- Feb 2024
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Althoughmany people believe that “talent” plays a role in who becomes an expert ina particular area, even seemingly talented individuals require a great deal ofpractice in order to develop their expertise
I’ve heard a lot of people around me— especially more recently— say that talent doesn’t actually exist. There are people that maybe have a knack for it or that have a better start than others, but in the end that does not make them better. It just means they maybe got it sooner. Any skill or “talent” can be learned over time and with work.
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How? Did he developa general skill analogous to strengthening a “mental muscle?” No, what hap-pened was that he learned to use his specific background knowledge to “chunk”information into meaningful groups.
This is the sort of learning that I am actually quite familiar with! In high school, my APUSH teach also taught the psychology/sociology class. In APUSH, he would actively use the theories we discussed in psych/soc to help us learn and study for the AP exam in the spring. Pretty fascinating stuff!
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- Jan 2024
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docdrop.org docdrop.org
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I’ve come to realize that discussions set up to explore contentious issues usually benefit if certain ground rules are stated early. In addition, I need to use protocols to secure eve-ryone’s participation and to give silent processing as much promi-nence as verbal exchange. I also know that discussion leaders need to be open to critique and willing to reconsider their own assump-tions.
My first experience with teaching like this was here at IU and this topic very much reminds me of this class. The professor was always great about letting us know what exactly we were supposed to be doing and was very clear on ground rules. She was so interested in education and through the discussion set-up, she and we were able to learn from every voice in the room.
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