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Tag: learning

John Medina on how the human brain is not built for modern society

I love John Medina, a developmental molecular biologist and author. I have used his Brain Rules book since it was published, and have had the pleasure of attending his workshops in the past. This is a nice quick view (I mean *listen*) from NPR News that’s a great taste of his work and approach to sharing his work. For more information about John Medina and his work, check out his Brain Rules site. 🙂 What do you think about what he says about learning styles, what the human brain is optimized for and what it isn’t optimized for, classrooms, exercise…

Voting a question off the island; or, different ways to think about quizzes and exams

Given the nature of the courses I teach, I tend to use authentic projects for assessment purposes. However, because of recent conversations with students, I’ve been reconsidering my avoidance of quizzes and exams. What I have heard from students is that quizzes and exams help them gauge their acquisition and comprehension of content, which can be very helpful for formative reasons in advance of project work. These conversations spurred me to reexamine my past uses of quizzes and exams, and explore different ways of structuring quizzes and exams for formative and summative assessment needs. Philosophically, I am more interested in…