[Editor’s Note: This is the first in a year-long series of blogs that examines how education developed throughout history until the present.] In its broadest sense, education is the imparting of information from one generation to the generation that follows it. It can be accomplished by modeling actions, sharing oral knowledge, or through reading and … Continue reading “A History of Education: An Introduction”
Tag: information
Purposeful Reading
Reading is like any other activity; the more you know what you want to get out of it, the more benefit you’ll derive. Too often, though, we simply crack open a book and turn to page one without a thought about the process. That can lead to missed information; confusion about characters, plot, or informational … Continue reading “Purposeful Reading”
Learning when to Change Your Mind and when Not To
All knowledge builds upon knowledge that came before, and new knowledge often requires a change of thought. For example, the status of a scientific theory must change and grow when new data become available from additional tests of that theory. In her article “Learning Means Changing Your Mind,” Katherine Burd argues that, in the classroom, … Continue reading “Learning when to Change Your Mind and when Not To”
The Importance of Text in an Online World
We live in an age of screens, from smartphones and tablets to video instruction and other forms of eLearning. Our attention span has gotten shorter as we move from one tweet to the next, and short, in-your-face videos as opposed to pages and pages of written text. But does that mean text as a medium … Continue reading “The Importance of Text in an Online World”
Study Skills Part 7 — Learning Styles — Part 2 of 3
As we discussed last week, not everybody learns in the same way. Learning styles are a way of grouping together the basic, common ways in which people learn. Most people, while having a dominant form of learning, still rely on many of the other techniques to learn and recall information, but none of this is … Continue reading “Study Skills Part 7 — Learning Styles — Part 2 of 3”
The History of Writing and Reading – Part 21: Printing, Publishing, and Language Norms in the Digital Age
[Editor’s note: This is the twenty-second of an ongoing series that examines the rise of writing – and therefore reading – around the world. We will be looking at the major developments and forces that shaped the written languages we use today. Links to all the previous posts are listed at the end of this … Continue reading “The History of Writing and Reading – Part 21: Printing, Publishing, and Language Norms in the Digital Age”
Forgetting Information and Learning How to Remember
According to a paper published in the June 21, 2017 issue of the scientific journal Neuron, the brain is hard-wired to forget information. Neurobiologists Blake Richards and Paul Frankland, the authors of the study, challenge what has become the dominant theory of memory, which holds that forgetting involves the gradual loss of critical information. According … Continue reading “Forgetting Information and Learning How to Remember”