Slate Magazine is running a series on Creative Pairs, or why Two is the Magic Number! Written by Joshua Wolf Shenk the series seeks to understand: What makes creative relationships work? How do two people—who may be perfectly capable and talented on their own—explode...
Posts related to: Psychology
Demotivational Posters II
A few weeks ago I posted a note about an assignment I gave my students in the on-campus version of the MAET program. They had completed an unit on motivation and had watched the RSA / Daniel Pink video and their task was was to create demotivational posters, (along...
TPACK survey, new journal article
Hot off the press: Schmidt, D. A., Baran, E., Thompson, A. D., Mishra, P., Koehler, M.J. & Shin, T. S. (2010). Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge (TPACK): The development and validation of an assessment instrument for preservice teachers. Journal of...
Art, design & teaching great quote
Steve Wagenseller, a student in my 817 Learning Technology by Design seminar wrote something so cool in the class forum that I felt that it was worth recording on my blog... ...One of the differences between art versus design is that a user has to approach the art,...
Nature v.s. nurture, what are we missing
Jordy Whitmer over at the Birmingham School district forwarded me this link to this really cool video by George Kembel on Awakening Creativity. There is a lot in the video to ponder and discuss but I want to focus on something he said about music learning that really...
Teaching to learning styles, what hogwash
There is an article in today's Chronicle titled Matching Teaching Style to Learning Style May Not Help Students. I have been somewhat skeptical of the learning styles literature for a while, not the least for hearing the phrase being bandied about without much...
All you can cheat, part II (a response)
Patrick Diemer commented on my previous posting, All you can cheat, the web & learning by saying: Do you have any words of wisdom or resources on how to create appropriate questions? This sounds great, but easier said than done in my humble opinion. I started...
Jere Brophy / Motivation Ambigram
A new ambigram created in memory of Jere Brophy, world renowned scholar on psychology of motivation. The ambigram reads, "motivation" one direction and "Jere Brophy" when rotated by 180 degrees. Click on the image to see a larger version, hosted on Flickr....
From incompetence to mastery, the stages
One who knows and knows he knows is a wise man, Follow Him One who knows and knows not he knows is asleep, Awaken him One who knows not and knows he knows not is a child, Teach him One who knows not and knows not he knows not is a Fool, Avoid him. -- Attributed...
Designing for anticipation, Teaching for anticipation
In a couple of previous posts I had talked about the idea of postdiction (see the posts here and here). The argument being that good teaching (among a long list of other good things) is postdictable, i.e. it walks the line between predictability and chaos, and most...
Jere Brophy, note from the Dean
Carole Ames, Dean of the College just sent out this note regarding the sad news of Jere Brophy's passing. She has asked for it to be shared with our broader networks, so I do so. Note: The memorial service for Jere Brophy has been scheduled for Monday, October 19th...
Postdictable, the commercials
I had written earlier about the idea of "postdictable" which was defined as something that is "surprising initially, but then understandable with a bit of thought." It lies at the spot between predictability and total chaos. The movie Sixth Sense is postdictable in...
Finding patterns (& creating them)
As readers of this blog know I love examples of seeing things in new ways. That to me if often the crux of creativity. Anyway here are two examples. The first curtesey of Leigh Wolf is a new advertisement from some credit card company. The ad is actually pretty...
I can resist everything except temptation (or marshmallows)
Have you heard of the marshmallow experiment? It is a pretty famous experiment conducted at Stanford back in the 60's. Walter Mischel a psychologist conducted this experiment on four-year olds in which the children were given one marshmallow and promised a second...
Keeping tabs on the experts
In an age where experts are a dime a dozen, willing to pontificate at the drop of a pin, it is hard to tell whom to believe, and whom NOT to believe. In comes Phillip Tetlock, an academic who has made it his mission to evaluate the prognosticators! This is described...
Mind power: Brain Machine Interfaces
Imagine controlling machines, typing text or juggling balls using nothing but the power of thought. What sounds like far-fetched science fiction is gradually becoming possible, providing hope for disabled patients -- and new gimmicks for the computer gaming industry....
Correlates of creativity
Just came across this on the Ph.D. design list (a listserv for discussion of PhD studies and related research in Design) from a posting by Charles Burnette. He quotes Donald MacKinnon, author of a large study on creativity in the arts, sciences and professions: If I...
Design and creative repurposing: Thinking about Ed Tech
One minute design ideas... http://www.dailymotion.com/fr/video/x93dzc_lota-1-objet-en-moins-de-1-min_creation I had posted something similar here (from Bic to vase). There is something deeper here than just cool design ideas though. What this video highlights is...
Making (non)sense of dots & lines
I love how these interconnected pipes called the Intertubes lead to serendipitous discoveries. Here are two videos, the first I went looking for, and the second, fell into my lap, so to speak, due to YouTubes related videos section. The video I went looking for was...
Like to learn, but hate school
In this TCRecord piece, Daniel T. WIllingham uses what we know about cognitive psychology to explain Why students don't like school. He suggests that although most people believe that humans are good at thinking, it is actually the weakest of our mental faculties......
Computerized aesthetics… what’s right with that idea?
I just came across this... Online System Rates Images by Aesthetic Quality Pennsylvania State University (PSU) has launched the Aesthetic Quality Inference Engine (ACQUINE), an online system for determining the aesthetic quality of an image. The online photo-rating...
Profesor 2.0, blurring the boundaries
I am in Chicago to give the Keynote address at the 2009 DePaul University Faculty Teaching and Learning Conference. The conference theme this year is Engaging Minds: Pedagogy and Personalism. I was invited by Sharon Guan (she was part of the AACTE Innovation &...
Special CITE issue on TPACK
The CITE Journal had a recent special issue devoted to TPACK. You can access the special issue (edited by Judi Harris and Matt Koehler) here or individual articles below. Bull, G., & Bell, L. (2009). TPACK: A framework for the CITE Journal. Contemporary Issues in...
Serendipitous Connectability… a short history of an idea
A while back I had written about the idea of "serendipitous connectability;" the idea that the web allows us to "to run across things that are stunning in their ability to connect to us in powerful, emotionally touching ways." I was prompted to do this by clicking on...
Creativity at Wake Forest
I presented yesterday at a conference a Wake Forest University titled: Creativity: Worlds in the Making. I was part of a panel that included Robert and Michele Root-Bernstein and Todd Siler. More details about the panel and links to my presentation can be found below....
Why I love the web…
I don't know if anyone has been following the back and forth following my posting about the Periodic Table of Typefaces (see Yet another periodic table...). In brief, I was quite critical of the design of this table and made that point in no uncertain terms. Imagine...
The 60 second lecture
I received an email yesterday from the State News (our local university newspaper) about what I thought of the 60 second lecture—a trend sweeping through online courses. Some of my first thoughts about this are below. If you don't know what they are, check out this...
TPACK Survey(s), now available
As the TPACK framework has developed and received greater research and scholarly attention there has been an increasing demand for a survey instrument that can help us measure TPACK. There are now two such measures available. We, here at Michigan State, in close...
The benefits of doodling!
Finally science has proved what I knew all along, doodling is a sign of an alert mind and may actually help memory!! Another justification for this, I guess.
Optical illusions go live…
If you love optical illusions you have to see this... just absolutely brilliant. The moment she pulls out the driver's license is priceless. And of course the face / vase flip-flop at the end is cool too. See more funny videos and funny pictures at CollegeHumor. This...