They are soaking up everything your say. Art_Photo/ShutterstockWe often think of babies as blank canvases with little ability to learn during the first few weeks of life. But babies actually start processing language and speech incredibly early. Even while in the womb, they learn to discern voices, along with some speech sounds. At birth, they already prefer speech sounds over other types of non-language sounds. But exactly how the baby brain learns to process complex language sounds is still a bit of a mystery. In our recent study, published in Nature Human Behaviour, we uncovered details of this mindbogglingly speedy learning process – starting in the first few hours of birth. We collaborated with a neonatal research team in China,...
Ah, the "Twilight" saga. Has there ever been a more willfully, aggressively misunderstood cultural phenomenon? Back when the Temple Hill-produced film adaptations of the Stephenie Meyer novels were all the rage, it often seemed as though people — from film critics to media figures to online jesters — were making an active effort to ignore the elements that made the franchise so seismically successful among its target audience. "The 'Twilight' movies are cheesy," we'd hear, or, "they're fixated on lame romance," "no one in them behaves like real people," "everything in them is so soapy and over-the-top," and so on.Yes, and? At its heart, "Twilight" and its sequels were a fantasy of teen validation, films in which a young woman's...
Danai Gurira welcomes you to the winter of discontent. The royal knave she inhabits, King Richard III, lies among William Shakespeare's oeuvres of doomed regents. The nature of the real King Richard III of England (reigning for two years, 1483 to 1485) is up for historical discussion. How much does Shakespeare's text (printed around the 1590s) function as Tudor propaganda against him? This line of discourse may not apply much to this staging of "Richard III" at the Public's NYC Free Shakespeare in the Park. Director Robert O'Hara ("Slave Play") is more preoccupied with the Bard's text as an outlet to explore one royal's villainy — and entertain us.On a sparing stage of shark-finned metallic arches on a turntable (scenic...
This post shares my reflection on making asynchronous learning materials during COVID19. I taught physiology to years 1 and 2 medical students at Newcastle University Medicine Malaysia. My usual approach in the classroom is: passive – active – passive i.e. I would first clarify the concepts in which students listen passively, ask questions to push students to think actively, back to passive again, and so forth. When the pandemic hit Malaysia and the country went into complete lockdown, teachers were asked to decide if they wanted to make their teaching session synchronous or asynchronous. It was a stressful time as it was just my third year of teaching, and I still had a lot to learn about teaching. Fortunately,...
Addition and Subtraction Color by Number Worksheets to Make Math FUN Teachers, do you need addition and subtraction color by number worksheets? I have seriously got you covered. I know that your students will love them. Practicing addition and subtraction is so important to truly understand the concept. Practice makes perfect, right? BUT practicing this skill can be tedious. It’s hard to be engaged or motivated to finish a worksheet when you are bored or feel like it is tedious. These worksheets will stop all the boredom and get your kiddos EXCITED to actually work on (and complete!) these worksheets. I cannot wait to show you how FUN and ENGAGING that these activities are! Don’t forget to scroll to the...
