About four days ago a new issue of the Journal of Educational Psychology was published (volume 100, number 4). As a student in the L&I doctoral program you always want to check out new issues of JEP (this really should be a habit you practice every three months).
The new issue, like many issues before it, contains a mix of articles about cognition and motivation as it relates to learning. The new issue contains 6 motivation-centric articles. I suggest checking out all of the articles to identify ones of interest to you.
One article in particular, seems to have widespread appeal and is titled, "Supporting students' motivation, engagement, and learning during an uninteresting activity." The author, Hyungshim Jang, combines self-determination theory with interest theory. But the most interesting aspect of his study is how he manipulates using a rationale (in written form) before students begin engaging in an uninteresting activity. Perhaps just as important for some of you: there's very clear next steps that need to be taken based on this study (i.e. he gift wraps a future dissertation).
Check out all of the motivation-related articles:
Showing posts with label general. Show all posts
Showing posts with label general. Show all posts
Friday, December 5, 2008
get happy!!
Nope, I'm not referring to Elvis Costello's classic Get Happy!! CD. Instead I'm referring to an article printed in the Washington Post, New York Times, and San Francisco Chronicle today titled, "Study finds happiness is infectious."
This is a newspaper report about one research study, but is nonetheless interesting (perhaps provocative). Check it out, even if you're feeling happy:
This is a newspaper report about one research study, but is nonetheless interesting (perhaps provocative). Check it out, even if you're feeling happy:
Wednesday, December 3, 2008
malcolm gladwell
Malcolm Gladwell writes for the New Yorker and has also written a few books over the past years, the most famous being The Tipping Point. Below is a 17 minute video where he discusses human potential. It may have some interesting nuggets in it for you to consider. Optional viewing.
"Pop sociologist and best-selling author Malcolm Gladwell has honed in on a profound new question: what separates extraordinary and average people? Discussing findings from his much-anticipated book Outliers, Gladwell details how we're squandering human potential everywhere from the football field to the classroom - and what we can do to change it."
Saturday, November 22, 2008
harvey milk tour
I've provided a link for downloading the Harvey Milk audio tour released yesterday. I heard about this on the KCBS radio station. You can find out a bit more by visiting the Inside Stories website. The package includes a flyer about the tour, the Castro tour map, and the 71 minute audio MP3.
This is a great idea, and relatively simple for some of you to create for yourselves in some instances. Beyond have a compelling idea (admittedly the hard part), then you need good audio and one or two pages of printouts. Yet this can be an extremely effective way to create a learning experience for some types of learners. History, social sciences, politics, and other areas of learning could be enhanced using this type of learning experience. Hmm . . . maybe I'll try creating a mini-tour of a small portion of Paris this winter!
This is a great idea, and relatively simple for some of you to create for yourselves in some instances. Beyond have a compelling idea (admittedly the hard part), then you need good audio and one or two pages of printouts. Yet this can be an extremely effective way to create a learning experience for some types of learners. History, social sciences, politics, and other areas of learning could be enhanced using this type of learning experience. Hmm . . . maybe I'll try creating a mini-tour of a small portion of Paris this winter!
Saturday, November 15, 2008
e-learn conference
I leave on Monday morning for the E-Learn conference held this year in Las Vegas. Last year the conference was in Quebec City, Quebec, Canada which was stunningly beautiful. This time around I'll probably just hang out at the conference full time (slot machines, cards, and lounge singers bore me). Here's the two presentations:
Why is all of this important to you? Mainly it's important that you understand I won't be around until Friday. If you post a comment or send me an email then I may be able to respond before Friday. But maybe not. I have no idea what my internet connection will be like at the conference hotel, nor how engrossing the conference itself will be. However, I look forward to seeing all of your smiling faces about a week from now!
Mitchell, M. & Prion, S. (2008, November). e-Seminars: Outcomes and scaffolding. Presentation at the E-Learn World Conference on E-Learning in Corporate, Government, Healthcare, & Higher Education. Las Vegas, NV.
Prion, S. & Mitchell, M. (2008, November). Audiobooks and cognitive load. Presentation at the E-Learn World Conference on E-Learning in Corporate, Government, Healthcare, & Higher Education. Las Vegas, NV.
Prion, S. & Mitchell, M. (2008, November). Audiobooks and cognitive load. Presentation at the E-Learn World Conference on E-Learning in Corporate, Government, Healthcare, & Higher Education. Las Vegas, NV.
Why is all of this important to you? Mainly it's important that you understand I won't be around until Friday. If you post a comment or send me an email then I may be able to respond before Friday. But maybe not. I have no idea what my internet connection will be like at the conference hotel, nor how engrossing the conference itself will be. However, I look forward to seeing all of your smiling faces about a week from now!
Friday, November 7, 2008
bonus motivation readings
Educational Psychologist is a great journal that provides research syntheses summarizing and interpreting a body of research. Over the past 12 months that journal has published two things that may be of special interest to some of you:
The Summer 2008 issue contained an article titled: How does motivation develop and why does it change? Reframing motivation research written by Julianne Turner and Helen Patrick. This is an interesting piece definitely worth a read.
The Fall 2007 issue was completely devoted to the theme of: Motivation at School: Interventions that Work. That issue contains 7 articles.
I've provided a link below where you can download the Turner & Patrick article, plus all 7 articles from the special issue on motivation. These are offered as an optional only download.
The Summer 2008 issue contained an article titled: How does motivation develop and why does it change? Reframing motivation research written by Julianne Turner and Helen Patrick. This is an interesting piece definitely worth a read.
The Fall 2007 issue was completely devoted to the theme of: Motivation at School: Interventions that Work. That issue contains 7 articles.
I've provided a link below where you can download the Turner & Patrick article, plus all 7 articles from the special issue on motivation. These are offered as an optional only download.
Wednesday, November 5, 2008
department website
The L&I department website has had a few important additions over the past few weeks including:
- Descriptions of the Spring 2009 semester courses
- Scholarly Travel Awards competition
- APA Style help
- AERA
Tuesday, November 4, 2008
voting day
Talk about motivation on a large scale! When I walked out my house to get coffee this morning, our local voting precinct had a line around the corner. Okay, it was only about 50 people long, but given that there are lots of voting precincts in San Francisco (there are about 5 within three blocks of my home), and given that I've seen this particular location every voting day for the past fifteen years, I "can assure you my friends" that the line today was much much much longer than I've ever seen before.
Unfortunately someone didn't seem to get the news. Check out this video (courtesy of Jozsef):
Unfortunately someone didn't seem to get the news. Check out this video (courtesy of Jozsef):
Monday, November 3, 2008
getting writey, getting motivated
Steven Colbert isn't the only one who can make up words! Writey is when you get into that smooth flow of writing and brainstorming: at that point you feel writey instead of blocky. Okay, work with me on this.
Seriously, the writing retreat I just went on was wonderful. Fourteen faculty from the School of Education and Nursing staying up in a retreat area on the north coast. It was beautiful, even with the rain. More importantly it was inspiring to be with a group of people who were all working on refining their research writing, or on developing new research projects.
The new study I brainstormed and fleshed out combines audiobooks, cognitive load (extraneous, intrinsic, and germane), and statistics (standard deviation) to create an experimental design for testing out an emerging theory of audiobook learning packages that Dr. Prion and I have been working on. So between the great colleagues, the scenery, the deer, and the seagulls, the design of the new study took shape. A visual hint of what it aims at is provided below. For those of you whose hearts flutter at the sight of a 2x2 ANOVA, you'll especially appreciate the design.
Images and flippancy aside, being able to have quality time to work on a central aspect of your job (writing) is a great gift. Of course, it wasn't just time: it was also the ideas and camaraderie of colleagues.
This semester we started this course with the theory of self-determination. The theory posited that there are three essential needs: competence, autonomy, and relatedness. All three were met in spades at this retreat. Faculty certainly need to find ways to better motivate student learning. But institutions also need to find ways to support and enhance the intrinsic motivation of their educators. In this way institutions can renew the natural enthusiasm and commitment for education that their faculty always had, but sometimes gets lost, in the ebb and flow of managing our daily lives.
Seriously, the writing retreat I just went on was wonderful. Fourteen faculty from the School of Education and Nursing staying up in a retreat area on the north coast. It was beautiful, even with the rain. More importantly it was inspiring to be with a group of people who were all working on refining their research writing, or on developing new research projects.
The new study I brainstormed and fleshed out combines audiobooks, cognitive load (extraneous, intrinsic, and germane), and statistics (standard deviation) to create an experimental design for testing out an emerging theory of audiobook learning packages that Dr. Prion and I have been working on. So between the great colleagues, the scenery, the deer, and the seagulls, the design of the new study took shape. A visual hint of what it aims at is provided below. For those of you whose hearts flutter at the sight of a 2x2 ANOVA, you'll especially appreciate the design.
Images and flippancy aside, being able to have quality time to work on a central aspect of your job (writing) is a great gift. Of course, it wasn't just time: it was also the ideas and camaraderie of colleagues.
This semester we started this course with the theory of self-determination. The theory posited that there are three essential needs: competence, autonomy, and relatedness. All three were met in spades at this retreat. Faculty certainly need to find ways to better motivate student learning. But institutions also need to find ways to support and enhance the intrinsic motivation of their educators. In this way institutions can renew the natural enthusiasm and commitment for education that their faculty always had, but sometimes gets lost, in the ebb and flow of managing our daily lives.
Friday, October 31, 2008
incognito
I leave today for a three-day writing retreat sponsored by the School of Education at USF. The retreat is in a remote location and I won't have access to email or the web. If you post a new research review at your group blog, please go ahead and also email me the article PDF. I will add the PDF link to your review sometime on Monday. Any questions or issues that arise will also be answered sometime on Monday. Have a great scary weekend!
Wednesday, October 15, 2008
gleeson adds great new feature
I just learned about a new feature Gleeson Library at USF has added to its online functionality.
In essence this new feature allows you to identify books you'd like to check out and then have them ready for you to pick up at the Gleeson Library front desk. (If you're a USF faculty member then they'll actually mail the books to your school's mailroom.) This new feature is in pilot-testing mode right now. Here's how it works:
Once you've clicked on the request button then you'll see the following screen:
For some of you this new service could be a major time saver. Those crafty folks at Gleeson keep coming up with great ideas.
In essence this new feature allows you to identify books you'd like to check out and then have them ready for you to pick up at the Gleeson Library front desk. (If you're a USF faculty member then they'll actually mail the books to your school's mailroom.) This new feature is in pilot-testing mode right now. Here's how it works:
Once you've clicked on the request button then you'll see the following screen:
For some of you this new service could be a major time saver. Those crafty folks at Gleeson keep coming up with great ideas.
Monday, October 13, 2008
more and better
Alonzo King and the LINES Ballet will be performing in San Francisco from October 17 through the 26th. Pharoah Sanders will be providing the live music. Those of you in the Creativity course are already aware of Alonzo King through reading two interviews I did with him.
The San Francisco Chronicle had a short interview with Alonzo in yesterday's Sunday paper. When answering one question Alonzo said, "I'm reminded of a woman whose life I admired. Near the end, people asked her, 'Would you do anything differently?' And she said, 'Just more and better.' I'm guided by those two words, more and better."
Friday, September 19, 2008
weekend treats
There's a couple of interviews I saw this week that may be of interest to some of you. The first is with Ken Robinson (whom many of you likely don't know) and the second is with Keira Knightley (whom most of you do know).
The Ken Robinson interview (23 minutes total) discusses creativity and schools. The Keira Knightly interview (just under 18 minutes) discusses, amongst other things, being terrified but still taking risks. Both of these interviews are optional only viewing.
ken robinson on riz khan
part one of the interview
part two of the interview
keira knightly on charlie rose
The Ken Robinson interview (23 minutes total) discusses creativity and schools. The Keira Knightly interview (just under 18 minutes) discusses, amongst other things, being terrified but still taking risks. Both of these interviews are optional only viewing.
ken robinson on riz khan
part one of the interview
part two of the interview
keira knightly on charlie rose
Thursday, September 18, 2008
sports night
At our class session on September 5th, I shared episode one from the old television series Sports Night. As it turns out this show will be re-issued on DVD at the end of September. The ever-delicious website Very Short List has a short (naturally) write up about the show today. Check it out if interested.
Friday, August 29, 2008
back to normal
The problem with not seeing posted comments on the main page with a blog entry has now been solved! As always, you need to click on the add a comment link to add a comment. But now you'll see all of the previously posted comments right under an entry. I think all of this makes it much easier on the eye to read the various comments people submit (e.g. see Knowledge Dig 2). The solution is boring to explain, so I won't. Just wanted you to know this feature started working again at about 3:30 p.m. on Friday.
update on weirdness
I found out yesterday that Blogger actually has changed some of their settings. This is important to you because I have behind-the-scenes software that integrates Blogger and its commenting system with my regular website pages.
The consequence of the Blogger change is that the software that "talks" to Blogger needs to be updated to address these changes. The developer is very nice and responsive and he created a new version of the software last night. Unfortunately it still doesn't work right with the new Blogger so far.
What does this mean for you? First, it means you will be able to see all the comments nicely styled on the regular webpages fairly soon again. Second, it means for some short amount of time you'll need to both create and read comments using the pop-up box activated by pressing the add a comment link at the bottom of an entry (such as that for Knowledge Dig 2).
At the worst, we should see comments in the regular way by next Wednesday. At best it may be fixed before Saturday morning.
The consequence of the Blogger change is that the software that "talks" to Blogger needs to be updated to address these changes. The developer is very nice and responsive and he created a new version of the software last night. Unfortunately it still doesn't work right with the new Blogger so far.
What does this mean for you? First, it means you will be able to see all the comments nicely styled on the regular webpages fairly soon again. Second, it means for some short amount of time you'll need to both create and read comments using the pop-up box activated by pressing the add a comment link at the bottom of an entry (such as that for Knowledge Dig 2).
At the worst, we should see comments in the regular way by next Wednesday. At best it may be fixed before Saturday morning.
Thursday, August 28, 2008
weird stuff happening
Two glitches have occurred over the past day. Glitch #1 is that the School of Ed server ended up being worked on last evening. In turn, this meant that the websites I maintain were unavailable from about 6 to 11 p.m. All seems to be running fine now.
Glitch #2 is a bit more confusing. I had set up the website so you'd see comments people made (e.g. in the Knowledge Dig 2) in the body of the page. For some reason comments are no longer showing up "inline." I have no idea why. My guess is it has to do with some change at Blogger (which is what my blog pages are connected to). I've put out feelers to tech-experts. Hopefully I'll find out more about this situation, and how to correct it soon. Realistically, though, I have no idea when this issue will be resolved. In the meantime you can still view student comments by clicking on the "make a comment" link at the bottom of an entry. It's not as pretty, or as easy to read, as the inline formatting of comments, but it still works.
Glitch #2 is a bit more confusing. I had set up the website so you'd see comments people made (e.g. in the Knowledge Dig 2) in the body of the page. For some reason comments are no longer showing up "inline." I have no idea why. My guess is it has to do with some change at Blogger (which is what my blog pages are connected to). I've put out feelers to tech-experts. Hopefully I'll find out more about this situation, and how to correct it soon. Realistically, though, I have no idea when this issue will be resolved. In the meantime you can still view student comments by clicking on the "make a comment" link at the bottom of an entry. It's not as pretty, or as easy to read, as the inline formatting of comments, but it still works.
Saturday, August 23, 2008
technology snapshot
Here's the results of the technology survey. It's based on 13 people. Our 14th person may have responded, but it would have been after the general L&I student population began submitting the survey.
Thursday, August 21, 2008
take the tech survey
I have a very short technology survey that I'd like all of you to complete before the L&I Department meeting at 1 on Saturday afternoon. It should take you less than 3 minutes.
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