Beyond the Hole in the Wall: Discover the Power of Self-Organized Learning

by Sugata Mitra In 1999, educator Sugata Mitra and his colleagues cracked open a hole in a wall bordering an urban slum in New Delhi, installed a networked PC, and left it there for the local children to freely explore. What they quickly saw in their "Hole in the Wall" experiment was that kids from one of the most desperately poor areas of the world could, without instruction, quickly learn how the PC operated. The children also freely collaborated with each other, exploring the world of high-tech online connectivity with ease. It was the dawning of Mitra’s introduction to self-organized learning, and it would shape the next decade of his research. This important update on Mitra’s groundbreaking work (which provided the inspiration for the Oscar-winning film "Slumdog Millionaire") offers new research and ideas that show how self-directed learning can make kids smarter and more creative. He also provides step-by-step instruction on how to integrate it into any classroom. It’s an important lesson that could reshape our schools and reinvigorate our educational system. With a foreword by Nicholas Negroponte, founder of both MIT's Media Lab and the One Laptop per Child Association.

One World Schoolhouse: Education Reimagined

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By Salman Kahn A free, world-class education for anyone, anywhere: this is the goal of the Khan Academy, a passion project that grew from an ex-engineer and hedge funder's online tutoring sessions with his niece, who was struggling with algebra, into a worldwide phenomenon. Today millions of students, parents, and teachers use the Khan Academy's free videos and software, which have expanded to encompass nearly every conceivable subject; and Academy techniques are being employed with exciting results in a growing number of classrooms around the globe.

Counting What Counts: Reframing Education Outcomes

by Yong Zhao Overemphasizing test scores as measures of achievement is potentially harmful to education. The contributors identify key traits such as mindset, motivation, social skills, creativity, and entrepreneurial spirit that students, teachers, and schools need to acknowledge and cultivate. Educators are asked to shift the evaluation paradigm to focus on a multiplicity of skills necessary for success in the 21st century.

What Works May Hurt―Side Effects in Education

by Yong Zhao Medical products are required to disclose both their intended outcomes and known side effects. Educational policy and practice, however, carry no such labels. Thus, teachers, school leaders, and the public are not told, for example, that “this program helps improve your students’ reading scores, but it may make them hate reading forever,” or that “school choice may improve test scores of some students, but it may lead to the collapse of American public education.”

Whistling Vivaldi: How Stereotypes Affect Us and What We Can Do

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by Claude M. Steele Claude M. Steele, who has been called “one of the few great social psychologists,” offers a vivid first-person account of the research that supports his groundbreaking conclusions on stereotypes and identity. He sheds new light on American social phenomena from racial and gender gaps in test scores to the belief in the superior athletic prowess of black men, and lays out a plan for mitigating these “stereotype threats” and reshaping American identities.

Myth, Magic, and Morals

by Fred Cornwallis Conybeare Excerpt: It might be argued that evil among men is their own fault. But let Professor Sanday become a biologist and study the natural history of insects and parasitic organisms; and I question if his belief in the love and goodness of an omni potent author of nature will not be rudely put to the test. But if we reject the first article of the creeds which runs, I believe in one God the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth, and of all things visible and invisible, then we reject monistic theism. There is, as I was careful to point out, plenty of room left in the universe for loving spirits, but not for omnipotent ones.

Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion

By Robert B. Cialdini The foundational and wildly popular go-to resource for influence and persuasion—a renowned international bestseller, with over 5 million copies sold—now revised adding: new research, new insights, new examples, and online applications.

The Experience Machine: How Our Minds Predict and Shape Reality

By Andy Clark Widely acclaimed philosopher and cognitive scientist Andy Clark unpacks this provocative new theory that the brain is a powerful, dynamic prediction engine, mediating our experience of both body and world. From the most mundane experiences to the most sublime, reality as we know it is the complex synthesis of sensory information and expectation. Exploring its fascinating mechanics and remarkable implications for our lives, mental health, and society, Clark nimbly illustrates how the predictive brain sculpts all human experience. Chronic pain and mental illness are shown to involve subtle malfunctions of our unconscious predictions, pointing the way towards more effective, targeted treatments. Under renewed scrutiny, the very boundary between ourselves and the outside world dissolves, showing that we are as entangled with our environments as we are with our onboard memories, thoughts, and feelings. And perception itself is revealed to be something of a controlled hallucination.