Category: Week 3 – Anti-Teaching/Mindful Learning

Wesch begins his article by stating “Students are struggling to find meaning and significance in their education.”  Gauged by involvement and engagement. Specifically, Wesch’s students complained about buying textbooks they never open, and feeling apathetic about assigned readings. These are certainly sentiments that are commonly expressed by students in higher education, I have often felt this […]

In this week’s class, we learned about mindful learning and anti-teaching. I also learned about Wordle which looks really cool,  even though it didn’t work on my computer. I liked the  articles we read in class.  Among those, I really like Langer (2000)’s article about mindful learning, as it makes me reflect on my own … Continue reading Thoughts about mindful learning →

Yoga is a technique that one has to master and practice common or basic poses before transiting into more advanced poses. It’s best practice as a yogi to honor where you are in your practice, but know that you can work on perfecting challenging poses. Many yogis who face challenges save their issues for when they are within a group setting, which is their learning community or practicing
one-on-one with a teacher. There are a number of things to remember in practicing yoga like, being open, visualizing, being present, moving mindfully and slowly, breathing,  focusing, and letting go to name a few. When thinking of mindful learning, I think of the yoga of learning. In order to remember common techniques in yoga, you need to have repeated exposure to those techniques and practice, which is much like learning.

Cramming for a yoga class provides no long-term benefit and neither does cramming for a test/exam, the information is only stored for a limited time and fails to produce long-term learning and retention. Yoga isn’t an easy technique to master and in order to be an effective learner, one should exercise self-regulation in dismissing external distractions and identifying new methods to increase the level of attention.

Learning isn’t meant to be simplistic or easy to some degree, a little struggle is acceptable for the learner, because when the mind has to work, learning embeds better. More effort to retrieve the learning/knowledge when struggle or challenge takes place strengthens learning by that retrieval. When I think of mindful learning, I think of capturing retrieval in which ties the knot for memory and with enough retrieval access, creates pathways/shortcuts into easily accessing that knowledge. Teachers utilize this retrieval practice through assessment, which good assessment involves instant feedback from the retrieval practice effect. So, good assessment should be the core of good informed decision-making and instruction development.  Assessment aid teachers’ classroom decisions as well as provide vital information for those particular decisions.

Learning and memory consist of practice, recall, exposure, elaboration, and sleep, which is necessary to strengthen both memory and cues over an extended time period. The brain connects concepts with prior knowledge, deciphers similarities, and differences when new information is added to existing, which links learning and recall making adaptability. Much like yoga, as we master basic poses, we move to more advanced poses, with learning as we master a specific content area we transition into the next phase, and much like teaching in order to progress students to their mastery, we have to make connections with prior knowledge to construct the foundation to new knowledge.

Learners have a sense of solidarity in their prior knowledge, lack the skills or substance, and teachers have misconceptions that hinder new knowledge being useful. Essentially, knowledge can be organized, either facilitates or impedes learning, but how one organizes the knowledge influences the learning, application and execution, so link them comprehensible. Yoga an learning involves mindful learning in retrieving knowledge and skills from experiences, which are depicted from memory. More effort is applied in the practice of delayed retrieval, which reinforces retention on being able to access those yoga poses or specific content. 

Chill Break, Enjoy 🙂

He fired off by mentioning how ironic the slogan ‘No child left behind’ since this approach is doing the exact opposite by leaving millions of children behind. According to Robinson, the proof of the inefficacy of this approach is the high dropout rates in some parts of America – 60% – and in the Native American community – 80%. … Continue reading  ‘Ken Robinson: How to escape education’s death valley’ – Ted Talk Summary

  Honestly, I agree with most of the opinion mentioned in this week’s reading. Teaching is a process of inviting. By teaching the knowledge, we are inviting the students to vigorously participating in the learning and at the same time developing their own understanding. Mindful learning requires mindful teaching and mindful textbook to open the … Continue reading Change “is” into “may be” ? Maybe…..

Before coming to Virginia Tech (VT) I used to work in a governmental agency in charge of implementing public-private partnerships (P3s) in Puerto Rico. P3s are an option for the government to seek private sector innovation and finance in what typically is publicly procured infrastructure and services. One of the projects in which I worked … Continue reading Spaces for Teaching in the 21st Century

You may be saying “what is a fistulated cow,” or you may be wondering about Socrates and cows.  In class so far, we have been discussing connected learning, and as a side note, testing, and how the culture or education relies so much on the final test grades of students as a feedback for educators. […]

The piece this week that resonated most with me was Ellen Langer’s Mindful Learning. Having been an education reporter at a daily newspaper, I am well aware of the recent arguments in favor of not teaching the “same old way” it’s always been done. Especially with the advent of No Child Left Behind, grade and high […]

  It makes me ponder when the topic was brought up in class that teachers play the role as filter in the technology infused classroom. What are the roles of teachers in the 21st century? Since everything can be googled on the internet, and students can learn by themselves through reading textbooks on kindle. It … Continue reading Some thoughts on teachers’ roles in the 21st century

I find our current standard teaching system and learning environment both counterproductive and mind numbing. Our world (e.g., culture, environment, and technology) has changed drastically in the last 1000 years, yet it appears that our typical classrooms got stuck in that era. Currently, there is a person in the front of the classroom delivering information … Continue reading Information Exploration in the Appropriate Environment is Crucial for Learning →