MetaFilter posts tagged with pedagogy

Are you happy to see me or is that just a dictionary in your pocket?

Gyan — Sun, 03 Jan 2010 22:16:55 -0800

In search of the world’s hardest language

Confessions of a Converted Lecturer

inkyroom — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 16:15:54 -0800

"I thought I was a good teacher until I discovered my students were just memorizing information rather than learning to understand the material. Who was to blame? The students? The material? I will explain how I came to the agonizing conclusion that the culprit was neither of these. It was my teaching that caused students to fail! I will show how I have adjusted my approach to teaching and how it has improved my students' performance significantly." Physics professor Eric Mazur explains the development and use of the "ConcepTest". Appendix: Math professor Mark Schlatter has categorized five different types of ConcepTests he has written and used in class. (pdf) For those of use of who can't afford clicker systems, one researcher concluded that flash cards work just as well . (pdf)

Your Tired, Your Poor, Your Huddled Masses

Miko — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 12:28:39 -0800

A People's History for the Classroom [pdf] is a high school history lesson plan/workbook based on Howard Zinn's A People's History of the United States. The entire 124-page workbook available for free as a downloadable PDF, as part of the Zinn Education Project, supported by Rethinking Schools and Teaching for Change. You must enter an email and agree to take a later survey to download.

Would you like to play a game?

Blazecock Pileon — Mon, 18 Feb 2008 00:29:28 -0800

Fun and games with mathematics and mathematical puzzles (e.g. heart basket, Rubik's Cube, Rubik's Magic, hypercubes, and more) in both English and (with yet more content in) German.

The Narrow Road

phrontist — Tue, 01 May 2007 13:46:26 -0800

The Narrow Road : in which a professional mathematician guides you through pure mathematics (and touches on tangential issues).

Happy Birthday Maria

serazin — Fri, 02 Mar 2007 17:16:49 -0800

Maria Montessori, the first woman to graduate from an Italian medical school, changed the world of education, although she left her own child in the care of professionals for most of his life. Her work is available online.
Her method is controversial, both for it's rigidity and it's lack of focus on grades and testing, but research points to the positive impact of the method on social and academic skills as well as math skills specifically. This site includes historical photos of Montessori and her schools around the world (site uses frames, sorry no direct links - click EsF/historical photos) A traveling exhibit marks this year as the 100th anniversary of Montessori's birth. A bit more on youtube.

Comrade Borodin is a very cultured person

i_am_joe's_spleen — Wed, 11 Oct 2006 19:51:55 -0800

In 1974 Alexander Lipson wrote an excellent Russian language textbook: scanned highlights, complete book. However, its value goes beyond the merely pedagogical. via our very own metafilter udarnik languagehat.

The story of motion

Gyan — Thu, 17 Aug 2006 19:26:45 -0800

Motion Mountain - "The project aims to produce a simple, vivid and up-to-date introduction to modern physics, with emphasis on the fundamental ideas of motion. 'Simple' means that concepts are stressed more than formalism; 'vivid' means that the reader is continuously challenged; 'up-to-date' means that modern research and ideas about unification are included."

Video Games & Education

panoptican — Fri, 25 Nov 2005 12:04:09 -0800

What can video games teach us about learning and literacy? A lot, says James Paul Gee whose recent book approaches the question armed with three different discourses (situated cognition, new literacy studies, and connectionism). [mi]

Getting your point, clearly and concisely, straight across.

Gyan — Mon, 19 Sep 2005 19:24:50 -0800

Lisa Randall's Theory of Communication about Science

Entertainment U

stbalbach — Fri, 01 Oct 2004 23:41:30 -0800

Easy grades, light reading loads, and above all a professor you can enjoy. Today’s university culture is one of all entertainment all the time.. an essay by Mark Edmunson based on his new book Why Read? about the the "crisis in the humanities", called the most provocative look since Allan Bloom's The Closing of the American Mind. (via Arts and Letters Daily)

talos — Fri, 08 Nov 2002 06:30:17 -0800

Teaching physics with superheroes...
...and comics in general. Comics are used to teach math, in "The Mathematical Cartoons of Larry Gonick". While this flash animation addresses the physics of everyday life. Interesting ways to present basic and sometimes not so basic [~400k jpg] topics in science.

kirkaracha — Thu, 25 Apr 2002 12:51:27 -0800

Teach dance in prison! "The Federal Bureau of Prisons...intends to issue solicitation RFQ 50507-012-2 for the provision to provide Dance Instructor Services with a variety of beginning and advanced dance classes to the inmate population."

i_am_joe's_spleen — Fri, 07 Dec 2001 23:30:30 -0800

The Gettysburg Powerpoint Presentation The best illustration ever of why friends don't let friends use Powerpoint. Some blame a decline in oratory and rhetoric on the television. I blame the temptation to lean on decorative visual crutches.

owillis — Sun, 29 Apr 2001 19:51:59 -0800

"Democratic Schools" Just saw this school on 60 Minutes. The kids hang out all day, play video games, go to class if they want to, learn if they want to. There's no principal or teachers, just "staff". I may be an old-school stickler but this strikes me as retarded. They had an eight year old on who couldn't read because he "wasn't ready for it yet"... c'mon.

frednorman — Tue, 10 Apr 2001 07:56:07 -0800

School's mathematics don't add up! PS 234, a primary school in TriBeCa, is at the forefront of the revolution in math instruction being carried out in more than half of New York City's schools. The district's approach to math instruction follows an egalitarian theory called "constructivist math," which is the idea that children shouldn't learn basic techniques for adding, subtracting, dividing and multiplying. Rather, emphasis is placed on "feeling good about numbers" etc. Said one angry parent, "The idea that the home has to be turned into the school because the school is the testing ground for inane programs - that's frightening." And leading university mathematicians have joined parent groups in denouncing the method. All things concidered, is it right for schools to use children as guinea pigs in this manner?