Resource For Teaching A Unit On Creativity and Innovation

On the left hand column of this blog, you will see a new link called "On Innovation". This connects to a resource with over 500 high quality video interviews and lessons with and about some of America's most innovative people. You can listen to amazing thinkers and visionaries like Bill Gates, Martha Stewart, Dean Kamen and others. It also comes with printable resources and lesson plans. For an overview of this resource, watch the short clip below.

Innovation - The Flipped Classroom

Ken Robinson on Multiple Intelligences

I love Sir Ken Robinson and I absolutely love this clip. Make sure you listen all the way to the end and hear the Gillian Lynne story.

The Teacher As Gardener

In this short clip, Sir Ken Robinson suggests that the main metaphor for teaching is moving from an industrial one back to something more like gardening.

Pay Attention To What Children Love Doing As They Are Growing Up

Gretchen Rubin explores a terrific strength discovery tool in the short video below. She asks the question, What did you love doing when you were 10 years old?" It really is a great question. Don't get hung up on the precise age. Maybe the key clue will come at age 14. Maybe it will come much younger.

Consider this amazing memory from physicist Freeman Dyson. He writes, "I've never remembered a time when I wasn't in love with calculating. One of the first memories I have was when I was being put down for a nap in the afternoons. I was in the crib and not able to climb out, and I was calculating the infinite series, 1 + 1/2 + 1/4 + 1/8 + 1 + 1/16...and discovered that it came out to 2... I just loved calculating. It's something your born with...

Math Games

For children who find math difficult or frustrating, or who just like to be challenged, there are many cool math games online to play for free. But are they useful? Research shows that the brain’s systems for math and language are different, and some people are wired to be better at one or the other. That doesn't mean any student should give up on math, though it does suggest some students may need alternative methods to reach their potential.

Math games can be an effective way to learn. A study in 2010 found that the action-packed video game Dimension M beat traditional lessons in teaching linear algebra to seventh- and eighth-graders. Another option to boost skills and math confidence in kids is to buy math software, which allows for greater parental control than turning a child loose on the Internet.

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One Math Skill You Need to Succeed at Work

David Geary, a Missouri professor and the study's lead author, said the research made a connection between child psychology and labor economics in order to examine the roots of America's shortage of mathematically proficient workers. Data from the United States Center for Educational Statistics revealed that one in five adults lacks the math competency expected of an eighth-grader.

"We isolated a specific skill that has real-world importance in employability and observed how that skill related to grade-school mathematical performance," Geary said. "By identifying a specific numerical skill as a target, we can focus education efforts on helping deficient students as early as kindergarten and thereby give them a better chance at career success in adulthood."

The math skill researchers identified was "number system knowledge," which is the ability to conceptualize a numeral as a symbol for a quantity and understand systematic relationships between numbers. The study found that having this knowledge at the beginning of first grade predicted better functional mathematical ability in adolescence.

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Coursera Get's Free Online Courses Approved for College Credit

In a continuing trend toward on-line education accreditation, Coursera had five of it's on-line courses approved for college credit today by the American Council on Education.

Coursera, which offers massive online open courses, also known as MOOCs, is one of several efforts to bring higher education online. It now has a lineup of more than 200 classes, organized and taught by professors at 33 universities.

Watch for this trend to continue...and if it does, colleges across the country will have to further alter their business modal or risk going out of business.

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The Neuroscience of Personality - UCLA's Dario Nardi

This is a great session by UCLA professor Dario Nardi speaking at Google. I recommend watching it in 20 minute segments.