Tuesday, I introduced you to the first five of Louis Cozolino’s “Nine Things Educators Need to Know About the Brain.” An article excerpted from Cozolino’s book, The Social Neuroscience of Education: Optimizing Attachment and Learning in the Classroom, appeared at the Greater Good blog. Here, then, are the remaining four insights from Cozolino: 6. The…
Technology
Teachers and Technology
I’m totally inspired by the simple ways teachers are using technology to teach their students. Here are some observations from a recent visit to classrooms. A preschooler asked, “What’s an iguana?” and the teacher used her iPad to immediately show the group impressive photographs of the unusual reptile. Second-grade students were buzzing about a math…
So Shiny and New
It was a marvel. A toy for teachers. But not just any toy. It was a toy we wanted to play with so badly we were nearly straining out of our shoes. As the salesman demonstrated its marvels, we felt a little like Ralphie in A Christmas Story; we wanted one of those fantastic interactive…
On the Future of Educational Video Games
Okay. I’ll admit it. There have been a handful of occasions in the last four years or so when I have had the luxury of time to play video games. Maybe two handfuls. And I needed plenty of time because I have a steep learning curve with such games as Call of Duty and Halo:…
Online Classes for Teachers
Have you taken an online class recently? I’m curious about your online learning experience. What can you tell me? Love it? Sorta love it? Don’t really love it? Also, remember to post your wish for A Genie From The Mailbox? before midnight EDT tonight, November 30, for a chance to win a seasonal surprise from…
More on Teachers, Students, and Technology
Sometime back in the 16th century, a Saxon nobleman was heard to declare, “The future is digital!” A few years later, in 2011, The Mailbox responded with our first mobile app, Holidays and Seasonal Celebrations. In 2012, still hearing the clarion call of that prescient aristocrat, we added Kids in the Kitchen and Seasonal Songs….
What’s Your Learning Style?
When do you stop learning? At the end of the day, when you’ve left your classroom and set aside the last papers to be graded, are you done learning? Or maybe you consider yourself an autodidact—a self-taught person forever searching out new things to learn, new things to know, new concepts to understand, new philosophies…
Teachers Expect the Unexpected
That’s right, my first major assignment of the day today was killing a rather sizable spider stalking a coworker. Let’s not debate whether the spider could have been captured and released into the wild. I believe this big creepy-crawly had been born in captivity, as it were, a lifelong resident of the nooks and crannies…
Invoking Curiosity
This may be the last place on the Internet to get around to mentioning the amazing feat that NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) pulled off in landing Curiosity on Mars. JPL engineers have become celebrities. Ridiculously amazing and stupendously glorious photos have been beamed back from the red planet by Curiosity. A tricky, nail-biter of…
Style: We All Have It
What do you have in common with Philippe Petit? Well, first you have to know who he is, I suppose. Philippe Petit is the famous French high-wire artist who, on August 4, 1974, famously walked 200 feet between the two buildings of the World Trade Center on a 55-pound rope strung 1,368 feet above the…