We often conceive of learning through the lens of cramming for an exam or teaching a dog to sit, but humans and other mammals aren’t the only entities capable of adapting to their environment—schools of fish, robots, and even our genes can learn new behaviors, explain Jan De Houwer and Sean Hughes (Ghent University) in a new Perspectives on Psychological Science article. Embracing a broader definition of learning that includes any behavioral adaptation developed in response to regular features of an environment could help researchers collaborate across the fields of psychology, computer science, sociology, and genetics, De Houwer explained in…
In 2011, the United Nations (UN) announced the International Friendship Day, which falls on the 30th of July. It is a celebration that focuses on peace and human solidarity.
As educators, we should emphasize the importance of friendship to our students. It is a good way to build up students’ empathy towards their friends from various family backgrounds.
Here, we provide some suggestions on several simple activities that can bring sparks of joy to students during International Friendship Day. But first, a gentle reminder that these activities are more suitable for the enthusiastic young learners.
The Wind Blows: Finding Similar…
Creating an intensive lesson plan is a pressing job, especially for some teachers who juggle multiple classes from different grades. You don’t want to accidentally use a 3rd Grade material to teach a 4th Grade class.
No worries. Read theory is the hero every English teacher needs.
It is not a literal ‘theory’ for reading. It is a helpful website that provides materials to improve students’ reading and comprehension abilities.
How Did Read Theory Emerge?
It all started with a passionate English teacher who made his own teaching materials and shared them with his colleagues via his website.
As time…
ILLUSTRATION BY EMILY SCHERER
Alarm bells seemed to sound in teachers’ lounges across America late last year with the debut of ChatGPT — an AI chatbot that was both easy to use and capable of producing dialogue-like responses, including longer-form writing and essays. Several writers and educators went so far as to even forecast the death of student papers. However, not everyone was convinced it was time to panic. Plenty of naysayers pointed to the bot’s unreliable results, factual inaccuracies and dull tone, and insisted that the technology wouldn’t replace real writing.
Indeed, ChatGPT and similar AI systems are being…
Education systems transformation is creating buzz among educators, policy makers, researchers and families. For the first time, the UN secretary general convened the Transforming Education Summit around the subject in 2022. In tandem, UNESCO, UNESCO Institute for Statistics, UNICEF, the World Bank, and the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) co-authored “From Learning Recovery to Education Transformation” to lay a roadmap for how to move from COVID-19 school closures to systems change. Donor institutions like the Global Partnership for Education’s most recent strategy centers on systems transformation, and groups like the Global Campaign for Education are advocating for broader…