The recent publication of a New York Times article brought a bit more light into this well-known feeling that lingers through some of these days: Languishing. According to the author Adam Grant, "languishing is a sense of stagnation and emptiness. It feels as if you're muddling through your days, looking at your life through a foggy windshield. And it might be the dominant emotion of 2021."
Observing our peers is not only our first mode of learning, but it remains one of the most effective even in adulthood. In the social-cognitive theory of psychologist Albert Bandura, this process at the basis of human development and behaviour is called "modelling" or vicarious experience. Three steps have been identified as essential for obtaining optimal results.
"Modeling" consists of learning by observing, not simply to imitate one's model, but to go beyond it by interpreting and using the observed behaviours in a personal way. Also called "vicarious experience," this process is the basis of human development and behaviour, according to the psychologist Albert Bandura who brought it to light.
What does it mean to be an online teacher? How is a virtual classroom different from an in-person classroom? Are online teachers and in-person teachers the same people? Online teachers possess specific skills and competencies that allow their knowledge to translate effectively from a physical classroom to a digital one.
Do you think you can find the motivation and perseverance to achieve a goal if you are not convinced you can? According to the self-efficacy theory of the eminent Canadian psychologist Albert Bandura, pioneer of the social-cognitivist movement, if you have little confidence in your abilities, your chances of achieving your goals are slim.
I spent my teenage years waiting for a letter that never came—an owl-delivered offer of admission from Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. At the muggle elementary school I attended, we brewed no potions and flew no brooms. We studied basic arithmetic and practiced forming cursive letters in longhand. We learned serious subjects from serious textbooks.
Our brain is never really at rest. When it is not busy with a specific task, it can daydream or ruminate, depending on our mood, but it never stops being active. This is what neuroscientists have uncovered by discovering the functioning of its so-called "default" network, which is activated in a way that is opposite to the executive network that manages our high-level cognitive processes.
You’re in a Zoom meeting. Your posture is first-rate, and the forty-three muscles in your face are contracted to deliver an expression that’s saying, “There’s nowhere in the world I’d rather be.” We’ve all been there. And then, at the precise moment that your meeting ends, it’s as though a flip had been switched: your entire body relaxes back to its regular home-office slouch, and your facial expression returns to its neutral position. Maybe you even change back into your pyjamas.
Intelligent adaptive learning is the modern version of personalized learning whose first traces date back to the 19th century. Powered by artificial intelligence, this customized learning can tailor training to a learner's particular profile, needs and interests. Above all, it can generate in real-time the learning path that is most likely to enable the learner to achieve his or her objectives.
Occasionally, that’s what this pandemic-inspired solitude feels like: a punishment. And what’s more upsetting than a punishment for a crime you did not commit? Such are the conditions that many students and educators have endured for almost a year. It is easy to think of remote learning—specifically, remote learning that is not “voluntary”—as something of a relegation into unfamiliar educational territory.
