Name:Labels: Homeschooling, Learning, Technology
hat tip: Annie W.
If you are trying to inculcate good study habits in your children, or if you're simply engrossed with how the learning brain operates, or as in my case, both, you need to read this.
For one thing, it will make you feel better about what you always knew about studying but your mom and the experts told you otherwise. They said study in the same place all the time, minimize distractions, etc. But you instinctively knew you studied best to music, lying on the floor while snacking.
For another thing, it helps to debunk what I've thought for a long time--that all the hoopla about different learning styles is way overdone and really has no basis in scientific research.
One of the reasons I've doubted it is because of my own personal brain quirks. I've always thought of myself as a visual learner, but there are whole areas where I don't learn visually. You've heard people say, "I can't remember names, but I never forget a face"? Well I'm the opposite. I remember the names but I can meet you today and not remember your face the day after tomorrow. I used to think of that as a moral failing, but I've learned that it's just the way my brain works (or doesn't). To make it even more confusing, I can probably identify by face on TV 90 out of 100 U.S. senators, and maybe 30% of U.S. representatives. I can hear the voices of most of them without looking at their faces and tell you who they are. If I don't know their names after hearing their voices, I can probably at least tell you their party affiliation. Isn't that weird? And yet let me meet one of The Papa's co-workers at a Christmas party and then run into him at the grocery store later in the week, and I won't think I've ever met him.
Learning styles are neither as set nor as universal as the past generation of experts has led us to believe. Some kids learn math best visually and literature aurally. Some kids learn science kinesthetically but a hands-on treatment won't help them learn history. And some of us learn best visually at one point in our lives and aurally in another. Moreover, I believe after working with quite a few children that just because they've been tagged as a visual learner doesn't mean you need to use a curriculum with them that is predominantly visual. That may even stunt their growth in other areas by helping them to believe they can only learn one way.
Lecture over. Read this and see what you think.
Forget What You Know About Good Study Habits
hat tip: The Papa
Labels: Education, Homeschooling, Learning, Science
How many times while growing up did you ask an adult how to spell something and he or she responded, "Go look it up. You'll remember it better than if I tell you." Familiar?
Though I won't claim to be guiltless in this, my kids will tell you that my standard strategy is to ask, "How do YOU think it's spelled? Just try it." Some of my kids nearly always spell it right for me; some nearly always get it wrong. But I've always thought this was a better approach than just having them look it up. It helps me know where the flaws in their thinking are, and it helps them understand their own tendencies. For my naturally good spellers, it helps them learn to rely on their "gut" instinct. For the more challenged spellers, it teaches them where their weaknesses are--homophones? Vowel sounds? Changes in plurals? As I point out the errors and we talk about why they were wrong, I believe an imprint is made that is lacking when they just go "look it up."
So today, some scientific back-up for my theories!
For years, many educators have championed “errorless learning," advising teachers (and students) to create study conditions that do not permit errors. For example, a classroom teacher might drill students repeatedly on the same multiplication problem, with very little delay between the first and second presentations of the problem, ensuring that the student gets the answer correct each time.
The idea embedded in this approach is that if students make errors, they will learn the errors and be prevented (or slowed) in learning the correct information. But research by Nate Kornell, Matthew Hays and Robert Bjork at U.C.L.A. that recently appeared in the Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory and Cognition reveals that this worry is misplaced. In fact, they found, learning becomes better if conditions are arranged so that students make errors.
Please go read the whole article here. This has implications for all kinds of learning...but also for bigger life lessons. Allowing kids to fail, especially when there's no lasting physical or emotional damage, may be just as important as what we teach them.
Getting It Wrong: Surprising Tips on How to Learn
Labels: Homeschooling, Learning, Science
This morning I stayed home with my sick son. Yes, he's almost 13 and can probably stay alone even when he's sick. But late last night, when it was apparent he wasn't going anywhere today, it struck me with great force that this could be the last time I ever stay home with a sick child. Tim is my "baby" although I wouldn't put it that way if he were a reader of my blog. And each stage I go through with him is therefore my last...each grade, each size of clothes, each time I stay with him and give him cold meds. This season is passing faster than I want to admit, and this morning was, in some way, a salute to an era nearly gone...The Teaching Company course I'm currently going through (listed on my left sidebar with books I'm reading) has totally captivated me. Linguistics has always been an intense interest of mine, despite my frighteningly surface understanding. This course and its engaging professor (John McWhorter) might have opened up a new lifelong obsession, as well as a slight shift in my outlook from the "prescriptivist" side of language to the "descriptivist." Someday I may do a whole blog post on that...
I have a new fast-food love. Yes, dear readers, I can say without hesitation that Long John Silver's crab cakes are some of the best fast food I've ever put in my mouth. (Notice I didn't say that they were the best crab cakes I've ever put in my mouth...that honor would have to be reserved for a little waterside diner at Good Friday Harbor in the San Juan Islands. But that's another story....) I discovered them by accident on this week's trip to north Texas and I don't think I'll ever get tired of them. 'Course with my luck they're probably a "For a Limited Time Only" promo and I'll be left longing the rest of my life.
For those of you who've been taking bets, no, we don't have a second piano. Yet. Although for most of the week we had a facsimile.
You may remember that early in the year I bought a new Bible, an ESV Study Bible that I returned within 24 hours after deciding I did not want to have to buy a wheel barrow to transport it in. The thing was humongous. I still haven't replaced it, but have since decided to stick with my beloved NASB and forego the study Bible versions in favor of a wide-margin edition. I love taking long notes and outlines in the margins and I have plenty of study helps in other places. So right now this is the one I'm considering, even though size-wise it's not too much different than the big one. It's slightly thinner (1.7 vs. a full 2 inches) but much more supple and supposedly easier to handle, with the benefit of nice wide margins to make lists, outlines, and observations.
Many of you have asked about my mother...all I can say is that each time I visit I think I won't be shocked any more at how quickly she is sliding, and each time I'm still shocked. There is so little left of the woman we knew. She still knows us and can converse, sometimes quite deeply, but she doesn't move except to go to the bathroom and that process takes half an hour. At times she seems to have accepted her condition with grace; other times it's apparent that she has a clear streak of bitterness because of what's happening to her and even toward those who are trying so hard to help her. Needless to say, that causes me great sorrow and frustration.
Tomorrow begins the last month of the first half of '09. Why does that seem so unbelievable to me?
Next on my list of changes/upgrades to Granny's House: a gas range. It's something I've wanted for years and years, and we're just now getting around to really doing something about it. First up is getting a plumber to estimate what it will cost us to bring the gas into the house...that will let me know if the job is feasible. One of my dad's favorite sayings was always, "Now you're cookin' with gas!" I hope to make that a reality shortly :-)
Two weekends ago all of our family piano and voice students had their spring recitals. This weekend we were treated to the last recital of the season, grandson David. David is learning to play the violin, taught by our sweet friend Julie (seated at right in the photo). Julie hosted a lovely recital in her home, and we were so proud of David as he participated in what we hope is just the first of many such events!We're all missin' The Papa this week...good thing I've got lots of strong young men to take care of me in his absence. It's very comforting to have wonderful sons-in-law and grown sons around!
And speaking of grown--on Tuesday, Nathan, our eldest son, will turn 21. The chubby little guy with the round face, big smile, and drool all down his front has somehow turned into a handsome, charming, capable man with a great voice and an even bigger smile. And he can reach the high stuff in the pantry! Happy Birthday, Nate!
Snip, snip, that's all folks!
Labels: Family, Food, Grandkids, Homemaking, Kids, Language, Learning, Music, The Papa
We have just come to the end of our 24th year of homeschooling. I'm glad for a good, if CRAZY, year. Our kids have accomplished so much, and it's years like this that make me feel successful, even when the successes aren't mine. I've been resisting doing much planning for next year...I'm sort of in denial that it will be Shelley's last year and then I'll have only a small school of two high school boys left. Where have the years gone?
My absence lately is partly explained by a week of the flu. I've been asked several times if it was the swine flu, and I'm not sure but have decided we'll go with Piglet Flu. Is there a vaccine for that?
Six weeks until vacation. We continue the planning and looking forward to being all together in the mountains of New Mexico and celebrating the 30th anniversary and renewal of vows of John's older brother and his wife. How cool will it be to do that after riding the ski lift to the top of the mountain?!
I never tire of Chopin. Never.
Tomorrow we will get the fleeting pleasure of a quick visit with my nephew and his family. Chris is returning from another stint overseas and he and the family will be here for a few hours before parting again. Yep, we'll get to spend Memorial Day with a real, live service member, as well as honoring the service of The Papa and others. And I can taste the bratwurst now...
It's very hard to explain "indigo" to a 6 year old granddaughter sitting beside you in church trying to draw an anatomically correct rainbow :-)
Some things this spring give us heavy hearts. Neither of our mothers are doing well, and we see each growing more fragile. John's mother, always vigorous and strong until November of last year, has been experiencing excruciating back and leg pain and has spent most of the past months in bed. She had surgery last week and now it appears that it was unsuccessful. My mother, still frail from Parkinsons, had a knee replacement a couple of months ago, after which she fractured the bone above the replacement. That was repaired surgically and she finally came home last week and 24 hours later she fell and may have refractured her leg. She will have to wait until Tuesday for an xray but in the meantime is in a lot of pain and is unable to get in and out of a chair by herself. Both women know the Lord and rely on Him for what they need to get through the day, but it's a sad reminder to us of how short our time with them may be...
Okay, one more time, remind me WHY we would want Nancy Pelosi to resign?
I finished up a Teaching Company course on the history of mathematics last week and started a new one on linguistics, taught by John McWhorter. I reviewed one of his books a while back (The Power of Babel: A Natural History of Language) and am thoroughly enjoying watching him teach this course on DVD. I've just ordered another one of their courses on the Dutch masters of painting. So much to learn...
And after a short break from actual books, I've picked up New Mercies by Sandra Dallas.
The current dilemma at Granny's House: the girls want a second piano in the house. No, folks, a piano and an organ in one small living room isn't enough...we need another piano so they can play their duets and practice music for church without sitting beside each other on one bench. I've told them that means we'd have to get rid of the couch, and they looked at me like, "So?" Stay tuned.
Well, I'm off to have coffee with a friend and hoping the thunder I'm hearing in the distance doesn't mean I'll be spending the night at Starbucks. Have a wonderful week, friends and family!
(Happy Birthday, Julie C.!)
Labels: Books, Family, Food, Health, Holidays, Homeschooling, Learning, Music, Vacations
hat tip: Dr. Powers :-)
Labels: Homeschooling, Learning, Political Observation
Aubrey alerted me this weekend to a valuable and beautifully written article on literature for children. I am a lover of children's books old and new (yes, there are some good new ones) and I love reading reviews and opinions of the genre and of individual works. So I'm delighted to recommend this rather lengthy survey of the elements which make good children's literature.
Sometimes a book is in the canon of children’s literature just because the writing is so good. Kenneth Grahame’s Wind in the Willows, for instance, stands as the perfection of its kind: a prose of greeny gold, of summer recollected in autumn’s light. Rudyard Kipling, too, has the perfect sort of prose for what he does. From Kim to The Just So Stories to The Jungle Book, he paints the strange new world of India in strange new Indian words—none of them quite defined, but all of them given exactly enough context that the child reader can feel the satisfaction of puzzling them out.
Then, too, certain books are remembered simply because they have an ideal premise. When William Golding won the Nobel Prize in 1983, it was mostly for the power of his 1954 novel Lord of the Flies. And there’s a reason that he based the book on (and made a horror story out of) R.M. Ballantyne’s 1857 feel-good children’s classic, The Coral Island. Ballantyne couldn’t write his way out of a paper bag, but The Coral Island reaches up to the platonic forms of childhood’s daydreams for its setting of boys alone on a desert island.
For that matter, think of Frances Hodgson Burnett—an author with a sensibility so delicate (and a father-fixation so indelicate) that any rational child would smash a window after reading her, desperate for air. But Burnett’s 1905 A Little Princess nonetheless succeeds as a story, because it provides a room where its natural readers’ fantasies can dwell, as the heroine—a little girl, bookish and mistreated—turns out to be the long-lost heir of a large fortune and the ward of an older man who pampers and, ah, yes, understands her.
Meanwhile, sheer liveliness of invention can make a book a classic, one set-piece tripping so rapidly on the heels of another that you don’t bother noticing how good or bad the story actually is: Around the World in 80 Days, for instance, and The Peterkin Papers; Black Beauty and The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, too, different as they are. Good illustrations, as well, sometimes push a book into the canon. I’ve always thought Babar the Elephant was raised above its station by Jean de Brunhoff’s drawings, but the Little Bear books may be the prime example: Else Minarik’s discardable words are not much more than placeholders for the young Maurice Sendak’s art.
There's a taste. If you love this genre as we do, go read the whole thing. Aubrey and I both have some disagreements with the author (and not necessarily the same ones) but we loved the way it made us think about our own loves and dislikes.
Are there "classics" that you don't like at all? Or children's books that you think should be classics?
Children’s Books, Lost and Found
hat tip: Aubrey R.
It's always fun when something we're studying in history comes up in the news. (I realize there are problems with that statement but just ignore them.) We're currently in the era of the Roman Empire, so I was delighted to see this story hit the internet today:
AMSTERDAM, Netherlands (Nov. 13) - A hobbyist with a metal detector struck both gold and silver when he uncovered an important cache of ancient Celtic coins in a cornfield in the southern Dutch city of Maastricht."It's exciting, like a little boy's dream," Paul Curfs, 47, said Thursday after the spectacular find was made public.
Archaeologists say the trove of 39 gold and 70 silver coins was minted in the middle of the first century B.C. as the future Roman ruler Julius Caesar led a campaign against Celtic tribes in the area.
Labels: Homeschooling, Learning
I think my IQ must be about 65 points higher than it was ten years ago:
Surfing the internet sharpens up the mind, according to new research.
Scientists have shown that web browsing excites the brains of middle aged and elderly people more than reading a book.
The study suggests that using Google and other internet search engines could exercise the mind in a similar way to crossword puzzles, sudokus and "brain training" computer games.
The findings come from a study of 24 volunteers aged 55 to 76 at the University of California, Los Angeles who were asked to either search the web or read while their brains were scanned using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI).
And I love this:
Professor Gary Small, from the Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behaviour at UCLA, said: "Our most striking finding was that internet searching appears to engage a greater extent of neural circuitry that is not activated during reading - but only in those with prior internet experience." [empasis mine]
Surfing the web 'sharpens brain more than reading a book'
hat tip: Trish
Labels: Learning, Technology
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Mathematicians at UCLA have discovered a 13 million-digit prime number, a long-sought milestone that makes them eligible for a $100,000 prize.
The group found the 46th known Mersenne prime last month on a network of 75 computers running Windows XP. The number was verified by a different computer system running a different algorithm.
"We're delighted," said UCLA's Edson Smith, the leader of the effort. "Now we're looking for the next one, despite the odds."
It's the eighth Mersenne prime discovered at UCLA.
Primes are numbers like three, seven and 11 that are divisible by only two whole positive numbers: themselves and one.
Mersenne primes — named for their discoverer, 17th century French mathematician Marin Mersenne — are expressed as 2P-1, or two to the power of "P" minus one. P is itself a prime number. For the new prime, P is 43,112,609.
Thousands of people around the world have been participating in the Great Internet Mersenne Prime Search, or GIMPS, a cooperative system in which underused computing power is harnessed to perform the calculations needed to find and verify Mersenne primes.
I just thought I'd include this little story in case your math students hadn't heard and were still trying for the $100,000 prize. You can now go on to other things.
Labels: Homeschooling, Learning
It's a sad day for The Language when you find writing like this coming out of Time/CNN. I am so appalled that I hardly know how to comment. I'm going to reference some paragraphs from an article I was reading online this morning. I'm not commenting on content here; I intend only to show my disgust at the lack of care in the writing, editing, and proofing of a piece put out by a major American publication. (If you haven't had your morning complement of caffeine and can't figure out what's wrong with these, email me privately.)
But now, as voter registration winds down in the next two weeks and the impact of John McCain's running mate Sarah Palin becomes clearer, the Obama campaign has apparently scaled back its outsized electoral ambitions. It is already shifting staff abandoning some states, and putting others on notice. If they once technically played in all 50, they're now down to 48 you can cross Alaska and North Dakota off the list and two other states, Montana and Georgia, are on life support. The choice of Palin not only crushed Obama's hope of winning the Frontier State the campaign has withdrawn most of its staff and ceased advertising there — it also had repercussions in North Dakota, another hockey-crazed northern state where snow mobile racing and moose burgers apparently resonate. The Obama campaign announced this week that they are redeploying their staff estimated in some press reports to be more than 50 people.
REWRITE:
But now, as voter registration is expected to wind down in the next two weeks and the impact of John McCain's running mate, Sarah Palin, becomes clearer, the Obama campaign is apparently scaling back its outsized electoral ambitions. It has already shifted staff, abandoning some states and putting others on notice. If it once technically played in all 50, it's now down to 48 — you can cross Alaska and North Dakota off the list — and two other states, Montana and Georgia, are on life support. The choice of Palin not only crushed Obama's hope of winning the Frontier State — his campaign has withdrawn most of its staff and ceased advertising there — but it also caused repercussions in North Dakota, another hockey-crazed northern state where snow-mobile racing and moose burgers apparently resonate. The Obama campaign announced this week that it is redeploying its North Dakota staff — estimated in some press reports to be more than 50 people.
Further:
Georgia is another state the campaign once had very high hopes for and is now uncertain whether to continue to invest in. They stopped advertising there before the conventions and last week redeployed some of its 75 staff to neighboring North Carolina a southern state with a large African-American electorate that has seen one of the highest levels of voter registration this cycle, with more than 400,000 new voters on the rolls. If the campaign can register enough new voters in the Peach State and they have already registered more than 300,000 in Georgia than it believes that it could still be in play, since former Georgia Congressman Bob Barr's libertarian candidacy could steal some of the Republican vote.
REWRITE:
Georgia is another state in which the campaign once had very high hopes but is now unsure whether it should continue to invest in it. The campaign stopped advertising there before the conventions and last week redeployed some of its 75 staff to neighboring North Carolina — a southern state with a large African-American electorate that has seen one of the highest levels of voter registration this cycle, with more than 400,000 new voters on the rolls. If the campaign can register enough new voters in the Peach State — and it has already registered more than 300,000 in Georgia — then it believes that the state could still be in play, since former Georgia Congressman Bob Barr's libertarian candidacy could steal some of the Republican vote.
I am speechless.
Teach your children to write. There will always be a market for good writers and proofreaders. There is obviously a shrinking pool of qualified applicants. Increasing demand + decreasing supply = economic opportunity.
(The offending article: Obama Scales Back)
Labels: Homeschooling, Language, Learning, Theater of the Absurd
I cannot WAIT to download and watch this film. Here's the trailer:
Download and view the whole thing here.
Hat tip: Annie W.
Labels: Learning
Little time for blogging right now, but here's something I don't want you to miss, ESPECIALLY if you're about to study ancient history, and even if you're not. You might not understand it all (I certainly didn't) but it's worth a look to see just how advanced the ancients were in many areas.
Antikythera Mechanism
hat tip: trish
Labels: Homeschooling, Learning, Technology
The idea that people have an innate mathematical ability has been questioned by a study of an Amazonian tribe that has no sense of number.
The ability of tribal adults of the Pirahã to conceptualise numbers is no better than that of infants or even some animals and their language, with only 300 speakers, has no word even to express the concept of "one" or any other specific number.
The team, led by Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor of brain and cognitive sciences Edward Gibson, found that members of the Pirahã tribe in remote northwestern Brazil use language to express relative quantities such as "some" and "more," but not precise numbers.
It is often assumed that counting is an innate part of human cognition, said Prof Gibson, "but here is a group that does not count. They could learn, but it's not useful in their culture, so they've never picked it up."
Hmmm...I think I've had some kids who must have some connection to the Pirahã tribe. Maybe some grandkids as well.
(I see in the photo that even the use of homeschool manipulatives didn't help these poor folks.
Yeah, BTDT.)
Amazon tribe has no words for different numbers
hat tip: The Papa
Labels: Homeschooling, Language, Learning
The Most Defensive People in the World
Labels: Education, Learning, Social Observation
Here's a discussion we'll be having in our family over the coming days. This fall we will have four kids in college (one as dual credit for high school/college), one younger high schooler, and one middle school student. I think it's a good time for all of us to stop and take stock of how the wonderful advances in technology that give us so many unprecedented opportunities have also changed our brains, our attention spans, and our priorities. Despite the advantages, the many electronic extensions of the brain are threatening the life of the mind.
And though Dr. Mohler's post focuses on college students, few of us are immune to the downsides of the information and communication jungle we find ourselves in. Your grandmother may be immune, but trust me: your mother is not :-)
The Challenge of Attention in the Digital Age
hat tip: The Papa
Labels: Education, Learning, Technology
What changes would you recommend if I told you that African-American children were:
four to eight times as likely to be drugged with Ritalin and other stimulants, which pediatrician Leonard Sax, calls “academic steroids.”
reading much more poorly than are other students.
five times more likely to commit suicide.
two and a half times as likely to drop out of high school.
severely underrepresented in college and even more so among college graduates, thereby locking them out of today’s, let alone tomorrow’s, knowledge economy.
You’d likely invoke such words as “institutional racism” to justify major efforts to improve African-Americans’ numbers.
All of the above statements are true except for one thing: I’m not talking about African-American children. I’m talking about children of all races, indeed half of all children, half of our next generation: boys.
This article is a good contribution to our discussion of the differences between boys and girls and how we educate them. Read more about the disparity and what we can do about it here:
The Problem with Boys
(Look around Nemko's site while you're there...a lot of good stuff.)
Labels: Education, Homeschooling, Learning, Social Observation
You're a young, busy homeschooling mom and it seems you have more to do in a day than you have hours to do it.
You're a single working mom with no energy left at the end of the day.
You're a 40-, 50-, or 60-something who has watched the years slip by without your having found the time to read the classics or learn about topics that have always interested you.
Can you spare 5 minutes?
That's all it takes to read a daily installment of that book you've always wanted to read, or the latest installment of "Best Picture" Oscar winners or famous inventors or wonders of the world. You can even get a short course in wine or Greek mythology. Daily Lit is a website created so that people like you and me can get a huge selection of literature and other choice knowledge delivered in small doses.
One installment of your chosen book is emailed to you each day and is short enough to be read while you wait for the pasta water to boil. Okay, so it takes half a year to read A Tale of Two Cities or Pride and Prejudice this way. But if you're having a hard time finding time to read at all, you could at least finish out this year with one or two classics under your belt! And you can always double up and read twice as fast if you choose.
Best of all, many of the great books and all of the Wikipedia "tours" are absolutely free. Books in the public domain cost nothing; copyrighted books require payment only after you receive the first few installments and want to continue. So if you have five minutes a day that you can spare to get back into the habit of reading, go take a look at DailyLit.com and come back and tell me what you're reading!
(For those of you with an iPod and more than five minutes, I still HIGHLY recommend audible.com !)
DailyLit.com FAQs
I get a kick out of Ben Stein...he is such a hoot. But behind his dry humor and deadpan expression is a mind, a very good mind. His latest project, "Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed", is a movie about the dangers of confronting the Temple of Science with even the possibility of Intelligent Design. I won't elaborate more than that...please click on the link below and then click on the super-trailer and discover for yourself. Then find out where and when the movie will be in your area and sign up for updates. I'm hoping that families, churches, Christian schools, homeschool groups, even whole communities will invade the theaters en masse and support this courageous work...
While you're over there, look around the web site and put the Expelled blog on your Bloglines!
EXPELLED: No Intelligence Allowed
hat tip: Mimi P.