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Blog Post for July 2014

Insightful articles about 21st century skills, inquiry, project-based learning, media literacy, and education reform.

Teaching the Process of Learning

Submitted by King on Thu, 2014-07-31 11:39
Teaching the Process of Learning

We can't accomplish much in a second. Blink. Breathe. Take a step forward. We can do 60 times as much in a minute, and 3,600 times as much in an hour. Our truly great accomplishments come from combining the little things we do in seconds into long, complex processes that take days or weeks or months.

Learning is one such process. None of us is born walking, but one of us became Usain Bolt. None of us is born writing, but one of us became J.K. Rowling. They learned how to do what they do through a long, involved process. Whether training for an Olympic 100m race or beginning work on a new novel, people who are doing something difficult follow a similar process called inquiry.

What are the steps in the inquiry process?

The inquiry process consists of six steps that can help any novice become an expert in any discipline.

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Developing Students' Social and Emotional Intelligence

Submitted by Anonymous on Mon, 2014-07-07 13:30
Developing Students' Social and Emotional Intelligence

By Tom McSheehy MSW, LSW


Social and emotional intelligence allows us to negotiate our own and others’ emotions and feelings. No wonder it is vital to success in relationships, academics, jobs, sports, and other life activities. Employers, for example, have discovered that 67 percent of the skills they are looking for in new employees are directly related to social and emotional intelligence (Daniel Goleman, Working with Emotional Intelligence). Yet schools spend only 1.6 percent of the school week developing these skills in students.

Research

Research highlights the importance of teaching students social and emotional learning (SEL) skills. Here are some interesting findings:

  1. Fear and anxiety interfere with learning, while safety and security support and facilitate learning.
  2. Emotion plays a major role in every intellectual process and affects the organization of children’s brains.
  3. Children who can learn by age 10 to delay gratification, control impulses, and modulate expression become healthier, wealthier, and more responsible (Terrie Moffitt of Duke University and a team of researchers who followed a group of 1,000 children for 32 years).
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