Gamification Simultaneous Action Selection Mechanic

Dr. Mays uses the Simultaneous Action Selection mechanic to structure his lesson. He creates two decks of cards—one with names of different cellular components (e.g., ribosomes, endoplasmic reticulum) and another with a wide assortment of cellular functions and processes. He seats students in groups of five or six and explains the rules. During each turn, one student is going to pick a card from the component deck and read it out loud. Then the other students select a card from their hand (...

 Keeping Students Motivated Using Future Rewards

Periodically remind students that their mental effort is relevant to pleasure in the near future. The younger the children, the less tolerant their brains are to activities that are not pleasurable now or expected to be so in the very near future. Fortunately, the dopamine-reward network releases motivating dopamine in expectation of pleasure. Let students know which of their enjoyable math activities will be coming up during the lesson and how what they are practicing now connects to the des...

 The Point

Behold yon miserable creature. That Point is a Being like ourselves, but confined to the non-dimensional Gulf. He is himself his own World, his own Universe; of any other than himself he can form no conception; he knows not Length, nor Breadth, nor Height, for he has had no experience of them; he has no cognizance even of the number Two; nor has he a thought of Plurality, for he is himself his One and All, being really Nothing. Yet mark his perfect self-contentment, and hence learn this lesso...

 The Unlightable Candle

Armen the Acolyte cleared his throat. “The night before an acolyte says his vows, he must stand a vigil in the vault. No lantern is permitted him, no torch, no lamp, no taper... only a candle of obsidian. He must spend the night in darkness, unless he can light that candle. Some will try. The foolish and the stubborn, those who have made a study of these so-called higher mysteries. Often they cut their fingers, for the ridges on the candles are said to be as sharp as razors. Then, with bloo...

 Reality Teaches Us

At birth one may stand at the cross-roads for only a few lal. The adjustments are peremptory. The human mechanism must adjust itself to the new world. If it does,—then life. Sometimes it is necessary to "slap" it. That is "science" giving a first lesson in adjustment. An adequate supply of oxygen for the cells of the body is the first problem man faces when he comes into this world. Every pink pill is not a piece of candy. Science goes to the rescue and re-establishes adjustments. Man tires...

 The Impact of Scientific Ignorance on Society

As a society, we walk a tightrope between limbo and extinction. We’re on a threshold of survival, in a society threatened as never before to find the way, with less and less margin for error. The decades ahead to the year 2000 and beyond, as were the decades just past, can be either interrogative, presumptuous, or insane. And we have to create our own flight plan, because this Earth didn’t come with one telling us how to get to the future safely. The winds of change are blowing across th...

 The Energy Game

My father dealth a little bit with energy and used the term after I got a little bit of the idea about it. What he would have done I know, because he did in fact essentially the same thing--though not the same example of the toy dog. He would say, "It moves because the sun is shining," if he wanted to give the same lesson. I would say "No. What has that to do with the sun shining? It moved because you wound up the springs." "And why, my friend, are you able to move to wind up this spring?" "I...