It’s been another wonderful and eventful year. Thank you for all your amazing support.

We just now finalized the updates to our 11 Conceptual Academy self-study courses. A lot of under the hood updates from our developer providing added stability to the platform as well as some important ADA accessibility tools. But perhaps the biggest update has to do with the many new video lessons we have recently posted: about 100 of them, mostly in the physics chapters.

Why is this significant? It’s been our long term goal to have a video lesson for every chapter section of every one of our conceptual textbook titles. To get there, we’ll need about 900 videos lessons, each of them integrating closely with and complementing (not replacing) the textbook paragraphs. As of this writing, we stand at about 650. So, only 250 more to go!

Keep in mind, what we’re doing here is akin to building a pyramid. It’s not something that gets built in a day. Rather, it’s a life-long career endeavor for each of us co-authors. Our production rate is getting faster and it’s exciting to know we’re on target for getting to the top within a couple years. And when that happens, we’ll will finally have our Conceptual Biology course in place. Yahoo! Thank you for your patience. And thank you for helping to pay it forward along the way.

Aside from being populated with new content, the 2019-2020 Conceptual Academy grade book now also tracks student scores by unit. For the homeschool, this will help you in having more regular assessments. Please read your course teacher’s manual to learn more about working with the Conceptual Academy point system. And that manual now also includes a log sheet to help you keep track of your student’s progress.

And thanks to an enthusiastic homeschooler for recently suggesting that we include flash cards as a student tool for practicing science vocabulary. We managed to build those for all of our chemistry courses. And they’re really fun. You can see them in our sample chemistry course. Navigate to the last video of a chapter, et. voila. We hope to have them for Conceptual Physics next, followed by the other courses. Again, these things take time. 🙂

And it would be negligent of me not to mention the new Conceptual Academy Big Picture Podcast series. A podcast for learning science?? Absolutely, and how! Again, chemistry is getting favored as our first series. This series follows the chapters of Conceptual Chemistry, but also explores chemistry in the community and has an early focus on the science of learning. The show notes are hosted at ConceptualScience.com/podcasts, which is our support site for college, high school, and co-op instructors.

Just so you know, as of this writing, about 40 colleges across the country and beyond are now using Conceptual Academy for their introductory science courses. Plus, about 20 high schools too. Meanwhile, there are about 650 homeschools now onboard within this growing Conceptual Academy community. I think it’s fair to say that homeschools lead the way in may respects. Our great thanks and appreciation to you.

Except, I need to mention an interaction we had with one homeschool dad. He was so very mad at us. Why was he so mad at us? He was mad because of how difficult it was for him to find us. Then, the more he learned about us, the madder he got! In his words:

“When it comes to real and substantial science courses for high school homeschools, there is a vast ocean of nothing. Please do what you can to become more visible. You are an island of treasure within that vast ocean. Hard to find. A few light houses pointing the way would be greatly appreciated.”

We’re trying, we really are. At issue is that we’re teachers and not marketing people. That said, we have made some important recent connections, and, yes, we just paid a hefty bill to a marketing firm for some serious help. But the truth is, these things take time. Our pyramid is getting taller and hopefully more visible. Thank you for also helping to let others know exactly where we are.

Good chemistry,

John

P.S. We find the quickest way to describe our work to people is to point them to our recently updated Conceptual Academy YouTube Channel where we post a small portion of our videos for the general public. And some how, our moon video is approaching a million views. 🙂

The post Summer 2019 Updates! appeared first on Learn Science.

• Biology Videos! Courtesy of our biology co-authors our biology video program is off the ground and flying. These videos are specifically for our integrate science courses, but they will lay the foundation for a Conceptual Biology course we anticipate releasing for the 2019-2020 school year. Stay tuned!

• At-Home Chemistry Labs! Look to our labs page here at LearnScience.Academy and you’ll see we have the “Beyond the Lab” manual for physics, courtesy of Stephanie Blake of Ozarks College in Missouri. The equipment for performing these meaningful labs is available within your household or a local discount store. For this upcoming 2018-2019 school year we have a similar manual featuring chemistry labs, courtesy of Brandon Burnett of Weber State University in Utah. Just like Stephanie’s manual, very affordable: Free! Though a small contribution to help pay it forward is greatly appreciated.

• Support for Co-ops! We recently built a support site very similar to LearnScience.Academy, but dedicated to the high school instructor working with a group of students on an “instructor-led” Conceptual Academy course. This site is: ConceptualScience.com. Fancy domain name. 🙂

• Homework Practice Sessions! Oh boy, there so much to talk about here. Briefly, this summer we’re launching a novel “encouragement-based” automated homework system. We created a new page here at LSA for the full description. One thing not mentioned on that page is as follows:

We are  big fans of team-based learning. What we are releasing this summer is the Homework Practice Sessions – Phase 1. This was built with an architecture that will accommodate Phase 2 to be released summer 2019. With Phase 2, students will be able to work together in teams of 5 members or less, in real-time, on a single Homework Practice Session. The short answer question of Phase 1, will be transformed to a forum where students can discuss with each other a possible answer before ever seeing the multiple choice version, which they will then subsequently vote upon. Team-based learning! What this means is that a homeschool student from Texas can work on an HPS with another homeschool student in, say, Oregon, and another in North Carolina, provided they are signed up for the same Conceptual Academy course and are close together in their progress through the syllabus.

From all your past support, Phase 1 of the HPS is now a reality and a super addition to all our Conceptual Academy courses for the 2018-2019 academic year. With your continued support we look forward to having our dream of Phase 2 in place by summer  2019. Thank you!

Of course, please write to us directly to Support@ConceptualAcademy.com for any questions you may have. We look forward to hearing from you.

Good chemistry,

John

P.S. A shout out to my fantastic students at Weber State University some of whom you see in the image of this blog. As per my summer 2017 blog, note how once again there are zero students facing my way during our “lecture”. How awesome is that. 🙂

The post Summer 2018 Updates! appeared first on Learn Science.

OK, so what does this have to do with your homeschooling efforts? We imagine what we say in this handbook is already deeply ingrained within you, especially the bit on a “culture of learning”, which is likely one of your top reasons for homeschooling. But just as you found deficiencies in traditional high school approaches, sadly, you will likely find those same deficiencies within traditional college approaches. Ouch! What we’re wanting to underscore here is that not all colleges are  equal. Selective colleges will more likely have that all-important “culture of learning” simply because that’s were the more motivated students are enrolling. Yet, these colleges are also $$$$. Double ouch!! The good news is that more affordable colleges are now catching on. And this is what you need to be looking for in your campus visits. You’ll feel it in your bones. . .the extent to which a particular college is able to nurture a culture of leaning with the students who attend.

Our mantra here at Conceptual Academy is being there to help all colleges move in this direction. We know from experience that a strong culture of learning can be achieved with students of all abilities. Mental acuity helps but it’s not the main ingredient. As you well know, the main ingredient to a strong culture of learning is love—love for oneself, love for one’s family, and love for one’s neighbors. That’s good chemistry. 🙂

So put on your short list any college that recognizes these following six points to optimizing the precious time students and instructors spend together.

Six Points to Optimizing Class Time

1. Learning From Sports

An effective athletic coach provides instruction on how to work the game or how to execute a particular play. But this coach also nurtures a team spirit—a sense of community through which the athletes respond by willingly exerting themselves to the best of their abilities. In nurturing this community, the coach understands our social nature. We love being involved, playing a role, contributing to the team, and celebrating victory together in a shared meaningful experience.

If this is possible within athletics, it should also be possible within academics where the parameters are much the same: a body of students gathering regularly under the expert guidance of an experienced adult. A main difference is that the challenges faced within academics are more mental than physical. Yet another difference is expectations. While an athlete arrives to each session expecting both instruction and practice, the typical student arrives to each class expecting only instruction. An athletic coach who followed a formula of “instruction together and practice on your own” would be held liable for a losing season. There is much to learn from the sports model.

2. A Culture of Learning

Within a culture of learning, students work as a community supporting each other in their learning tasks. They do so under the expert guidance of the course instructor, who provides not only the structure for each meeting but also an atmosphere where students feel safe and relaxed. The instructor pushes the envelope academically. Mistakes are encouraged as are common courtesy and team work. Students arrive to class having already studied the material. During class students then have the opportunity to articulate what they think they understand. Corrections are provided by peers as well as the instructor. A culture of learning is as enjoyable as it is rewarding. In a culture of learning, everyone benefits.

A culture of learning supports our deepest wishes for our students. On the academic side, we wish for our students to gain a deeper understanding of how the world works and what difference this makes to our everyday lives. Through this, students strengthen their analytical and critical thinking skills. On the social side, we want our students to grow into knowledgeable, articulate, well-adjusted, and happy individuals who are able to support themselves and a family while also contributing to society at large.

3. Initiating a Culture of Learning

A culture of learning can be developed regardless of student abilities and also regardless of class size. How long it takes for that culture to develop for a particular class depends upon many variables. In all cases, the development must begin on day one with clear explanations for why a culture of learning is being created and explicit guidelines for how it will be implemented. Students who are unfamiliar with this approach may resist, especially millennials who prefer texting over face-to-face interactions. However, mid-way through the semester these students will begin to realize the benefits, which include improved social skills, more enthusiasm, as well as better exam scores. By the end of the semester, the students are embracing the format, as is evidenced by course evaluations.

4. A Typical Class

Students work on their reading, video, and homework assignments before coming to class. Ideally, there is a point system that provides students credit for doing so. These may be points students earn before coming to class, such as through Conceptual Academy. They may also be points that students collect from a quiz at the start of class. To be on target, about 70% of students should be showing up to class having already studied the material. This is quite possible to achieve, but it requires constant pressure, especially within the beginning weeks. The pressure comes in the form of points, but also in the form implementing class activities that truly take advantage of their having come to class prepared.

With this in place, the following schedule scaled to a 75 minute class period becomes possible:

• 0:00 – 0:05 Announcements
• 0:05 – 0:25 Lecture Review
• 0:25 – 1:10 Class Activities
• 1:10 – 1:15 Expectations for next class

A schedule such as this should be published within the course syllabus so that students know what to expect. They should also understand that the schedule may vary from class to class depending upon the instructor’s judgment of what will be the best use of class time for any particular subject.

5. Lecture Review

Students will show up to class having already studied the material. But by no means have they yet to master that material. Further, what they studied the previous evening is hardly on the tip of their tongues. This is where a review of the content given by the instructor is greatly appreciated and valued. This review can take many forms, including a traditional lecture. It must be emphasized to students that the presentation is only a review of what the students have already studied. Nuances and details may be left out and the focus is primarily on the more challenging concepts.

For the instructor, there can remain an urge to present all the material in lecture format. Repeating what has already been presented to the students through the textbook and online videos has benefits. A live presentation is always better than what can be provided through a textbook or video. Students will thus want the review to extend for as long as possible. The instructor may want this too and should proceed as deemed appropriate. However, this should be weighed against an understanding that the longer the lecture reviews, the less inclined students will be to come to class having already studied. Further, there is less time available for the equally and sometimes more valuable class activities.

6. Class Activities

Just because we describe some new concept to our students does not mean the students now understand that new concept. At best, any description we provide is but an introduction. However, when that introduction is given before class, we are then free to take that introduction to a deeper level of understanding. This is realized when students are provided the opportunity to articulate the new concept themselves through their own words, written or aloud, or through solving problems. Providing that opportunity within an encouraging community setting is the underlying goal of any class activity.

Class activities come in many forms. Some are quick and easy to implement. Others are more complicated. Some are more appropriate for a small class. Others work well regardless of the class size, and some are specific to an online format. In general, the most effective activities are those that rely on students working together in teams. For all activities, there needs to be sufficient time allotted for a follow-up presentation of correct answers or explanations to questions given within that activity. This is key for addressing student misconceptions.

The development of a culture of learning occurs primarily during the “class activity” segment of each class period. Within this, time for practice is provided as a complement to instruction. Instruction also occurs during this time as needed, but the focus remains on practice. Over the full class period, key is finding an optimal balance between the two. Just as there is missed opportunity in a classroom focused 100% on lecture, there is also missed opportunity in a classroom focused 100% on activities. How much is done on one or the other will vary significantly based upon the content as well as the instructor’s available time and energy for planning such activities. If within course evaluations, students rate class time as anywhere from 30% to 70% lecture, then they will likely also be rating the course as a valuable experience. Let’s be clear: athletes as well as students require both instruction and practice. Further, instruction and practice are best accomplished under the expert guidance of the course instructor within an empowering culture of learning.

There is a wealth of class activities that can be implemented for any particular subject. You may already have your own favorite activities, but are looking for some new ideas to adapt for your particular situation. This handbook is a compendium of ideas we conceptual authors have found work well. Of course, you’ll find even more ideas through regional and national conferences. We also provide some references for print and online resources. You’ll also want to tap your colleagues at your campus. A culture of learning among students is greatly supported when there is also a culture of teaching among instructors.

Again for emphasis: A culture of learning supports our deepest wishes for our students. On the academic side, we wish for our students to gain a deeper understanding of how the world works and what difference this makes to our everyday lives. Through this, students strengthen their analytical and critical thinking skills. On the social side, we want our students to grow into knowledgeable, articulate, well-adjusted, and happy individuals who are able to support themselves and a family while also contributing to society at large.

We are hopeful you will find the resources within this handbook to be of great benefit to your teaching efforts. Please let us know how we might be of any further assistance.

The post Six Points to Optimizing Class Time appeared first on Learn Science.

I’m excited to announce we just finished updating all our courses for the 2017-2018 academic year. In addition to a new batch of video lessons for each course, this also includes more Practice Page worksheets, Next-Time Questions, as well as revised comments from us on each FYI page (From Your Instructor). For those of you who don’t know, an FYI page is where we offer our detailed study advice to the student for each lesson. You’ll also now find embedded PhET simulations within many of the FYI pages. These are a definite student favorite. . .and they’re a great learning tool too!

Notably, our integrated science courses are now fully developed, except for still being a bit shy on the biology video lesson. But we’re still working on that and have provided some key resources to make up for this.

But perhaps most significant are the lab activities we now have developed for each course. But wait, there’s more! Each of these lab activities can be accomplished using materials readily available in your household or at a discount store. Kudos extended to our colleague Stephanie Blake of Ozarks Tech College in Springfield, MO. She’s the one who led us and will continue to lead us on this charge. She’s been teaching physics online for many years. Her passion is developing meaningful and exciting labs that her students perform at home without having to pay an arm and a leg for a mail-order lab kit. Together we have adapted her labs to our self-study courses and they are all the better for it. Actually, much better 🙂

In that spirit, we also collated labs from our own lab manuals and embedded them within each of our courses. Which labs? The ones that are not only our favorite but that can be accomplished using household materials. So with this 2017-2018 update, we’ve got you covered when it comes to labs.

A few caveats: We included many of these labs within our chemistry courses. But for our chemistry courses, we still recommend the eScience Lab kits. For our Conceptual Physics course, you will be able to download all of Stephanie’s physics labs right from this website, LearnScience.Academy. Soon to be posted (as of this writing) her physics labs will be a free download. But I insisted to Stephanie that she provide homeschools the option of “paying it forward” with a requested contribution of $15 for each download.

On a side note: Stephanie is also a biologist! We’re looking forward to Stephanie’s biology video tutorials, which we’ll be posting as fast as she and her daughter (a multimedia producer) can crank them out over the next year and beyond. Thank you Stephanie!!

And from all of your feedback, I came to realize the importance of creating a users manual for each course. You’ll find this manual posted for each course here at LSA, as well as in the first FYI page within your Conceptual Academy course. Each manual, for example, will tell you exactly how the labs are set up for that course. The manual will also address any questions you might have about what a typical week might look like and how to grade your student’s work. We also dig into our teaching philosophies.

Concurrent to all this development with our homeschool self-study courses, we’re also making some great progress with colleges. Last year at this time we had about eight campuses on board. For this coming fall semester we have twenty!! Behind this remarkable growth is a growing recognition of the value of “active learning” at the college level. This is what Conceptual Academy does for the college instructor: Students can go home for their lectures (at CA) and come to class to study under the expert guidance of the course instructor. Gone are the days when all the instructor does in class is lecture, lecture, lecture.

Actually, that’s a bit of fantasy there. We find that many of college instructors, especially in science, are still holding to the 20^th century lecture-only model. Our mission is to change that. To show them what is possible. And to provide them the tools so they are empowered to actually move in this direction.

We understand that within a home school environment, your students have such key advantages. Yours are students who are ready to rock n roll truly helping to make this world a better place. But of course there are many students like this in public and private schools too. Imagine the heartbreak of such students heading to a college where they are piled together into a large auditorium merely to listen to knowledgeable professor pontificate. Never to take advantage of the fact that they could be working in class with their classmates under the direction of the instructor on problem-solving, hands-on activities, and articulating that which they think they understand. . .like the ultimate study session. This is what we support here at Conceptual Academy. We are excited to see such growth over the past year. But we know we still have a long ways to go.

By the time your student heads to the college of their choice, our hope of hopes is they’ll be able to find a campus where active learning in the classroom is the number one criterion placed upon the instructor for promotion or tenure. Our education system deserves no less.

I found myself teaching at Texas Tech in Lubbock, TX, last fall semester, 2016. Those are my students in the above photo. Notice they’re not listening to me, but interacting with each other. 🙂 What an experience that was. I had some 300 students. Imagine active learning in a classroom of 300! It was intense work, but we had a blast and much was learned by all, myself included. I’m still getting emails of appreciation from those super friendly students of West Texas. Wow! As a traveling instructor, this coming fall semester (2017) I’ll be teaching a class of “only” 150 students at Weber State in Ogden, UT. I’m chomping at the bit to apply all the teaching techniques we developed down at TT for a class only half the size.

How is it that I teach at different campuses? These are campuses where our textbooks are used. It’s an honor to accept their invitations. What I learn from each campus helps us in crafting our curriculum. It’s also a prime opportunity to “show” a department what active learning can look like for their particular students, rather than just telling them about it. Really, it’s so much easier to simply lecture. Active learning can be a tough sell for a department, but once they see the results, there’s no looking back.

So let me end this blog the way I started it: with a big thank you. Thank you for all your support. Please let us know how your Conceptual Academy course is working for you. Your feedback is key to helping to keep our curriculum top notch, which is exactly what every student deserves.

Good chemistry

John

The post Summer 2017 Updates! appeared first on Learn Science.

For this blog, I’m here to elaborate on this second half of the higher education problem, which is rooted in the continued use of teaching methods poorly matched to how we humans actually learn. So, I begin with a brief discussion on learning, which you’ll find blatantly obvious, yet widely unrecognized. You can read more about these ideas on learning in my earlier blogs. So I present them here as a refresher. Ready?

There are two steps to learning. The first step is an input process where the student passively absorbs information. First step resources include textbooks, lectures, and videos. The second step is an output process where students try to articulate what they think they learned from the first step. Second step activities include group discussions, homework, and even exams when implemented appropriately. Both steps 1 and 2 are vital for learning to be durable. But there’s a problem: Step 1 can lead to a “warm fuzzy of understanding”. Carefully crafted textbook paragraphs and elegant lectures are almost a disservice. After reading or listening to these slick presentations, the student is lulled into a false sense of having learned the material. As a result, step 2 gets short changed as an “unnecessary bother”.

If you want to be a good basketball player, you’ve got to do much more than watch from the sidelines. You’ve got to play. Watching the game is step 1. Playing the game is step 2. Whether it’s learning a sport or learning chemistry, it’s all the same. There are two steps to learning. Both steps are important, but the second step requires more effort—much more effort. No one, not even the “smart” student, gets through step 2 easily.

The main issue is that a solid step 1 effort makes you feel pretty good—to the point you dismiss the more exhausting step 2. When it comes to learning, guess where students typically stop? When it comes to higher education, guess where many professors typically stop? They might say: “It’s the students responsibility to do the homework. If they’re too lazy to do the homework, that’s their problem.”

Therein lies the unfortunate difference between many a college professor and a coach. Imagine a coach demonstrating repeatedly exactly how to throw the ball, followed by: “Got that? Good. Now go home and practice.” That’s improper in both sports and academics.

A major ill of higher education has been its continued emphasis on seeing students as blank slates upon which information should be written. The primary focus is on content delivery rather than helping students through the process of learning that content. For these toughest challenges, students remain on their own.

In the age of smart phones this approach is folly, especially given the great need for graduates with good thinking skills. Yet many professors still rely primarily on class lectures. Lectures are important. But they no longer need be given in class. A far better use of class time is to leave the speaking to students who practice teaching each other in small teams. Master instructors know that the best way to teach is to listen, while the best way to learn is to teach.

The role of content delivery is now squarely in the corner of Google and Apple. If college is only about delivering content, why pay sky-high tuition? It’s simple economics. What happens to a product whose perceived value goes down while its price tag goes up?

That’s a problem. Knowing this, the solution is clear: Let students go home for their lectures online (step 1) and come to class to study (step 2) with peers under the expert guidance of the course instructor.

Controlled experiments, such as those conducted by Nobel Laureate Carl Wieman, reveal the active classroom model works quite well, improving learning and exam scores not just for a select few, but for all students.

Bare in mind, this model is a natural return to the age-old practice of apprenticeship. We humans learn best by doing. No mystery there. No mystery either that we humans work best with a coach to guide and inspire us through the hurdles.

We need resources that help instructors move toward this model, commonly called the “flipped classroom”. For step 1, textbooks have developed nicely over the years. There is still a great shortage, however, of high quality online lecture programs that complement the textbook in a cohesive curriculum. This has been a major hold up.

For step 2 class activities, professors need to leverage their expertise not just in content but in helping students learn that content. With a dose of creativity and a willingness to experiment and to collaborate with other like-minded instructors, there is much that can be done in class to keep the students actively engaged and held to task.

Step 2 learning is never easy. But if the goal is to help students learn and, further, to help students learn how to learn, then a movement in this direction is imperative. Colleges pushing themselves in this direction will be the ones that survive.

The post College Affordability Is Only Half the Problem appeared first on Learn Science.

1. All Learning Requires Effort
To begin, we need to push back any ideas we might have about being limited in our ability to learn. An exceptional set of “smart” genes is not required for any healthy individual to achieve mastery in any chosen field. What IS required is effort. This includes down-to-Earth self-discipline and persistence. Cognitive science tells us that these exertions change the brain’s structure creating new connections and capabilities. Importantly, learning builds upon itself, so the more you learn, the more you can learn. We each have great potential. What matters most is the degree to which we are inspired to develop this potential.

2. Kinds of Memory
Broadly speaking, we have two kinds of memory: short and long, each held at a different location in the brain. Short-term memory, often referred to as “working memory”, is your capacity to hold onto ideas and relationships within an immediate time frame. Most all of us are severely limited in our short-term memory, which is leaky by design. This is to say it’s not a fault that your short-term memory is limited. Rather it’s a feature. We live in the now. We always have. And we always will. It’s easier to make sense of the now without the distractions of the zillion things that have happened in the past and the zillion things that could happen in the future.

Aside from a good sleep and general health, there’s not much any of us can do to increase our short-term working memory. But this should not be of concern. The size of one’s working memory is pale in comparison to the capacity of one’s long-term memory. 
Long-term memory is that reservoir of knowledge and skills residing outside our conscious thought. While short-term memory is limited (by design), our potential for building long-term memories is substantial, if not boundless.

When we talk about learning, we’re talking about consolidating information that passes through short-term memory into that huge reservoir of long-term memory. Consolidation has its beginnings as you are first introduced to new information. The memory, however, remains tenuous unless you start to work with that information, which can include articulating that information in your own words.

With learning, however, there’s much more involved than just lodging a new thought into some corner of the brain. No thought exists in a vacuum. Rather each thought is pretty well defined by all the surrounding thoughts. In addition to securing a thought to memory, you need the opportunity to build the connections between the new thought and older ones—the new idea needs to be personalized in the context of what you already know. Experience is perhaps the best avenue to the building of these connections, which is how hands-on activities and group interactions can be so effective at strengthening the your ability to learn.

3. Learning is a two-step process

1) Input of information
2) Output of information

The first step is being introduced to the material.  This is an input process that is relatively easy to accomplish. Examples include reading a textbook, attending a lecture, or watching a video lesson. This leads to a temporary view of the overarching picture. The second step is trying to express that material yourself. This is an output process that requires a significant amount of additional effort.  Examples include, solving problems related to the material or re-articulating the ideas to a friend. This leads to a nuanced, deeper, and more durable understanding of the material. All that you don’t know quickly becomes apparent. This can be uncomfortable and discouraging. It may also feel unproductive. But it’s the beginning of the path to understanding, which, for the struggling student, also leads to better exam scores.

For any learning strategy to be effective, it must encompass both steps. Furthermore, the more effective learning strategies have a stronger emphasis on the more difficult second step. It’s this second step that is the most effective in placing new information into long-term memory, and strengthening the communications between our short and long term memory banks.

Learning is not a simple process of “receive and you shall absorb”, as though we were computers. Rather, learning requires effort. This includes self-discipline and persistence. No one is exempt. That’s the hard news.

The exciting news is that within each of us there lies this massive potential.  We can become “smarter”.  In fact, as described in Make It Stick, over the past century average IQ’s have risen. As measured on standardized IQ tests, an IQ of 100 today would equal that of an IQ of 118 about 80 years ago. This increase in our overall “smartness” is attributed to improvements in nutrition as well as the fact that we live in a much more intellectually stimulating environment.

How smart you are or wish to be is less a matter of genetic destiny and more a matter of whether or not you live in a social environment that values and supports learning.  You have great potential. We all do. That’s what makes us human. We are all built to learn.

What Next?
Do you think you now “get” the above three key ideas? If so, you should be able to explain them to others. Most everyone, however, will find themselves resisting doing exactly that. Why? Because it requires effort, and sitting smug with fresh ideas placed in your mind feels so comfortable.

After you read a great novel, are you compelled to describe the details to others? Certainly not. A common excuse is that you wouldn’t want to “ruin” some one else’s experience. By remaining silent, those very details, for you, become fleeting. After a month or so, all that remains is the memory of having enjoyed the novel. For a novel, this may be fine. But when it comes to learning details that matter, such as those of art, history, mathematics, and the rules of nature (science) there’s a higher calling to have many of these details at our command throughout our lives. It becomes essential that we follow through with the second step of learning.

What next? How about actually trying to explain the above three key ideas to others? And then as a follow through, how about actually reading the full article on “How To Study Effectively” where you’ll be introduced to a list of specific techniques shown to be effective at making learning durable. Important stuff!

The post The Two Steps to Learning appeared first on Learn Science.

I’m excited to be starting up this blog here at LearnScience.Academy. I’ve been writing science textbooks and teaching science over the past three decades. There’s a lot on my mind when it comes to science education. So where do I begin? That’s easy. If there were but one message I could give to students today it would be this: passion trumps aptitude every time.

Let me elaborate just a bit. This past weekend under warm spring skies I was walking with our dear friend Timothy and his 11 year old daughter to the Burlington marathon, where my wife was performing with her Taiko ensemble and I was about to run a leg of the marathon relay race (my full marathon days are a distant past). Timothy is a well-known musician and music teacher extraordinaire. On our way to the starting line I somehow began self-deprecating my own musical abilities. “Look, John,” he said, “How can you expect to be an expert musician if you haven’t practiced like an expert musician?  There’s nothing “natural” about being an expert musician. All expert musicians practice for hours on end, day after day.”

His daughter and I then listened to his story of two students he once had. One had clear innate musical talents, the other less so. The more talented student, however, was much less enthused about putting in the effort to improve. By contrast, the “less talented” student had the passion. He really wanted it. Guess which student moved forward into a successful career in music? Here’s a clue: passion trumps aptitude.

Bottom line: it’s wonderful to have some natural aptitude. But that really doesn’t make much of a difference. In fact, it can even serve as a handicap. A “special ability” to some one who has it, is anything but special. Instead, it’s perfectly normal—relative to that person. So special ability in and of itself is not a driving force for some one to pursue that ability. What counts most is passion. OK, so we might not all begin at the same starting line. Some of us might have a head start. But life is a long glorious run, like a marathon. If you want it, if you really do, then where you start makes no difference. You still have the edge when it comes to fulfilling your dreams.

Too often students think they don’t do well in science simply because they’re not “smart enough”. They’re flat wrong. The ideas of science are accessible to any healthy individual. The real question is: What is your level of interest? If our goal is to help students learn science, then clearly the path is through helping them to develop a passion. How do we do this? It comes first from understanding exactly what science is: A window to understanding this amazing universe in which we have the privilege to be alive. In my mind, turning students onto science is as simple as opening their eyes, ears and other senses to what is right there before us. My job is but to remove any blind folds, ear plugs, or whatever, so that the universe can speak for itself. What arrives is pure music.

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