Research on Learning and Performance
Jay Cross's Internet Time Group website. fabulous example of a blog with tons of material and information!

"Smart Schools", by David Perkins
Chap 2

shortfalls in education:
fragile knowledge
poor knowledge

FRAGILE KNOWLEDGE:
Missing knowledge - kids don't remember facts and skills they have been taught
Inert knowledge - knowledge the student retained, knew how to use it when asked, but the student does not think to use the information for problem-solving or during other activities
Naive knowledge - when students display naive (wrong) ideas about things even after having been taught otherwise, ie, why hot in summer and cold in winter. believe due to:
Ritual knowledge - refers to students who are able to articulate the "answer" that they have been taught about why the world is round as compared to flat, but because they have not had to think aboout what they were being taught, their original notion of the world being flat stayed as a fundamental truth underlying the "fact" that they had to "learn" for school.

POOR THINKING due to:
"trivial pursuit theory" or having a goal of mastering a bunch of facts and rountines
-coverage as the expense of breadth
notion that what really matters is the innate ability of the individual rather than the effort that one puts in.
this is not true. research shows that some people take longer to learn certain things, but that with effort, this is indeed possible. need an effort-centered model rather than ability-centered

"Smart Schools", by David Perkins
Chap 1

schools don't have a knowledge gap, but have a "use-of-knowledge" gap

Smart schools:
Informed - knowledgeable about human thinking and learning, school structure and collaboration
Energetic - positive energy of the teachers, students, administrators, and school culture in general
Thoughtful - sensitive to other's needs and put thinking at the center of all the happens. thinking centered.

Goal = generative knowledge:
1.retention of knowledge, or having kowledge months or years after originally learning it
2. understanding knowledge. being able to know when and how to use the information that you know
3. active use of knowledge. putting knowledge to work on other related things. application.

Retention, understanding, and active use of knowledge has not been achievable by the bulk of schools, because THOUGHTFUL LEARNING has not been implemented.

thinking comes BEFORE knowledge. true learning comes about when we think about and with the content that we are learning.
analyze what we are learning, find patterns in it, relate it to knowledge we already have. CONSTRUCTIVISM.

John Dewey - understanding or comprehension are grasped in their relations to one another. requires constant reflection upon the meaning of what is studied.

To Know as We are Known: Education as a Spiritual Journey, by Parker J. Palmer
Preface
education currently suffers from "pain of disconnection". spiritual traditions offer possibility for reconnection.
"To teach is to create a space in which the community of truth is practiced." community is central to:
1. nature of realitiy (ontology)
2. how we know reality (epistemology)
3. how we teach and learn (pedagogy)
4. how education forms or deforms our lives in the world (ethics)

vision of communal classroom in which students learn by interacting wtih subject and each other leads to ethical education.