Peter Milanovic

Punished By Rewards: The Trouble with Gold Stars, Incentive Plans, A's, Praise, and Other BribesMon, 04/07/2008 - 14:28 -- adminIn this groundbreaking book, Alfie Kohn shows that while manipulating people with incentives seems to work in the short run, it is a strategy that ultimately fails and even does lasting harm. Our workplaces and classrooms will continue to decline, he argues, until we begin to question our reliance on a theory of motivation derived from laboratory animals.

The difference between the two outlooks – children who are confident and optimistic versus those w-T. Berry BrazeltonThu, 03/27/2008 - 14:03 -- adminThe difference between the two outlooks – children who are confident and optimistic versus those who expect to fail – starts to take shape in the first few years of life. Parents need to understand how their actions can help generate the confidence, the curiousity, the pleasure in learning and the understanding of limits” that help children succeed in life.

….In studying resilience-related themes.. I found was that opportunities to take chances, take res-Michael UngarThu, 03/27/2008 - 13:32 -- admin….In studying resilience-related themes.. I found was that opportunities to take chances, take responsibility for others and for yourself, were things that predict positive outcomes for kids growing up under very difficult circumstances. Yet I began to see the very same things that we know help kids get through tough situations, were actually being _denied_ kids who were in very, very good living situations, in very, very safe environments at home and in the community.

It costs Canada $2.5 billion every year for remedial education because of delayed interventions or n-Child Care Education FoundaThu, 03/27/2008 - 13:27 -- adminIt costs Canada $2.5 billion every year for remedial education because of delayed interventions or negative early experiences

If the first few years of life include support for growth in cognition, language, motor skills, adap-Martha Erickson and Karen KThu, 03/27/2008 - 13:26 -- adminIf the first few years of life include support for growth in cognition, language, motor skills, adaptive skills and social-emotional functioning, the child is more likely to succeed in school and later contribute to society.

The test of a successful education is not the amou-Sir Richard LivingstonMon, 02/18/2008 - 16:42 -- adminThe test of a successful education is not the amount of knowledge that a pupil takes away from a school, but his appetite to know and his capacity to learn. If the school sends out children with the desire for knowledge and some idea of how to acquire and use it, it will have done its work.

Learning About Learning Boosts Student Motivation and SuccessFor over 30 years, Carol Dweck has studied students’ motivation in order to find out what makes motivated students tick and she says: “Here is the most important thing I have learned: The most motivated and resilient students are not the ones who think they have a lot of fixed or innate intelligence. Instead, the most motivated and resilient students are the ones who believe that their abilities can be developed through their effort and learning”.
Read [[http://www.cea-ace.ca/pub.cfm?subsection=edu&page=onl|Dweck’s article]] for more about teaching students about learning.



No Contest: The Case Against CompetitionMon, 02/11/2008 - 12:18 -- adminNo Contest, which has been stirring up controversy since its publication in 1986, stands as the definitive critique of competition. _ No Contest_ makes a powerful case that “healthy competition” is a contradiction in terms.



Out of Our Minds: Learning to be CreativeThu, 01/31/2008 - 18:29 -- admin‘Out of Our Minds’: there is a paradox. Throughout the world, companies and organizations are trying to compete in a world of economic and technological change that is moving faster than ever. They urgently need people who are creative, innovative and flexible. Too often they can’t find them. Why is this? What’s the real problem — and what should be done about it? Out of Our Mindsanswers three vital questions for all organizations that have a serious strategic interest in creativity and innovation.



The End of Ignorance: Multiplying Our Human PotentialThu, 01/31/2008 - 16:23 -- adminThe End of Ignorance conceives of a world in which no child is left behind – a world based on the assumption that each child has the potential to be successful in every subject. John Mighton argues that by recognizing the barriers that we have experienced in our own educational development, by identifying the moment that we became disenchanted with a certain subject and forever closed ourselves off to it, we will be able to eliminate these same barriers from standing in the way of our children.

A revolutionary call for a new understanding of how people learn.

About the author


Home Is Key Indicator in Student Success: John Abbott SpeaksMon, 01/28/2008 - 17:26 -- admin
John Abbott speaks about the importance of the home in predicting educational success.

Featured in this video:
John Abbott is the President of the [[http://www.21learn.org/|21st Century Learning Initiative]], an initiative to facilitate the emergence of new approaches to learning in the United Kingdom.

The changelearning website project emerged from the collaboration of John Abbott and Heather MacTaggart, the Executive Director of [[http://classroomconnections.ca/|Classroom Connections]], a Canadian non-profit educational organization dedicated to optimizing student learning.



engaged and motivatedYoung children don’t need to be rewarded to learn… the desire to learn is natural. …And as nearly every parent of a preschooler or kindergartner will attest, they play with words and numbers and ideas, asking questions ceaselessly, with as truly intrinsic a motivation as can be imagined. As children progress through elementary school, though, their approach to learning becomes increasingly extrinsic. – Alfie Kohn



Tell Them From Me: Canadian Students Speak About Their SchoolsTell Them From Me is an assessment system that measures a wide variety of indicators of student engagement and wellness, and classroom and school climate that are known to affect learning outcomes. The anonymous survey covers areas including: perceptions of testing, involvement in sports teams and clubs, attendance, hours spent watching TV, a sense of belonging, post-graduation goals, bullying, self esteem, student anxiety and depression.



Emphasis on standards and results: (1) undermines -Alfie KohnFri, 01/18/2008 - 11:02 -- adminEmphasis on standards and results: (1) undermines students’ interest in learning, (2) makes failure seem overwhelming, (3) leads students to avoid challenging themselves, (4) reduces the quality of learning, and (5) invites students to think about how smart they are instead of how hard they tried.

Student achievement report: What do standardized tests tell us about Canadian students today?How much and how well are our children learning in school? Do they have the skills to succeed in tomorrow’s world? Parents, students, employers, and the general public all want the answer to these questions, and governments and educators have designed a range of tools for monitoring and reporting learning outcomes and performance to measure the success of our learning systems.
(Source: Canadian Council on Learning)



Do Grades Really Matter?: Mounting Evidence Suggests Grades Don't Predict SuccessA growing body of evidence suggests that grades don’t predict success. It turns out that C+ students are the ones who end up running the world. This article challenges the idea that grades tell us who we are or what we are capable of.

Read the full text of this article on the Macleans magazine website: [[http://www.macleans.ca/education/postsecondary/article.jsp?content=20070910_109139_109139| Do Grades Really Matter?]]



Mindset: The New Psychology of SuccessThu, 12/27/2007 - 14:45 -- adminA leading expert in motivation and personality psychology, Carol Dweck has discovered in more than twenty years of research that our mindset is not a minor personality quirk: it creates our whole mental world. It explains how we become optimistic or pessimistic. It shapes our goals, our attitude toward work and relationships, and how we raise our kids, ultimately predicting whether or not we will fulfill our potential. Dweck has found that everyone has one of two basic mindsets.



Students' View of Intelligence Can Help GradesIf you teach students that their intelligence can grow and increase, they do better in school says a 2007 study by psychologist Carol Dweck from Stanford University.

Related items
[[http://news-service.stanford.edu/news/2007/february7/dweck-020707.html| Read a brief report]] from the Stanford University news service on the implications of Carol Dweck’s research in this area.

View [[http://changelearning.trevortwining.com/books/mindset-new-psychology-success|Mindset: the New Psychology of Success]],Dweck’s book on the topic.



Students' View of Intelligence Can Help Grades: Carol Dweck SpeaksThu, 12/27/2007 - 14:15 -- admin
A 2007 study by psychologist Carol Dweck from Stanford University shows that if you teach students that their intelligence can grow and increase, they do better in school.

This video captures a conversation between Stanford Report writer Lisa Trei and psychologist Carol Dweck about the ways in which people’s self-theories about intelligence have a profound influence on their motivation to learn.

Related items

[[http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=7406521| Listen to an interview]] with study author psychologist Carol Dweck on the National Public Radio website.
Enter quote here


Programs at Work

Featured Video