"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.
Difficulty concentrating, lack of motivation, mental wandering... Does that sound familiar? Whether these signs appear during a day or more evidently at certain times of the week, month or year, they tell us that we are in need of a break. However, our demanding lives and the performance culture that we struggle to detach ourselves from mean that we ignore them all too often and persist as best as we can in our daily tasks, whether we are a worker or a student.
Disruptive, challenging, or from some perspectives even terrifying are just a few of the labels that can easily be attached to last year's impact on our society. First and foremost, hit by what it still is a health crisis, 2020 has proven to be a problematic year with wide-ranging repercussions on many levels of our daily lives.
