The Educator's Notebook

Having ‘Intense Interests’ Fuels Cognitive Growth (In Elementary School)
CNN - 12/12/17

"A 2008 study found that sustained intense interests, particularly in a conceptual domain like dinosaurs, can help children develop increased knowledge and persistence, a better attention span, and deeper information-processing skills.”
A Helpful Historical Look At ‘Active Learning’
Long View On Education - 12/10/17

"But as Kate Lacey notes, active/passive does not work as a simple binary, but as a fractal distinction, where what counts as ‘active’ shifts with context: listening is active in contrast to hearing, but listening counts as passive in relation to speaking, and both listening and speaking count as passive in relation to movement.”

Drugs And Cigarettes Are Down, Marijuana And Vaping Are Up
NPR - 12/14/17
"The Importance Of Dumb Mistakes In College”
New York Times - 12/9/17
Dating Violence Is An Important Issue For Schools To Get Ahead Of
Atlantic - 12/6/17

"More than one-third of 10th-graders (35 percent) have been physically or verbally abused by dating partners, while a similar percentage are perpetrators of such abuse.”

Can Kindness Be Taught? Enter the “Kindness Curriculum”
New York Times - 12/14/17
More On The Importance Of Quality Preschool
New York Times - 12/14/17

"It’s not just that the Tulsa preschoolers were ahead of their peers academically when they got to kindergarten… When the researchers used the Tulsa data to project the impact of the program into adulthood, they concluded that because of those youngsters’ higher projected income and diminished likelihood of incarceration, every dollar invested in quality preschool could generate a two-dollar return.”

A Theory of Writing Instruction In The English Class
Medium - 12/11/17

"It is our mission as English teachers to teach writing as a method of thinking, to re-mediate their writing for current and future circumstances and technologies, and to help our students find a sense of agency and empowerment in the act of writing.”

France Moves To Ban Phones At School For All Kids Under 15
NPR - 12/12/17

"The French educational code has banned using phones in class in elementary schools and secondary schools since 2010. As a result, phones are supposed to be kept in students' backpacks. But apparently that's not what happens… France's education chief says that when students go back to school next fall, all mobile phone use will be banned in schools for students roughly 15 and younger.”
“MIT Is Building A Better 3D Printer”
Hackaday - 12/9/17
“Neural Networks Are Learning… What To Forget”
MIT Technology Review - 12/8/17
The Mere Presence Of Your Phone Diminishes Social Happiness
Technology - 11/30/17
"The Seven Deadly Sins Of AI Predictions”
MIT Technology Review - 10/6/17

On The Importance Of Taking—And Revisiting—Notes
Austin Kleon - 12/15/17
“2017 Education Research Highlights”
Edutopia - 12/14/17
How Three 20-Somethings Shut Down Much Of The Internet
Wired - 12/13/17

"Three young American computer savants pleaded guilty to masterminding an unprecedented botnet—powered by unsecured internet-of-things devices like security cameras and wireless routers—that unleashed sweeping attacks on key internet services around the globe last fall. What drove them wasn’t anarchist politics or shadowy ties to a nation-state. It was Minecraft.”
Some Reflections On Learning From People Vs. Books
LinkedIn - 10/7/17

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