discussion « Triple A Learning IB Blogs

August 17, 2011

Misconceptions about the Reliability of Memory

Filed under: Psychology — Tags: CLOA, discussion, IB Psychology, memory, psychology, Teaching Resource, teaching strategies — Peter Anthony @ 8:05 am

This blog post from Scientific American, 4 Things Most People Get Wrong About Memory, gives a good summary of the misconceptions most people and students harbor about memory. This topic is one of the more interesting learning outcomes of the CLOA.

What perplexes the author is that these misconceptions about Human memory persist even though memory has been shown again and again to be far from perfect. We overlook big things, forget details, conflate events. The article mentions the famous experiment in which many people asked to watch a video of people playing basketball failed to notice a person wearing a gorilla suit walk right through the middle of the scene.

April 10, 2011

The End of Capitalism

Filed under: Economics — Tags: capitalism, discussion, Economics, free markets, macroeconomics, Section 3, Teaching Resource, teaching strategies — Peter Anthony @ 2:27 am

Many have forecast the end of capitalism most famously Marx and his adherents Lenin, Stalin and Mao. The recent Global Economic Crisis has again raised the issue with The Economist pointing out that confidence in the system is eroding in those very economies that used to epitomize the capitalist system. In 2002 80% of Americans agree that the economic system of free markets was best but that has now shrunk to 59% and just above the broader average 54% that calculated after polling recipients in 25 countries. (France is most unique in that only 6% strongly support the free market!)

This article would is an effective one to start a discussion about the effectiveness of the free market to meet the macroeconomics goals that are introduced in Section 3. Students can be asked to explain why the free market system has lost its appeal and what they think might replace it. This is also a good opportunity to remind the class that at heart economic systems provides the means to respond to the fundamental economic question of how scarce resources can be used to meet the unlimited wants of people.

January 17, 2011

Shake up the chalk and talk: remove teacher, add cookies

Filed under: Social and cultural anthropology — Tags: anthropology, critical thinking, discussion, student discussion, student leadership, teacher role, teaching idea, teaching strategy, teachng theory — Laura Fulton @ 8:04 pm

I have often fallen into the trap of speaking too much during class discussion or taking over the conversation with a spur-of-the-moment lecture. Despite this, I know that my students often learn best when they are left to their own devices. When I am not front and centre in a classroom they learn to speak to, and question, one another in a way that fosters independence and critical thinking.

One of my most successful methods for creating ideal classroom discussion is by very quickly reminding students of the pre-assigned topic for the day and then backing off. But how do I pull back in a way that makes sense to students, diminishes my temptation to interject, while still keeping me around in case a question comes up? I bake. This is the recipe for a 55-minute class…

IB Blogs

Topics

Subscribe to the blogs

Triple A Learning IB Blogs