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Cooperative and Collaborative Learning Cooperative or collaborative learning is a team process where members support and rely on each other to achieve an agreed-upon goal. The classroom is an excellent place to develop team-building skills you will need later in life. Cooperative/collaborative learning is interactive; as a team member, you: develop and share a common goal contribute your understanding of the problem: questions, insights and solutions respond to, and work to understand, others' questions, insights and solutions. Each member empowers the other to speak and contribute, and to consider their contributions are accountable to others, and they are accountable to you are dependent on others, and they depend on you What makes for a good learning team? Team activities begin with training in, and understanding group processes. An instructor begins by facilitating discussion and suggesting alternatives but does not impose solutions on the team, especially those having difficulty working together Three to five people Larger teams have difficulty in keeping everyone involved Teacher-assigned groups They function better than self-assigned groups Diverse skill levels, backgrounds, experience 1. Each individual brings strengths to a group 2. Each member of the group is responsible to not only contribute his/her strengths, but also to help others understand the source of their strengths 3. Any member who is at a disadvantage or not comfortable with the majority should be encouraged and proactively empowered to contribute 4. Learning is positively influenced with a diversity of perspective and experience increasing options for problem solving, and expanding the range of details to consider Commitment of each member to a goal that is defined and understood by the group 1. Confidential peer ratings are a good way to assess who is and who is not contributing 2. Groups have the right to fire a non-cooperative or non-participating member if all remedies have failed. (The person fired then has to find another group to accept him/her) 3. Individuals can quit if they believe they are doing most of the work with little assistance from the others. (This person can often easily find another group to welcome his/her contributions)

STRATEGIES TO TEACH AND LEARN

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C o o p e ra t ive a n d

C o lla b o ra t ive Le a rn in g Cooperative or collaborative learning is a team process

where members support and rely on each other to achieve an agreed-upon goal. The

classroom is an excellent place to develop team-building skills you will need later in life. Cooperative/collaborative learning is interactive;

as a team member, you:

develop and share a common goal contribute your understanding of the problem:

questions, insights and solutions respond to, and work to understand, others' questions, insights and solutions.

Each member empowers the other to speak and contribute,

and to consider their contributions are accountable to others, and they are accountable to you

are dependent on others, and they depend on you What makes for a good learning team? Team activities begin with training in, and understanding group processes.

An instructor begins by facilitating discussion and suggesting alternatives but does not impose solutions on the team, especially those having difficulty working

together Three to five people

Larger teams have difficulty in keeping everyone involved

Teacher-assigned groups They function better than self-assigned groups

Diverse skill levels, backgrounds, experience

1. Each individual brings strengths to a group

2. Each member of the group is responsible to not only contribute his/her strengths, but also to help others understand the source of their strengths

3. Any member who is at a disadvantage or not comfortable with the majority should be encouraged and proactively empowered to contribute

4. Learning is positively influenced with a diversity of perspective and experience

increasing options for problem solving, and expanding the range of details to consider

Commitment of each member to a goal that is defined and understood by the group

1. Confidential peer ratings are a good way to assess who is and who is not

contributing 2. Groups have the right to fire a non-cooperative or non-participating member if

all remedies have failed. (The person fired then has to find another group to accept him/her)

3. Individuals can quit if they believe they are doing most of the work with little

assistance from the others. (This person can often easily find another group to welcome his/her

contributions)

Page 2: STRATEGIES TO TEACH AND LEARN

Shared operating principles and responsibilities,

defined and agreed to by each member. These include:

1. Commitment to attend, prepare and be on time for meetings 2. Have discussions and disagreements focus on issues, avoiding personal

criticism

3. Take responsibility for a share of the tasks and carry them out on time You may need to perform tasks that you have little experience, feel ill-prepared

for, or even think others would do better. Accept the challenge, but be comfortable in stating that you may need help, training, a mentor, or have to resign and take on different task.

Process: Refer to the Group Project Guide

Set up goals, define how often and with what means you will communicate, evaluate progress, make decisions, and resolve conflict

Define resources, especially someone who can provide direction, supervision,

counsel, and even arbitrate Schedule review of your progress and communication

to discuss what is working and what is not working Teams with problems should be invited or required to meet with the instructor to discuss possible solutions.

Cooperative learning series

Collaborative learning | Group projects | Active Listening |

Conflict resolution | Case study: conflict resolution | Peer mediation |

Tutoring guidelines | Using feedback with tutors

* "Cooperative learning" is often used in K-12 education, and "collaborative learning" in

higher educationSee also:

Online Collaborative Learning in Higher Education, primary sites a web site devoted to

world's best practice in online collaborative learning in higher education, and related topics.

Tim Roberts, Faculty of Informatics and Communication, Central Queensland University,

Bundaberg, Queensland 4670 Australia

"Cooperative learning in technical courses: procedures, pitfalls, and payoffs", Richard M. Felder,

North Carolina State University & Rebecca Brent, East Carolina University

Thinking and recall series

C rit ic a l t h in kin g I

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Strategies for critical thinking in learning and project management

Critical thinking studies a topic or problem with open-mindedness. This exercise outlines the first stage of applying a critical thinking approach to developing

and understanding a topic. You will:

Develop a statement of the topic List what you understand, what you've been told

and what opinions you hold about it Identify resources available for research Define timelines and due dates

and how they affect the development of your study Print the list as your reference

Here is more on the first stage: Define your destination, what you want to learn Clarify or verify with your teacher or an "expert" on your subject

Topics can be simple phrases: "The role of gender in video game playing"

"Causes of the war before 1939" "Mahogany trees in Central America" "Plumbing regulations in the suburbs"

"Regions of the human brain" Develop your frame of reference, your starting point,

by listing what you already know about the subject What opinions and prejudices do you already have about this?

What have you been told, or read about, this topic? What resources

are available to you for research When gathering information, keep an open mind Look for chance resources that pop up! Play the "reporter" and follow leads If you don't seem to find what you need, ask librarians or your teacher.

How does your timeline and due dates affect your research? Keep in mind that you need to follow a schedule. Work back from the due date and define stages of development, not just with this first phase, but in completing the whole project.

Summary of critical thinking: Determine the facts of a new situation or subject without prejudice Place these facts and information in a pattern so that you can understand them Accept or reject the source values and conclusions based upon your experience, judgme nt,

and beliefs

Th in kin g like a g e n iu s Problem solving: creative solutions

"Even if you're not a genius, you can use the same strategies as Aristotle and Einstein to harness the power of your creative mind and better manage your future."

The following strategies encourage you to think productively,

rather than reproductively, in order to arrive at solutions to problems. "These strategies are

Page 4: STRATEGIES TO TEACH AND LEARN

common to the thinking styles of creative geniuses in science, art, and industry throughout

history."

Nine approaches to creative problem solving: 1. Rethink! Look at problems in many different ways. 2. Visualize! Utilize diagrams and imagery to analyze your dilemma. 3. Produce! Genius is productive. 4. Combine! Make novel combinations... 5. Form! Form relationships. 6. Opposite! Think in opposites. 7. Metaphor/simile! Think metaphorically. 8. Failure! Learning from your mistakes is one example of using failure. 9. Patience! Don't confuse inspiration with ideas.

Exercise #2 illustrates how famous thinkers used these approaches.

Exercise/blog #3 contains selected thoughts on thinking like a genius.

Exercise #1: illustrates applications of the nine approaches.

Text of exercise: Nine approaches to creative problem solving:

1. Rethink! Look at problems in many different ways. Find new perspectives that no one else has taken. Solutions example: Finding a job or internship:

a. Ask friends or colleagues for potential leads b. Over-sell yourself

Send samples of your work or portfolio to anyone that might respond. c. Check local resources like Craigslist or your school's job search d. Broaden your target audience.

What other fields could you specialize in? 2. Visualize!

Utilize diagrams and imagery to analyze your dilemma. a. How can you use pictures, images, graphs, etc. in your studies? b. Visit guides on concept or mind maps, picturing vocabulary, flashcards, etc. c. Write out one example of how you can use imagery, then print and post it in your study

area. 3. Produce!

Genius is productive. a. Perhaps originality is not the key, but rather constant application of thought and tools to

arrive a solutions. b. Geniuses are the luckiest of mortals because what they must do is the same as what they

most want to do. W. H. Auden (1907–1973) Anglo-American poet

c. Genius is nothing but a great aptitude for patience. George-Louis Leclerc de Buffon (1707–1788) French naturalist

4. Combine! Make novel combinations...

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Combine and recombine ideas, images, and thoughts into different combinations no matter how incongruent or unusual.

5. Form! Form relationships. Make connections between dissimilar subjects.

a. This doesn't always apply to objects: form relationships with people and ask them questions!

b. Get to know people in your field that can help you excel to the best of your ability. c. Write down one person that you could get in contact with, why you think this person can

help, and print/post it for reference! 6. Opposite!

Think in opposites. Don't always stick with the obvious solutions. Get outside of your comfort zone.

a. “Opposites” bring two approaches to a situation but they do share a basic similarity. Example: “right” and “left” are both directions, but which is the right choice?

b. The Sesame Street Muppet Elmo teaches small children the concept of opposites! 7. Metaphor/simile!

Think metaphorically. a. Metaphors are connections that are unusual or not an ordinary way of thinking:

A sea of troubles; the heart of a lion; raining cats and dogs. b. Similes use "like" or "as" to illustrate

The boy was as agile as a monkey. The miner's face was like coal. The task was as easy as ABC. Dry like a raisin in the sun.

8. Failure! Learning from your mistakes is one example of using failure.

a. As strange as it seems the human brain is failure machine: it generates models of reality, acts on them, and adjusts or creates new, successful models based on failures.

b. From Daniel Coyle’s the Talent Code on Adam Bryant’s weekly interview: “every single CEO shares the same nugget of wisdom: the crucial importance of mistakes, failures, and setbacks… mistakes create unique conditions of high-velocity learning that cannot be matched by more stable, “successful” situations.”

9. Patience! Don't confuse inspiration with ideas. Apply your ideas with patience for the reward they may deserve.

Thinking and recall series

Concentrating | Radical thinking | Thinking aloud/private speech |

Thinking critically | Thinking critically | Thinking creatively |

Mapping explanation | Make your own map I | Make your own map II |

Thinking like a genius: Creative solutions | Famous thinkers | Selected thoughts

Adapted with permission from:

Michalko, Michael, Thinking Like a Genius: Eight strategies used by the super creative, from Aristotle

and Leonardo to Einstein and Edison (New Horizons for Learning) as seen at

http://www.newhorizons.org/wwart_michalko1.html, (June 15, 1999) This article first appeared

in THE FUTURIST, May 1998. Michael Michalko is the author of Thinkertoys (A Handbook of

Business Creativity), ThinkPak (A Brainstorming Card Set), and Cracking Creativity: The Secrets of

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Creative Geniuses (Ten Speed Press, 1998).Flash exercise by

Karl Noelle, student, College of Design; Brad Hokanson, faculty, College of Design, University of

Minnesota, St. Paul, MN; with edits/revisions by Joe Landsberger.

Thinking and recall series

Th in kin g like a g e n iu s Selected thoughts

As we grow older and wiser,

we learn to recognize our strengths and weaknesses, and accept them. We work to align our lives with the gifts we were born with, and cultivate them. This is a process of finding

our place within the world. As we recognize and organize our strengths, we discover and expose ourselves as to who we truly are. Our discovered place in the world

becomes the opportunity for the expression of our genius: our special set of gift(s) that we can contribute. It lies within all of us.

Some may say that they have little to contribute. However, if we contribute small things greatly, true to our purpose, we will exceed those people who do great things poorly. For the small thing done greatly can be picked up, and

magnified by another, and so by another. True prophets and leaders want us to work towards

an honest recognition and admission of who we are, to see the beauty and strength in each of us, as well as for each of us to see and admit the beauty of others. With this honest perception of the self, the exercise of genius takes one to a higher spiritual plane.

By its nature, genius pushes against the boundaries of culture, religion, society, environment. Boundaries serve a purpose and should be

honored for what they are: a context that tests. A nation or people or society is only as strong as its individuals are empowered to rise to the level of their individual genius. When

prophets and leaders encourage us to follow them, they are asking us to hear their message and empower our lives.

As social animals, our tendency is to institutionalize the message and to build belief systems and rituals. However, we need to be alert to when our spirituality, and genius, is limited by these constraints and that context. It may be that

what is built up after the prophet and leader is contrary to his or her message. Genius recognizes that we must honestly recognize

and meet with humility, even confront, those conditions in which we are placed. We set aside distracting influences and things of our youth since they are not true to who we are. Should we succumb to weakness, that which we are not, we need to recognize the test

for what it is: either a miscalculation of our power, or an inappropriate response to our environment. If we go astray, act contrary to our purpose (we are not perfect) we must

learn the lesson provided. We hold steady, we join hands with those walking with us on our spiritual paths, learning that the genius of others will also guide us. Others will be

there to lift us up. With them, our full genius takes us to the place where we can overcome digressions and transgressions. There is a super genius at work, that of we as people.

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Don't restrict yourself to the standards!

Consider them standards and build on them. Practice the basics, then don't be afraid to move away from the normal and think outside of the box, or the textbook!"

(Colin.C.Saxton) Read widely and deeply. In addition to being a statesman, diplomat, author of the Declaration of Independence and

President of the United States, Thomas Jefferson was a notable agriculturalist, horticulturist, architect, etymologist, mathematician, cryptographer, surveyor, author,

lawyer, inventor, paleontologist, and founder of the University of Virginia. As a 16-year-old college student, he studied 15 hours a day. His insatiable curiosity and disciplined study of a broad range of academic and practical disciplines were the basis for his exceptional

accomplishments. President John F. Kennedy welcomed 49 Nobel Prize winners to the White House in 1962, saying, "I think this is the most extraordinary collection of talent, of

human knowledge, that has ever been gathered at the White House, with the possible exception of when Thomas Jefferson dined alone." (Gavin Ehringer)

Thinking and recall series

Concentrating | Radical thinking | Thinking aloud/private speech |

Thinking critically | Thinking critically | Thinking creatively |

Mapping explanation | Make your own map I | Make your own map II |

Thinking like a genius: Creative solutions | Famous thinkers | Blog

Thinking and recall series

Th in kin g like a g e n iu s Famous thinkers

"Even if you're not a genius, you can use the same strategies as Aristotle and Einstein to

harness the power of your creative mind and better manage your future."

Nine approaches to creative problem solving: 1. Rethink! Look at problems in many different ways. 2. Visualize! Utilize diagrams and imagery to analyze your dilemma. 3. Produce! Genius is productive. 4. Combine! Make novel combinations... 5. Form! Form relationships. 6. Opposite! Think in opposites. 7. Metaphor/simile! Think metaphorically. 8. Failure! Learning from your mistakes is one example of using failure. 9. Patience! Don't confuse inspiration with ideas.

Exercise #1: illustrates applications of the nine approaches.

Exercise/blog #3 contains random thoughts on thinking like a genius. Exercise #2 illustrates how famous thinkers used these approches.

Exercise text: 1. Look at problems in many different ways.

Find new perspectives that no one else has taken (or no one else has publicized!)

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Leonardo da Vinci believed that, to gain knowledge about the form of a problem, you

begin by learning how to restructure it in many different ways. He felt that the first way he looked at a problem was too biased. Often, the problem itself is reconstructed

and becomes a new one.

2. Visualize! When Einstein thought through a problem, he always found it necessary to formulate

his subject in as many different ways as possible, including using diagrams. He visualized solutions, and believed that words and numbers as such did not play a

significant role in his thinking process.

3. Produce!

A distinguishing characteristic of genius is productivity.

Thomas Edison held 1,093 patents. He guaranteed productivity by giving himself and his assistants idea quotas. In a study of 2,036 scientists throughout history, Dean

Keith Simonton of the University of California at Davis found that the most respected scientists produced not only great works, but also many "bad" ones. They weren't afraid to fail, or to produce mediocre in order to arrive at excellence.

4. Make novel combinations.

Combine, and recombine, ideas, images, and thoughts into different

combinations no matter how incongruent or unusual. The Austrian monk Grego Mendel combined mathematics and biology to create a new science of heredity. The modern science of genetics is based upon his

model.

5. Form relationships.

Make connections between dissimilar subjects. Da Vinci forced a relationship between the sound of a bell and a stone hitting water. This enabled him to make the connection that sound travels in waves. Samuel Morse

invented relay stations for telegraphic signals when observing relay stations for horses.

6. Think in opposites. Physicist Niels Bohr believed that if you held opposites together, then you suspend your thought, and your mind moves to a new level. His ability to imagine light as

both a particle and a wave led to his conception of the principle of complementarity. Suspending thought (logic) may allow your mind to create a new form.

7. Think metaphorically. Aristotle considered metaphor a sign of genius, and believed that the individual who had the capacity to perceive resemblances between two separate areas of existence

and link them together was a person of special gifts.

8. Prepare yourself for chance.

Whenever we attempt to do something and fail, we end up doing something else. That is the first principle of creative accident. Failure can be productive only if we do not focus on it as an unproductive result. Instead: analyze the process, its

components, and how you can change them, to arrive at other results. Do not ask the question "Why have I failed?", but rather "What have I done?"

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M u lt ip le c h o ic e t e s t s Multiple choice questions usually include a phrase or stem followed by three to five options:

Test strategies: Read the directions carefully

Know if each question has one or more correct option

Know if you are penalized for guessing Know how much time is allowed (this governs your strategy)

Preview the test Read through the test quickly and answer the easiest questions first Mark those you think you know in some way that is appropriate

Read through the test a second time and answer more difficult questions You may pick up cues for answers from the first reading, or become more

comfortable in the testing situation If time allows, review both questions and answers

It is possible you mis-read questions the first time

Answering options

Improve your odds, think critically:

Cover the options, read the stem, and try to answer

Select the option that most closely matches your answer Read the stem with each option

Treat each option as a true-false question, and choose the "most true" Strategies for answering difficult questions:

1. Eliminate options you know to be incorrect

If allowed, mark words or alternatives in questions that eliminate the option 2. Give each option of a question the "true-false test:"

This may reduce your selection to the best answer 3. Question options that grammatically don't fit with the stem 4. Question options that are totally unfamiliar to you

5. Question options that contain negative or absolute words. Try substituting a qualified term for the absolute one.

For example, frequently for always; or typical for every to see if you can eliminate an option

6. "All of the above:"

If you know two of three options seem correct, "all of the above" is a strong possibility

7. Number answers: toss out the high and low and consider the middle range numbers

8. "Look alike options"

probably one is correct; choose the best but eliminate choices that mean basically the same thing, and thus cancel each other out

9. Double negatives: Create the equivalent positive statement

10. Echo options:

If two options are opposite each other, chances are one of them is correct

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11. Favor options that contain qualifiers

The result is longer, more inclusive items that better fill the role of the answer 12. If two alternatives seem correct,

compare them for differences, then refer to the stem to find your best answer

Guessing:

Always guess when there is no penalty for guessing or you can eliminate options

Don't guess if you are penalized for guessing and if you have no basis for your choice

Use hints from questions you know

to answer questions you do not. Change your first answers

when you are sure of the correction, or other cues in the test cue you to change. Remember that you are looking for the best answer, not only a correct one, and not one which must be true all of the time, in all cases, and

without exception.

Testing with success series

Test preparation series |

Ten tips for terrific test taking | Taking online tests | True/false tests |

Multiple choice tests | Short answer tests | Open book exams | Oral exams |

Essay Exams | Essay terms and directives | Math Exams

9. Have patience Paul Cézanne (1839 – 1906) is recognized as one of the 19th century's greatest painters, and is often called the father of modern art, an avant garde bridge between

the impressionists and the cubists. During his life he only had a few exhibitions though his influence on subsequent artists was great as an innovator with shape and

form. His genius, however, was not evident until late in life. He was refused admission to the Ecole des Beaux-Arts at age 22 and his first solo exhibition was at age 56. His genius was the product of many years' practice and experimental

innovation.

Thinking and recall series

Concentrating | Radical thinking | Thinking aloud/private speech |

Thinking critically | Thinking critically | Thinking creatively |

Mapping explanation | Make your own map I | Make your own map II |

Thinking like a genius: Creative solutions | Famous thinkers | Blog

Rules of Good and Bad Studying

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These rules form a synthesis of some of the main ideas of the course.

10 Rules of Good Studying

Excerpted from A Mind for Numbers: How to Excel in Math and Science (Even if You Flunked Algebra), by Barbara Oakley, Penguin, July, 2014

1. Use recall. After you read a page, look away and recall the main ideas. Highlight very little, and never highlight anything you haven’t put in your mind first by recalling. Try recalling main ideas when you are walking to class or in a different room from where you originally learned it. An ability to recall—to generate the ideas from inside yourself—is one of the key indicators of good learning.

2. Test yourself. On everything. All the time. Flash cards are your friend. 3. Chunk your problems. Chunking is understanding and practicing with a problem solution

so that it can all come to mind in a flash. After you solve a problem, rehearse it. Make sure you can solve it cold—every step. Pretend it’s a song and learn to play it over and over again in your mind, so the information combines into one smooth chunk you can pull up whenever you want.

4. Space your repetition. Spread out your learning in any subject a little every day, just like an athlete. Your brain is like a muscle—it can handle only a limited amount of exercise on one subject at a time.

5. Alternate different problem-solving techniques during your practice. Never practice too long at any one session using only one problem-solving technique—after a while, you are just mimicking what you did on the previous problem. Mix it up and work on different types of problems. This teaches you both how and when to use a technique. (Books generally are not set up this way, so you’ll need to do this on your own.) After every assignment and test, go over your errors, make sure you understand why you made them, and then rework your solutions. To study most effectively, handwrite (don’t type) a problem on one side of a flash card and the solution on the other. (Handwriting builds stronger neural structures in memory than typing.) You might also photograph the card if you want to load it into a study app on your smartphone. Quiz yourself randomly on different types of problems. Another way to do this is to randomly flip through your book, pick out a problem, and see whether you can solve it cold.

6. Take breaks. It is common to be unable to solve problems or figure out concepts in math or science the first time you encounter them. This is why a little study every day is much better than a lot of studying all at once. When you get frustrated with a math or science problem, take a break so that another part of your mind can take over and work in the background.

7. Use explanatory questioning and simple analogies. Whenever you are struggling with a concept, think to yourself, How can I explain this so that a ten-year-old could understand it? Using an analogy really helps, like saying that the flow of electricity is like the flow of water. Don’t just think your explanation—say it out loud or put it in writing. The additional effort of speaking and writing allows you to more deeply encode (that is, convert into neural memory structures) what you are learning.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

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Focus. Turn off all interrupting beeps and

alarms on your phone and computer, and

then turn on a timer for twenty-five

minutes. Focus intently for those twenty-

five minutes and trReading: Renaissance

Learning and Unlocking Your Potential

NOTE: All these readings are optional

Chapters 11 - 18 of A Mind for Numbers are especially helpful in providing helpful information and additional exercises related to the materials of Module 4.

Worthwhile Additional Popular Works

Timothy Verstynen and Bradley Voytek, Do Zombies Dream of Undead Sheep? A Neuroscientific View of the Zombie Brain, Princeton University Press, 2014. (Dr. Sejnowski recommends this book!)

Selena Rezvani, "How to Have a Thicker Skin for Negative Feedback," Forbes, October 22, 2014.

Travis Bradberry, (February 6, 2014) "How Successful People Stay Calm," Forbes. Carlin Flora, Friendfluence: The Surprising Ways Friends Make Us Who We Are, Anchor,

2013. Cell Press, "How curiosity changes the brain to enhance learning," Science Daily (2014). Robert Twigger, "Master of many trades: Our age reveres the specialist but humans are

natural polymaths, at our best when we turn our minds to many things," Aeon, November 4, 2013.

Pam Belluck, (January 20, 2011). "To Really Learn, Quit Studying and Take a Test." The New York Times.

Harvard Health Publications, (May 2009). "Take a Deep Breath," Harvard Medical School. Justin Reich, (March 30, 2014). "Big Data MOOC Research Breakthrough: Learning

Activities Lead to Achievement," Ed Tech Researcher. University of Utah Health Care Office of Public Affairs. "Researchers Debunk Myth of

'Right-Brain' and 'Left-Brain' Personality Traits." Science Daily (2013). Felder, Richard M. "Memo to Students Who Have Been Disappointed with Their Test

Grades." Chemical Engineering Education 33, no. 2 (1999): 136-37. Sue Barry, Fixing My Gaze, Basic Books, 2009. Magic Eye, Inc., Magic Eye: A New Bag of Tricks, Andrews McMeel Publishing, 1995. See

also the website at http://www.magiceye.com/. www.brainfacts.org

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Worthwhile Popular App

Breathe2Relax, by the National Center for Telehealth & Technology

Heavier Duty References

Video: Introuction to Module 4

Fischer, K. W., & Bidell, T. R. (2006). Dynamic development of action, thought, and emotion. In W. Damon & R. M. Lerner (Eds.), Theoretical Models of Human Development. Handbook of Child Psychology. NY: Wiley.

Siegler, R. S. (1998). Emerging Minds: The Process of Change in Children's Thinking. New York, NY: Oxford University Press. (See in particular Siegler’s “overlapping waves” theory.)

Video: Create a Lively Visual Metaphor or Analogy

Baddeley, Alan, Michael W. Eysenck, and Michael C. Anderson. Memory NY: Psychology Press, 2009.

Cat, Jordi. "On Understanding: Maxwell on the Methods of Illustration and Scientific Metaphor." Studies In History and Philosophy of Science Part B <32, no. 3 (2001): 395-441.

Derman, Emanuel. Models. Behaving. Badly.New York, NY: Free Press, 2011. Foer, J. Moonwalking with Einstein NY: Penguin, 2011. Lützen, Jesper. Mechanistic Images in Geometric Form NY: Oxford University Press, 2005. Maguire, E.A., D.G. Gadian, I.S. Johnsrude, C.D. Good, J. Ashburner, R.S.J. Frackowiak, and

C.D. Frith. "Navigation-Related Structural Change in the Hippocampi of Taxi Drivers." Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 97, no. 8 (2000): 4398-403.

Maguire, E.A., E.R. Valentine, J.M. Wilding, and N. Kapur. "Routes to Remembering: The Brains Behind Superior Memory." Nature Neuroscience 6, no. 1 (2003): 90-95.

Rocke, A.J. Image and Reality Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 2010. Solomon, Ines. "Analogical Transfer and 'Functional Fixedness' in the Science Classroom."

Journal of Educational Research 87, no. 6 (1994): 371-77.

Video: No Need for Genius Envy - The Imposter Syndrome

Amidzic, Ognjen, Hartmut J. Riehle, and Thomas Elbert. "Toward a Psychophysiology of Expertise." Journal of Psychophysiology 20, no. 4 (2006): 253-58.

Beilock, Sian. Choke. NY: Free Press, 2010. Bilalic, M., P. McLeod, and F. Gobet. "Inflexibility of Experts--Reality or Myth? Quantifying

the Einstellung Effect in Chess Masters." Cognitive Psychology 56, no. 2 (Mar 2008): 73-102.

Bilalić, Merim , Robert Langner, Michael Erb, and Wolfgang Grodd. "Mechanisms and Neural Basis of Object and Pattern Recognition: A Study with Chess Experts." Journal of Experimental Psychology: General 139, no. 4 (2010): 728-42.

Bilalić, Merim , P. McLeod, and F. Gobet. "Why Good Thoughts Block Better Ones: The Mechanism of the Pernicious Einstellung (Set) Effect." Cognition 108, no. 3 (Sep 2008): 652-61.

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Bilalić, Merim, A. Kiesel, C. Pohl, M. Erb, and W. Grodd. "It Takes Two—Skilled Recognition of Objects Engages Lateral Areas in Both Hemispheres."PLoS ONE 6, no. 1 (2011): e16202.

Bilalić, Merim, Peter McLeod, and Fernand Gobet. "Does Chess Need Intelligence? — a Study with Young Chess Players." Intelligence 35, no. 5 (2007): 457-70.

Carson, Shelley H, Jordan B Peterson, and Daniel M Higgins. "Decreased Latent Inhibition Is Associated with Increased Creative Achievement in High-Functioning Individuals." Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 85, no. 3 (2003): 499-506.

Chase, W.G., and H.A. Simon. "Perception in Chess." Cognitive Psychology 4, no. 1 (1973): 55-81.

Ericsson, Karl Anders. Development of Professional Expertise. NY: Cambridge University Press, 2009.

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Gobet, F., and N. Charness, eds. Chess and Games. edited by K. Anders Ercisson, Neil Charness, Paul Feltovich and Robert R. Hoffman, Cambridge Handbook on Expertise and Expert Performance: Cambridge University Press, 2006.

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8. y to work as diligently as you can. After the timer goes off, give yourself a small, fun reward. A few of these sessions in a day can really move your studies forward. Try to set up times and places where studying—not glancing at your computer or phone—is just something you naturally do.

9. Eat your frogs first. Do the hardest thing earliest in the day, when you are fresh. 10. Make a mental contrast. Imagine where you’ve come from and contrast that with the

dream of where your studies will take you. Post a picture or words in your workspace to remind you of your dream. Look at that when you find your motivation lagging. This work will pay off both for you and those you love!

10 Rules of Bad Studying

Excerpted from A Mind for Numbers: How to Excel in Math and Science (Even if You Flunked Algebra), by Barbara Oakley, Penguin, July, 2014

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Avoid these techniques—they can waste your time even while they fool you into thinking

you’re learning!

1. Passive rereading—sitting passively and running your eyes back over a page. Unless you can prove that the material is moving into your brain by recalling the main ideas without looking at the page, rereading is a waste of time.

2. Letting highlights overwhelm you. Highlighting your text can fool your mind into thinking you are putting something in your brain, when all you’re really doing is moving your hand. A little highlighting here and there is okay—sometimes it can be helpful in flagging important points. But if you are using highlighting as a memory tool, make sure that what you mark is also going into your brain.

3. Merely glancing at a problem’s solution and thinking you know how to do it. This is one of the worst errors students make while studying. You need to be able to solve a problem step-by-step, without looking at the solution.

4. Waiting until the last minute to study. Would you cram at the last minute if you were practicing for a track meet? Your brain is like a muscle—it can handle only a limited amount of exercise on one subject at a time.

5. Repeatedly solving problems of the same type that you already know how to solve. If you just sit around solving similar problems during your practice, you’re not actually preparing for a test—it’s like preparing for a big basketball game by just practicing your dribbling.

6. Letting study sessions with friends turn into chat sessions. Checking your problem solving with friends, and quizzing one another on what you know, can make l earning more enjoyable, expose flaws in your thinking, and deepen your learning. But if your joint study sessions turn to fun before the work is done, you’re wasting your time and should find another study group.

7. Neglecting to read the textbook before you start working problems. Would you dive into a pool before you knew how to swim? The textbook is your swimming instructor—it guides you toward the answers. You will flounder and waste your time if you don’t bother to read it. Before you begin to read, however, take a quick glance over the chapter or section to get a sense of what it’s about.

8. Not checking with your instructors or classmates to clear up points of confusion. Professors are used to lost students coming in for guidance—it’s our job to help you. The students we worry about are the ones who don’t come in. Don’t be one of those students.

9. Thinking you can learn deeply when you are being constantly distracted. Every tiny pull toward an instant message or conversation means you have less brain power to devote to learning. Every tug of interrupted attention pulls out tiny neural roots before they can grow.

10. Not getting enough sleep. Your brain pieces together problem-solving techniques when you sleep, and it also practices and repeats whatever you put in mind before you go to sleep. Prolonged fatigue allows toxins to build up in the brain that disrupt the neural connections you need to think quickly and well. If you don’t get a good sleep before a test, NOTHING ELSE YOU HAVE DONE WILL MATTER.

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12 AMERICAN EDUCATOR | FALL 2013John Dunlosky is a professor of psychology and the

director of experimental training at Kent State University. His research focuses on self -regulated

learning and how it can be used to improve student achievement across the

lifespan.Strengthening the Student Toolboxst udy str ategies to Boost learningBy John

DunloskyIt’s the night before her biology exam, and the high school student has just begun to

study. she takes out her highlighter and reads her textbook, marking it up as she goes along.

sherereads sentences that seem most important and stays up most of the night, just hoping to get

a good enough grasp of the material to do well on the exam. These are study strategies that she

may have learned from her friends or her teachers or that she simply took to on her own. she is

not unusual in this regard; many students rely on strategies such as highlighting, rereading, and

cramming the night before an exam.Quite often, students believe these relatively ineffective

strate-gies are actually the most effective,1 and at least on the surface they do seem sound,

perhaps because, even after pulling an all-nighter, students manage to squeak by on exams.

Unfortunately, in a recent review of the research, my colleagues and I found that these strategies

are not that effective,2 especially if students want to retain their learning and understanding of

content well after the exam is over—obviously, an important educational goal.so, why aren’t

students learning about the best strategies? I can only speculate, but several reasons seem likely.

curricula are developed to highlight the content that teachers should teach, so the focus is on

providing content and not on training students how to effectively acquire it. Put differently, the

emphasis is on what students need to learn, whereas little emphasis—if any—is placed on training

students how they should go about learning the content and what skills will promote efficient

studying to support robust learning. Nevertheless, teaching students how to learn is as important

as teaching them content, because acquir-ILLUSTRATIONS By DANIEL BAXTERAMERICAN

EDUCATOR | FALL 2013 13ing both the right learning strategies and background knowledge is

important—if not essential—for promoting lifelong learning.Another reason many students may

not be learning about effective strategies concerns teacher preparation. learning strat-egies are

discussed in almost every textbook on educational psychology, so many teachers likely have been

introduced to at least some of them. even so, my col leagues and I found that, in large part, the

current textbooks do not adequately cover the strategies; some omit discussion of the most

effective ones, and most do not provide guidelines on how to use them in the class -room or on

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how to teach students to use them. In some cases, the strategies discussed have limited

applicability or benefit.3so I sympathize with teachers who want to devote some class time to

teaching students how to learn, because teacher preparation typically does not emphasize the

importance of teaching stu-dents to use effective learning strategies. Moreover, given the

demands of day-to-day teaching, teachers do not have time to figure out which strategies are

best.the good news is that decades of research has focused on evaluating the effectiveness of

many promising strategies for helping students learn. Admittedly, the evidence for many of these

strategies is immense and not easily deciphered, especially given the technical nature of the

literature. Thus, to help promote the teaching and use of effective learning strategies, my col-

leagues* and I reviewed the efficacy of 10 learning strategies:1.Practice testing: self -testing or

taking practice tests on to-be-learned material.2.Distributed practice: implementing a schedule of

practice that spreads out study activities over time.3.Interleaved practice: implementing a

schedule of practice that mixes different kinds of problems, or a schedule of study that mixes

different kinds of material, within a single study session.4. elaborative interrogation:

generating an explanation for why an explicitly stated fact or concept is true.5. self -

explanation: explaining how new information is related to known information, or explaining steps

taken during problem solving.6. rereading: restudying text material again after an initial

reading.7. highlighting and underlining: marking potentially important portions of to-be-

learned materials while reading.8. summarization: writing summaries (of various lengths) of to-

be-learned texts.9.Keyword mnemonic: using keywords and mental imagery to associate verbal

materials.10.Imagery for text: attempting to form mental images of text materials while reading or

listening.Before describing the strategies in detail, I will put into context a few aspects of our

review. First, our intent was to survey strate-gies that teachers could coach students to use

without sacrificing too much class time and that any student could use. We excluded a variety of

strategies and computer-driven tutors that show promise but require technologies that may be

unavailable to many students. Although some of the strategies we reviewed can be implemented

with computer software, they all can be used successfully by a motivated student who (at most)

has access to a pen or pencil, some index cards, and perhaps a calendar.second, we chose to

review some strategies (e.g., practice test-ing) because an initial survey suggested that they were

relatively effective,4 whereas we chose other strategies (e.g., rereading, highlighting) because

students reported using them often yet we wondered about their effectiveness.Finally, the

strategies differ somewhat with respect to the kinds of learning they promote. For instance, some

strategies (e.g., keyword mnemonic, imagery for text) are focused on improving students’ memory

for core concepts or facts. others (e.g., self-explanation) may best serve to promote students’

comprehension of what they are reading. And still others (e.g., practice testing) appear to be

useful for enhancing both memory and comprehension.In the following sections, I discuss each of

the learning strate-gies, beginning with those that show the most promise for improv-ing student

achievement.The Most Effective Learning StrategiesWe rated two strategies—practice testing and

distributed prac-tice—as the most effective of those we reviewed because they can help students

regardless of age, they can enhance learning and comprehension of a large range of materials,

and, most important, they can boost student achievement.*My collaborators on this project were

cognitive and educational researchers Katherine A. Rawson, Elizabeth J. Marsh, Mitchell J. Nathan,

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and Daniel T. Willingham. Willingham regularly contributes to American Educator in his “Ask the

Cognitive Scientist” column.