Students often fail to understand how revolutionary nature of the cognitive revolution partly because the Learning Perspective is no longer a major area of study in the new IB Psychology Course. The firm grip that the behavioralists held on to psychological research in the 1950s and 60s needs to be conveyed to students as this gives them a better understanding of the learning outcome that the mind can be studied scientifically. In this short video, Baddeley explains his own shift from a behavioralist to a cognitive psychologist and the importance of advances in computer science to psychology’s development into new fields of research.
Triple A Learning IB Blogs
December 25, 2011
Alan Baddeley on the Cognitive Revolution
A Green Bloomberg
Bloomberg has recently added a new focus to its news reporting: Sustainability. These articles focus on issues related to the environment, business ethics and resource depletion. As well as news stories, links are provided to videos and debates on related topics. This categories is well worth exploring and Bloomberg is to be commended for increasing awareness of the challenges facing the global environment.
December 22, 2011
To ‘B’ or not to ‘B’
My students have now been registered with IB for the 2012 exams, and, as usual, I have a couple who have decided to go down the option B route.
Globally, option B has never been a particularly popular choice, with a consistently small percentage of candidates choosing it over the years, and by far the majority taking option A.
December 20, 2011
Sprinting into sprummer – seasons as an colonial construct!
Sprinting into sprummer
One of my Maths teachers decided to get into the swing of all things TOK by pointing out the following article. The gist of it is that the concept of four seasons is an colonial export! A consistent topic for many of us in this country.
As the article starts: “IS AUSTRALIA in need of a fifth season? Some experts believe the model we follow, which comprises four, three month seasons, has always been unsuited to our continent. “When Europeans arrived in Australia they brought a lot of cultural baggage, including a seasonal system from the temperate Northern Hemisphere,” says scientist Dr Tim Entwisle, at Sydney’s Royal Botanic Gardens.”
December 19, 2011
Happy almost-Solstice!
I send my seasonal greetings to all readers of this blog as the days in the northern hemisphere steadily grow shorter and the darkness begs for coloured lights and candles. The solstice falls this December 22 this year — but already I’m off and gone! I’ll be back with you in the New Year.
Eileen
December 18, 2011
IB Music Prescribed Work: Yellow River Piano Concerto : some issues in the score.
Dear IB Music Teachers,
These days before the Christmas Holidays I am working on the Triple A Workshop IB Music Prescribed Works that I will be offered in 2012. I have noticed that the score of Xian’s Yellow River Piano Concerto has some potentially delicate issues. I am referring to the Ernest Eulenburg no. 8111 score that I assume that must of the teachers are already using or are planning to to use. Here are the issues:
December 16, 2011
Happy Holidays!
We spend so much of our time online. The lines between work and play are being redefined and we need to take a little break every now and again to laugh. Hope this helps you to relax while you wind down from grades and the flurry of activity that the end of term brings.
Leading a workshop
To become a workshop leader you need to apply to the IB through the OCC website. Experience with the programme is required.
Preparation leading to facilitating a workshop is a three to five month process that starts with an invite to a given workshop/destination. I was excited when asked in the summer to go to New Orleans for December 9. You then prepare your workbook online, and submit so that it can be printed in the locality of the given workshop well ahead of time. You also have to organise with the IBO travel agents appropriate flight details etc. I also email the participants once email addresses are finalised and send out a Google questionnaire, invite them to share a DropBox folder to add resources, and also a Diigo group where URL favourites can be shared.
Production constraints as catalysts to creativity
Production constraints as catalysts to creativity
Thomas Shatz in his book ’The genius of the system’, promotes some interesting ideas about the Hollywood studio system. Not least of these is that the constraints imposed on American film industry by the Hayes committee after 1933 in the Production code was a catalyst for greater creativity in the creative strategies that American film makers were required to employ when addressing adult issues. To take just two examples; the allure of Lauren Bacall’s character Slim’s dialogue in her first encounter with Humphrey Bogart’s character ‘Steve’ in ‘To have and have not’ (Howard Hawks US 1944). Or the stunning sensuality achieved by a simple flick of the head by Rita Hayworth in our first encounter with Gilda (Charles Vidor US 1946)
December 15, 2011
Lasting impressions of anthropology
This week we are very lucky to hear from another student voice. Vivien Sin is a third year economics major at the University of Chicago. She describes herself as passionate in creating ventures to solve problems and trigger changes; currently focused on developing tech ventures and EnvisionDo; enjoying biographies, and books on alternative investments and psychoanalysis; and devoting a significant amount of time catching the latest performances, painting, and screenwriting. Here are her thoughts on her studies in IB anthropology…
When I first selected anthropology as one of my IB subjects, I had
little idea what anthropology actually means. What I expected to get
out of it was a great dose of random facts about various “exotic”
cultures to show off at social gatherings. Two weeks into the course, I
realized that intellectually, anthropology is way beyond just learning
a dose of facts. Two months into my college experience, I also
realized that anthropology has impacted my viewpoints and attitudes
beyond academic setting. Here, I’d like to focus on three main aspects
of how anthropology has been significant for me.
