scott McLeod | Jun 3, 2009 | Leadership and Vision, Quotes, Reading |
Michael Port says…
With small thinking, we cannot grow – intellectually, spiritually, creatively, emotionally, financially. And when we cannot grow, society cannot grow. It cannot advance. It cannot develop. Small thinking is an ultimately autodestructive path. . . . The only reward of small thinking will be paid in the common currency of all small thinking – unaccomplished dreams. . . . No growth – not spiritual, emotional, professional, or social – is possible in this kind of environment. We are squandering the gifts of the universe. [The Think Big Manifesto, pp. 52–53]
Related posts
by Scott McLeod | Jun 2, 2009 | Leadership and Vision, Quotes, Reading |
Michael Port says…
Revolution is about one person at a time experiencing their own personal empowerment against an existing, deficient (small thinking) system. (p. 13)
We are the biggest obstacle that stands in the way of our doing big things in the world. We are our own worst enemies. (p. 22)
[The Think Big Manifesto]
Related posts
by Scott McLeod | May 10, 2009 | Leadership and Vision, Quotes, Reading |
We will be ridiculed for declaring ourselves to be big thinkers. To declare anything is to take a chance, to put ourselves on the line, to risk failure. . . .
When we take risks, we scare other people (and most of all ourselves), because those others see the glimmer of possibilities that they are not even reaching for, because the potential of our success makes them face their own universe, so constricted by their small thoughts.
We will be put down for our efforts. Others will revel in our failures along the way. In the German language, there's even a word for it: schadenfreude. To feel pleasure at someone else's misfortune. Small, small thinking.
We may lose faith in ourselves at points along the way. Worse, we will be intentionally thwarted by small thinking people who fear big thinking because it threatens their comfortable power base.
Together we will find our warrior core, our inner strength, the root of big thinking, and nothing and no one can thwart us. [The Think Big Manifesto, pp. 36-37]
