Do you know how Learning Happens ?
Do you know how Learning Happens, because many don’t fully appreciate the processes that go into learning, nor the events that actually constitute learning.
Learning is the process of acquiring new or modifying existing knowledge, behaviors, skills, values, or preferences.
The ability to learn is possessed by humans, animals, and some machines, and there is also evidence for some kind of learning in some plants.
Some learning is immediate, induced by a single event (e.g. being burned by something hot), but much skill and knowledge accumulates from repeated experiences. The changes induced by learning often last a lifetime, and it is hard to distinguish learned material that seems to be “lost” from that which cannot be retrieved.
Human learning begins before birth and continues until death as a consequence of ongoing interactions between person and environment.
Active learning occurs when a person takes control of his/her learning experience, since understanding information is the key aspect of learning, it is important for learners to recognise what they understand and what they do not.
By doing so, they can monitor their own mastery of subjects. Active learning encourages learners to have an internal dialogue in which they verbalize understandings.
This and other meta-cognitive strategies can be taught to a child over time. Studies within metacognition have proven the value in active learning, claiming that the learning is usually at a stronger level as a result.
In addition, learners have more incentive to learn when they have control over not only how they learn but also what they learn.
Active learning is a key characteristic of student-centered learning, conversely, passive learning and direct instruction are characteristics of teacher-centered learning (or traditional education).
Informal, or accidental learning has massive potential to give meaning, relevance and context to the ideas that more formal learning offers.
Many of us confuse learning with an accumulation of knowledge. This video explains in an unconventional way how learning ‘really’ happens.
The discovery of Trappist 1
Astronomers have just identified a nearby solar system hosting seven Earth-sized planets.
Most intriguing: Three planets that orbit its central star — known as TRAPPIST-1 — may even be within a habitable zone.
That means they fall within a region that could support life as we know it.
As such, these newfound worlds are good sites to focus a search for alien life.
TRAPPIST-1’s big planetary family also hints that many more cousins of Earth may exist than astronomers had thought.
“It’s rather stunning that the system has so many Earth-sized planets,” says Drake Deming, astronomer at the University of Maryland in College Park.
It seems like every stable spot where a planet could be, there is an Earth-sized one. And that, he adds, “bodes well for finding habitable planets.”
Astrophysicist Michaël Gillon works at the University of Liège in Belgium. He was part of a team that last year announced they had found three Earth-sized planets around TRAPPIST-1. This dwarf star is only about the size of Jupiter. It’s also much cooler than the sun. And it’s a relative neighbor to Earth, a mere 39 light-years away in the constellation Aquarius.
Follow-up observations with the Spitzer Space Telescope and additional telescopes on the ground now show that what first had appeared to be a third planet is actually a quartet of Earth-sized ones. Three of these may be habitable.
from Science for Students
Microadventures Adventures Close to Home – Join us for six minutes of adventure!
You won’t be going far but you’ll discover how adventurer, Alastair Humphreys thinks there’s fun to be had on your doorstep.
Along the way we’ll be exploring the expeditions you could go on and new items of vocabulary to take with you!
Vocabulary:
Wanderlust – a strong desire to travel
A sense of adventure – the feeling of doing a new, exciting and sometimes dangerous activity
To coin – used a word or phrase that no one has used before
Hunch – an idea you have based on feelings but with no proof
Charm – part of the pleasure or enjoyment of something
On your doorstep – close to where you live
Find out more here http://www.bbc.co.uk/learningenglish/…
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For more on Microadventures
The term microadventure was made common by British adventurer and author Alastair Humphreys and is defined as an overnight outdoor adventure that is “small and achievable, for normal people with real lives”.
The New York Times described a microadventure as “short, perspective-shifting bursts of travel closer to home, inspiring followers to pitch a tent in nearby woods, explore their city by moonlight, or hold a family slumber party in the backyard.”
The concept is flexible enough in its definition to allow the individual to choose the location, duration, and overall scope of the adventure.
Microadventures are generally considered affordable in that little to no specialized gear is required, travel costs are trivial or nonexistent, and only a minimal amount of provisions are needed for the outing.
Often participants will sleep out under the stars using a bivvy bag, rather than a tent, and wild swims are actively encouraged. Microadventures have proved popular with people whose lives are busy with work and/or family commitments.
The Collins Dictionary blog recognised ‘microadventure’ as a neologism in April 2014.
Microadventure is popular as an online hashtag, used on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram to share microadventure experiences.
How to help every child to fulfil their potential
How to help every child to fulfil their potential – ever wondered why kids say they’re bored at school, or why they stop trying when the work gets harder?
Educationalist Carol Dweck explains how the wrong kind of praise actually *harms* young people.
This short video is essential viewing for EVERYONE – from teachers and education workers to relatives and friends – and will totally revolutionise the way you interact with children.
Some parents jump to the conclusion that their child is gifted, that the work is too easy for them and that is why they are bored.
Other parents jump to the conclusion that it is the teaching methods or the teacher not presenting the material in a way that engages the learners. While both of these are valid assumptions, they’re not the only reasons children get bored in school.
Generally, some of the reasons that children get bored in school is because they are:
Under-Challenged
Bright learners who don’t need a lot of instruction to master a skill or start out ahead of the rest of the class often complain of being bored at school. What they’re really telling you is they are not being challenged by the work in the classroom.
Learners who are under-challenged are not always gifted – there are specific qualifications for giftedness – but they are typically very capable and very smart. Surprisingly, these children don’t always appear that way. In fact, many under-challenged learners are sloppy in their work, don’t study much (though still get good grades) and tend to dash through their work without much in the way of editing or rechecking.
Under-Motivated
Under-motivated learners often complain of being bored in school, but not because they already know what’s being taught. This complaint is different. Often “school is boring” is paired with “that’s why I don’t do the work” or “that’s why I don’t pay attention.” An under-motivatedlearner is not the same as a lazy learner.
In some cases, the lack of motivation is tied into a feeling that what they are learning isn’t personally important, that the learning process has no meaning for them and their lives.
Why is learning so hard?
What is going on in these sequences
What is going on in these sequences – can you tell just by listening to the sounds?
The best language learners are a combination of people who are curious, who keep asking themselves questions and are actively involved in their own learning proces, and those that can hear well, and I’m not talking about hearing well versus hearing impairment – that is an altogether different subject.
What I am talking about is those learners that can hear the sounds that are specifically English sounds (as in the language and not the nationality).
This includes things such as; elision, glottals, liaisons between words, low and high tones, pitch, volume, rate and intonations etc.
The story goes that if you can’t hear the sounds in a language, you will never be able to understand nor be able to produce accurate language through speech.
This takes a lot of time and perseverance and does not, in any way mean that a learner has to understand every single word in a sentence or a section of speech, because sometimes we don’t even do this in their own native language – sometimes we listen to parts of what are said to us, sometimes we lose concentration or we drift off.
This activity is designed to train your ears to sounds and not words.
Sounds will often give a lot of clues about the context of a conversation – where the people are for example.
See if you can work out what is happening and send your answers through the comments at the bottom of the page or you can comment on Facebook.
Developing listening skills is a language is at times difficult, often frustrating, rarely made up of shortcuts and always rewarding – at the end.
Try listening to a video or DvD in English without looking at the picture, now pause the video and without looking at the screen, try to imagine :
- Where the scene takes place?
- How many people are in the scene?
- How they are dressed?
- How old they are?
- Are they men women, or children?
- What relationship are they to each other? etc. etc.
Now turn around and look at the paused image – How close did you get?
The more of this type of activity you do, the more you will sharpen your hearing skills and thus your listening skills – give it a try, you have nothing to lose!
Three items on my Bucket List – Merry
Three items on my Bucket List – Merry came in today to tell us a little about what three things are at the very top of her bucket list.
She is just starting out with learning English and we are both very pleased and grateful to welcome her along to record a podcast at EFL PodBlog.
“Some people die at 25 years old and aren’t buried until they are 75 years old.” Benjamin Franklin
“Every man dies — Not every man really lives.” ~ William Ross
What is a Bucket List?
If you haven’t heard about the term “bucket list”, it is a list of all the goals you want to achieve, dreams you want to fulfill and life experiences you desire to experience before you die, or kick the bucket – hence the name “Bucket List.”
Here is a podcast asking just that question, “What is a bucket list?”
Why Create a Bucket List?
If you don’t live your days by personal goals and plans, the chances are that you will spend most of your time caught up in a the humdrum routine or the rat-race of everyday life.
Have you ever had the feeling that your days and your life is just passing you by in such a rate of knots, without any tangible results to speak about?
What did you accomplish in the past 3 months / 6 months, 12 months, 3 years?
What are your upcoming goals for the next 3 months / 6 months, 12 months, 3 years?
Look at the things you did and the things you’re planning to do next — Do they mean anything to you if you were to die today?
Having a bucket list reminds you of what’s really important in life so you can act on them.
A bucket list helps hone your goals and ambitions into a set of achievable, ‘I-really-want-to-do-this’ steps – now how exciting is that!
It’s just like planning ahead all the highlights that you want to be featured in the rest of your life.
The objective of creating this list isn’t to instill some kind of a race against time or to create aversion toward death. I don’t see our existence to be limited to just our physical years on earth — I don’t see our existence to be limited to just our physical years on earth — our physical lifespan is but a short speck of our existence in the universe.
The whole point of creating your list is to maximize every moment of our existence and live your life to the fullest.
It is a reminder of all the things we want to achieve in our time here on this planet, so that instead of wasting away our time on pointless activities, we are directing our lives fully towards what really matters to us.
Have a look for some ideas on Bucket Lists Here
