In his 2013 book, Social: Why Our Brains are Wired to Learn, Matthew Lieberman described research from late in the 20th century that determined the default areas of brain activity. When a person stops trying to do something else, and the rest of the brain goes quite, the default areas are active. If one begins Read More
Author: Gary Ackerman
Elevator Pitch on Collaboration
Collaboration has become a buzzword in education; it has become something that is to be valued, and so any initiative or endeavor undertaken by educators is described as a project that “requires collaboration.” In many cases, advocates for the initiative conflate working together with collaboration. Other endeavors are truly collaborative as seen in several characteristics: Read More
What Should We Be Teaching About Research
Research is difficult, but highly engaging, work. By having students ask questions, and answer those through their research, the purpose of the work becomes more clear and the work is more interesting. Allowing students to define problems and refine questions make this difficult work more engaging. Research requires one to follow recognized protocols that make Read More
Elevator Pitch on Speed in the Digital World
Whereas previous generations ordered products from mail order retailers and expected to wait several weeks as their order was delivered to the retailer via postal service, was processed and filled, and then shipped back; digital generations expect to place an order on a web site and receive the product within a day or two. Whereas Read More
On Comprehensive Education
A comprehensive higher education comprises: Declarative knowledge—those facts that can be stated as well as the concepts that organizes them. English students will be able to identify important works and also to place them in the context of time and place to demonstrate declarative knowledge of their importance. Procedural knowledge—those skills that students know how Read More
Elevator Pitch on Brains and Technology
Human brains are adaptable organs. They are designed to absorb and process information, to find patterns and generalize, and store information in the many forms it finds and creates. As a social species, communication is an essential aspect of human life as well. Human brains are born into a social group and that groups form Read More
A Rationale for Social Learning
Intelligence has been perceived to be a cognitive activity originating the brains of an individual for generations. While there is surely a cognitive component, learning science is telling us that human brains evolved to learn from and with other brains. While methods that find students learning together continue to be contentious, it is clear that Read More
An Instructional Video Rubric
Teachers talking over slides (or images or diagrams or animations) has become an important teaching strategy during the pandemic. It is likely to continue to be a staple of teachers not just because it will make the pivot to remote teaching easier when it becomes necessary, but because it allows for alternative method of teaching Read More
Elevator Pitch on Natural Technology
Technology is a force that exerts strong influences on society and culture. For those living within a culture its effects are so familiar they are barely perceived and thought to be a natural part of every culture or society. What we expect of people (our peers, our leaders, our children, etc.) and out institutions (schools especially) Read More
Bricoleurs in #edtech
The French anthropologist Claude Levi-Strauss introduced the concept of the bricoleur. Wikipedia is a good starting point for defining new terms, so I started with that definition when I started promoting this approach to using technology in schools more than a decade ago: “It is borrowed from the French word bricolage, from the verb bricoleur Read More