Aphasia

Aphasia

Aphasia is an impairment of language ability. This class of language disorder ranges from having difficulty remembering words to being completely unable to speak, read, or write.

Acute aphasia disorders usually develop quickly as a result of head injury or stroke, and progressive forms of aphasia develop slowly from a brain tumor, infection, or dementia. The area and extent of brain damage or atrophy will determine the type of aphasia and its symptoms. Aphasia types include expressive aphasia, receptive aphasia, conduction aphasia, anomic aphasia, global aphasia, primary progressive aphasias and many others.Medical evaluations for the disorder range from clinical screenings by a neurologist to extensive tests by a Speech-Language Pathologist.

Most acute aphasia patients can recover some or most skills by working with a Speech-Language Pathologist. This rehabilitation can take two or more years and is most effective when begun quickly. Only a small minority will recover without therapy, such as those suffering a mini-stroke. Improvement varies widely, depending on the aphasia's cause, type, and severity. Recovery also depends on the patient's age, health, motivation, handedness, and educational level.

Factors of motivation

Factors of motivation!!!

Motivation, as parents and teachers know, often varies depending on the setting, the people involved, the task and the situation. A child with a learning disability may be a very reluctant reader who resists reading a science assignment or writing the homework assignment but eagerly absorb all the teacher shows about vaporization of water in a science class. The key for each learner is to find that which motivates.

Unfortunately, other factors often intervene to lessen a student’s motivation. Some of these factors are:

Fear of failure

Children can be afraid to complete work because they are afraid to make mistakes. They do not want to look foolish in front of their peers, teachers, siblings, or parents. A child with a learning disability might, for example, constantly distract the class with wonderful humor, but never complete an assignment or answer a question in class. The humor covers his reading difficulty and is a cover-up for his inability to complete his work as well as most of the students in the class.

Lack of challenge

Children can be bored with schoolwork. This may be for good reason. A gifted student may be "unmotivated" in a class that repeatedly explains a concept s/he already understands. A child with a learning disability may be bored if the material available to study a concept is written far below the child's cognitive ability. The child with LD may also be unmotivated if it is apparent that the teacher attributes a lack of potential success to the child based on the label of LD. If the teacher, in this case, does not challenge the student, the student may discern the teacher's apparent assessment of ability and simply not demand more stimulating content.

Lack of meaning

A student may simply believe that the schoolwork is not important because s/he cannot see how it relates to everyday life. This can be especially troubling for a student with LD. A student with a visual-motor problem, for example, may find it very difficult to organize math problems in order to assure the correct answer. The student always gets the problem wrong because the columns of a long addition problem get mixed up. That student knows the calculator can do the problem correctly in a second. The student is likely to see no meaning to a class on addition, division, or any other math concept.

Emotional problems

A child with an emotional problem may have difficulty learning because s/he cannot focus in class. Anxiety, fear, depression or perhaps problems related to home could interfere. Children with LD often have emotions related to the frustration of the learning disability or other related emotional patterns that limit motivation for schoolwork.

Anger

Some children use schoolwork, or lack of schoolwork, as an expression of anger towards the parents. This is often called a passive-aggressive approach. For example, if a child feels intense pressure to succeed academically, a factor the student cannot control, the student may yell or argue with the parent. Rather, low grades are earned. This is something within the student's range of control. The more the parent tries to control and structure reinforcers, the lower the grades fall.

Peace POEM

Peace(poem)

Peace flows through my heart,
and blows through me as a zephyr. 
Peace fills me like a fragrance. 
Peace runs through me like rays. 
Peace stabs the heart of noise and worries. 
Peace burns through my disquietude. 
Peace,like a globe of fire,expands and fills my omnipresence.
Peace, like an ocean,rolls on in all space.

Peace, like red blood, vitalizes the veins of my thoughts. 
Peace like a boundless aureole, encircles my body of infinity. 
Peace-flames blow through the pores of my flesh, and through all space. The perfume of peace flows over the gardens of blossoms. The wine of peace runs perpetually through the wine press of all hearts. 
Peace is the breath of stones, stars, and sages. 
Peace is the ambrosial wine of Spirit flowing from the cask of silence, Which I quaff with my countless mouths of atoms

Happiness is our choice

Choosing happiness

Do things that make you happy more often.

Do happy things… Show gratitude for the good things in life.

Focus more on the present moment to reduce fears. Save your positive experiences more to enhance your quality of life too - like enjoying every sip of a refreshing drink in great company.

Chill out...Dance to ‘Dancing Queen.’

Happiness shouldn’t be determined by what happens to us entirely, but also by the choices we make.

Making happier choices is a liberating way to live. It helps us understand that happiness is something we can all learn to control. You can find about this in a new book called 16 Happy Choices which is based on the science of happiness - it’s also an inspiring and entertaining read.

What struck me most during my research was how relatively easy it is to create positive emotions by making simple choices, such as being more kind to yourself.

Also, you can empower your happiness by becoming more self-reliant. What if I told you that there is a powerful chemical factory inside your head and you hold the keys to these happy ‘drugs’?

That you can give yourself a moderate and healthy DOSE anytime you need to, without external drugs, just by doing simple actions to release them?

D.O.S.E meaning the natural production of ‘feel-good’ brain chemicals such as:

--Dopamine (responsible for intense pleasure.)

--Oxytocin (known as the love hormone.)

--Serotonin (a natural mood enhancer.)

--Endorphins (a natural pain-killer).

All these powerful brain chemicals make us feel more alive, healthier and more enthusiastic about life.

They give us a natural high! In an online article for Psychology Today, Lissa Rankin, M.Dexamines natural alternatives for treating depression. (Of course, there may be exceptions if there is a biochemical reason for this problem. Consult your doctor, if necessary.) However, Lissa suggests we all consider lifting our moods naturally.

Lissa makes an excellent point when she states that most anti-depressant drugs like Prozac only go to boost serotonin levels anyway; so in actual fact they’re just increasing a natural chemical that exists already inside our heads.

You can choose to eat a serotonin-enhanced diet, instead. You can eat delicious fish that’s rich in omega-3, or coconut oil, or a juicy, high protein steak.

Evidently, for most people there’s a clear alternative to swallowing pills with possible side effects. You can choose to tap into natural sources of joy right inside your head, right now… and eat well into the bargain. It’s your call.
Free your mind from unhappiness; consider the natural alternative. It’s your choice. No-one else has the keys but you - and it’s totally legal. So unlock your inner doors of joy right now by making happy choices today. 

Imagery

Using Imagery

I am very verbal (not surprising!), but that doesn’t mean images, albeit not particularly vivid ones, aren’t being formed in my mind. What I find works best for me, and probably what will work best for most of you, if you’re not at the extreme ends of visualization ability, is the use of both words and images. That is, when you’re using a verbal mnemonic, aim for words that are easy to visualize; when you’re using a visual mnemonic, make sure the pictures have associated word labels, and keep them in mind while you’re imagining the picture.

Most mnemonic strategies , despite being usually described as ‘visual’ or ‘verbal’, do in fact combine both aspects, and you may emphasize the visual or the verbal aspect as suits you.

It is usually emphasized that bizarre images are remembered much better, but there is no clear evidence for this. Indeed in many studies ordinary images are remembered slightly better. One of the problems is that people usually find it harder to create bizarre images. Unless you have a natural talent for thinking up bizarre images, it is probably not worth bothering about.

Whether bizarre or not, images generally take longer to construct than verbal phrases. If you want to construct them ‘on the fly’, as you hear information in conversation or in a presentation like a lecture, then you need to have practiced the skill a great deal.

The critical point to remember is that images , and words, work well as mnemonics only to the extent that they are bound together. Thus,an image needs to be interactive — tying the bits of information tightly together.

Don’t worry if you’re not sure exactly what this means !

       Remember:

Images are effective to the extent that they link information.

Images are not inherently superior to words.

Bizarre images are not necessarily better recalled than common ones.

Effective images involve the elements interacting with each other.

Mnemonic- its Advantages

Mnemonic- its Advantages

 Any memory improving strategy can, of course, be termed a mnemonic strategy, but in its more specific meaning, mnemonic refers to artificial memory aids such as stories, rhymes, acronyms, and more complex strategies involving verbal mediators or visual imagery , such as the journey method or method of loci, the pegword method, and the keyword method.

We will get to each of these in due course, but first we need to consider the benefits and limitations of such mnemonics, and in particular when you should use them in the course of study and when you should not.

The most important thing to understand is that mnemonics do not help you understand your material. They do not help with comprehension; they do not help you make meaningful connections.

The purpose of mnemonics is simply to help you remember something — not by understanding it, not by incorporating it into your developing “expert database”, but simply in the manner of a parrot. They are used to enable you to regurgitate information.

That sounds terribly contemptuous, but if I considered there was no value in mnemonics I wouldn’t be devoting this book to them. The ability to regurgitate information on demand is undeniably a useful one — indeed, in the context of examinations, often a vital one!

Even in the context of material you need to understand, there are often details that must simply be memorized — names of things, technical words, lists of principles, and so on. Moreover, mnemonics can help you remember tags or labels that allow you to access clusters of meaningful information — for example, headings of a speech or main points for exam essays.For both these reasons, mnemonics are a valuable assistance to building up expertise in a subject, as well as in helping you ‘cram’ for an exam.

However, despite a number of studies showing the effectiveness of mnemonic strategies, these remain the least frequently used formal memory aid used by students.Perhaps the main reason for this is that their effectiveness is not intuitively obvious — truly, no one really believes that these ‘tricks’ can so remarkably improve memory until they try them for themselves.

But I can help you believe (and belief is vitally necessary if you’re going to make the effort to use, and keep on using, any memory strategy) if I explain why they work. It’s also important to understand the principles involved if you’re going to fully master these techniques — by which I mean, know when and when not to use them, and how to use them flexibly.

Mnemonics is effective

Mnemonics is effective

Let’s think about the basic principles of how memory works. The strength of memory codes, and thus the ease with which they can be found, is a function largely of repetition. (For those who haven’t read The Memory Key, let me note that I habitually refer to information encoded in memory as memory codes to emphasize that memories are not faithful and complete recordings, but highly selected and edited.) Quite simply, the more often you experience something (a word, an event, a person, anything), the stronger and more easily recalled your memory for that thing will be.

This is why the most basic memory strategy —the simplest, and the first learned —is rote repetition. Repetition is how we hold items in working memory, that is, “in mind”. When we are told a phone number and have to remember it long enough to either dial it or write it down, most of us repeat it frantically. This is because we can only hold something in working memory by keeping it active, and this is the simplest way of doing so.

Spaced repetition —repetition at intervals of time —is how we cement most of our memory codes in our long-term memory store. If you make no deliberate attempt to learn a phone number, yet use it often, you will inevitably come to know it (although how many repetitions that will take depends on several factors, including individual variability).

But most of us come to realize that repetition is not, on its own, the most effective strategy for learning, and when we deliberately wish to learn something, we generally incorporate other, more elaborative, strategies.

Why do we do that? If memory codes are strengthened by repetition, why isn’t it enough to simply repeat? Well, it is. Repetition IS enough. But it’s boring. That’s point one.

Point two is that making memory codes more easily found (which is after all the point of the exercise)is not solely achieved by making the memory codes stronger. Also important is making lots of connections. Memory codes are held in a network. We find a particular one by following a trail of linked codes. Clearly, the more trails that lead to the code you’re looking for, the more likely you are to find it.
Elaborative strategies — mnemonic strategies, organizational strategies — work on this aspect. They are designed to increase the number of links (connections) a memory code has, and therefore the number of different routes you can take to it. Thus, when we note that a lamprey is an “eel-like aquatic vertebrate with sucker mouth”, we will probably make links with eels, with fish, with the sea. If we recall that Henry I was said to have died from a surfeit of lampreys, we have made another link. Which in turn might bring in yet another link, that Ngaio Marsh once wrote a mystery entitled “A surfeit of lampreys”. And if you’ve read the book, this will be a good link, being itself rich in links. (As the earlier link would be if you happen to be knowledgeable about Henry I).

On the other hand, in the absence of any knowledge about lampreys, you could have made a mnemonic link with the word “lamp”, and imagined an eel-like fish with lamps in its eyes.

So, both types of elaborative strategy have the same goal — to increase the number of connections. But mnemonic links are weaker in the sense that they are arbitrary. Their value comes in those circumstances when either you lack the knowledge to make meaningful connections, or there is in fact no meaningful connection to be made (this is why mnemonics are so popular for vocabulary learning, and for the learning of lists and other ordered information).

Mnemonic strategies have therefore had particular success in the learning of other languages. However, if you can make a meaningful connection,that will be more effective.

For example, in Spanish the word surgir means to appear, arise. If you connect this to the word surge, from the Latin surgere, to rise, then you have a meaningful connection, and you won’t, it is clear , have much trouble when you come across the word. However, if your English vocabulary does not include the word surge, you might make instead a mnemonic connection, such as surgir sounds like sugar, so you make a mental image involving rising sugar. Now, consider each of these situations. Say you don’t come across the word again for a month. When you do, which of these connections is more likely to bring forth the correct meaning?

But of course, it is not always possible to make meaningful connections, and this is where mnemonics are so useful. Additionally, sequence is often not obviously meaningful (although it may become so when you have a deeper understanding of the subject), and mnemonics are particularly good for ordered information.

The thing to remember, however, is that you haven’t overcome the need for repetition. These strategies are adjuncts. The basic principle must always be remembered: Memory codes are made stronger by repetition. Links are made stronger by repetition. If you don’t practice the mnemonic, it won’t be remembered. The same is true for any connection, but meaningful connections are inherently stronger, so they don’t need as many repetitions.

How can free our mind?

Free your mind with imagination!!!

 Apparently some scientists did an experiment on the power of imagination with two groups of people. One group did muscle building exercises for 4 weeks, while the others just imagined doing it. Astonishingly, this last group still managed to increase their muscle strength by a whopping 22% - maybe by mentally doing bench presses or squat thrusts on a couch, perhaps?

According to the scientists involved, this is due to the neurons deep within the human brain still being used and strengthened for muscle-building instructions. Neurons are nerve cells that transmit and process information in your brain. They are extremely excitable, sending out electrical and chemical signals to other cells in your body – like the cells in your muscles - at lightening speeds.

Amazingly, your brain has around 100 billion neurons, averaging around 5'000 connections each, which is similar to having 500 trillion microprocessors wired up together in a single network. The potential combinations of these neurons firing or not, is at least 10 to the millionth power – more than all the atoms in the known universe.

Yes, your brain is truly an awesome machine, no doubt – a natural resource inside your skull right now.

Imagine harnessing its power by using your mind?

What if I told you that the fourth largest supercomputer in the world took 40 minutes to calculate a single second’s worth of brain activity?

Known as the K computer and built in Japan, this awesome machine used 1.4 million GB of RAM to carry out its most accurate simulation. In fact, believe it or not, the time it takes this supercomputer to model a second of brain activity you could sit down and watch an episode of Mad Men.

Yes - your brain is currently more powerful than any supercomputer in the world.

But before you cancel your gym membership, scientists warn us that any progress on any skill or training regime does require a good deal of physical work, beforehand.

This makes logical sense, I suppose. After all, it makes more sense that they would’ve wanted their study participants to be reasonably fit and muscular in the first place before the experiment began, right? Surely they wouldn’t pick a big couch potato for their experiment, would they?

Yes, the power of imagination must have earthly limitations.

In another study, similar test results were found with pianists. A group imagining their piano practice for two hours a day still achieved positive results in their playing abilities. The same physical changes in the brain still occurred, specifically in the motor cortex region. However, I emphasize that the participants involved were all competent pianists in the first place.

On a serious note, just think of all the things you can achieve with your willpower?

Your imaginative mind can harness the power of your natural gifts: your skills, your talents and your amazing brain. Additionally, it can do this even under the most difficult of circumstances.

Amy Purdy believes in the power of imagination. In an inspirational TED talk - called Living Beyond Limits - Amy explains how imagination allows us all to break down borders, move beyond our circumstances and make creative decisions. Borders can either stop us in our tracks or force us to be more creative in order to progress, she says.

 Amy has gone through tough challenges in life: at the age of nineteen she lost both her legs below the knee. Yet, she has persevered and accepted new challenges. Today, in her mid thirties, she is an athlete; a top ranked snowboarder in the world winning Bronze at the 2014 Paralympics. Amy has inspired many others with similar problems and co-founded an organization called Adaptive Action Sports. She’s also a best-selling author and a movie actress!

Amy believes we should all draw inspiration from life’s obstacles. Our imaginations should be ignited by them, allowing us to live beyond our perceived limitations.

The power of imagination can help unlock your true potential. As Albert Einstein once said, ‘Imagination is everything. It is the preview of life’s coming attractions.’
Why not use your imagination to make your dreams come true? 

How Technology impacts our culture

How Technology impacts our culture

Technology has a deep impact on culture and makes us reimagine the way in which human beings organise themselves and interact with each other.

A mobile phone, for instance, has helped reorder space and time, helped individuals get a unique address in life and softened the notions of hierarchy, for its now possible to reach anyone directly without any intermediate screening.

The cascading effects of mobile phones are far reaching and they well go beyond the functional advantages they offer by way of better communication.

They are not merely life-altering devices for individuals but change the nature of society in deep, albeit subtle ways.

The impact of internet is perhaps even more profound, for it helps redefine the very idea of power by giving everyone a voice; the internet is nothing more than a slightly organised babble of individual voices.

The internet allows us to communicate directly with each other, it dismantles the barriers built around informs and knowledge, and disables the very idea of scale.

And yet, because of continuous nature of innovation, we think of technology as a natural process, increasingly aligned with the idea of civilisation. By and large, we don’t think of social change caused by technology as a rupture, but as a form of progression, or in some cases, even as a regression.

For most parts, technology takes us forward into future, evoking an occasional nostalgia about the good old days when life was simpler. In most cases, the social changes caused by technology is seen as being inevitable and its impact is often underplayed. Because culture changes slowly in response to technology, we get time to absorb the technology and make them appear natural.

The structural impact of technology is often deeper than its functional footprint; it is much easier to acknowledge the advantages of a mobile phone( speaking to anyone anytime anywhere) and its disadvantages ( eats up personal time) than to recognise how it shapes ideas of identity, hierarchy and the sense of being an individual.

It is when we focus on things not invented that we can see the relationship between technology and culture more clearly. Technology produces certitude when it should also simultaneously multiply doubt. Cultures are constructed around an understanding of human capability which technology enhances And modifies. If we could, for instance, read each other’s  minds, several founding assumptions of civilisation will get dismantled, for what we call culture is an edifice built on technology called the human body.

As this technology acquires new abilities, culture needs to change. The faster, more discontinuous and fundamental the nature of change, greater is the need for culture to find ways to fill this gap. The ability of culture to change shape and reach a new equilibrium is neither inevitable nor absolute. The urge to believe in stable and continuous world makes us minimise the effects of technological change but we can’t do that forever.

How the claimed aims and outcomes were achieved by:

How the claimed aims and outcomes were achieved by:

1.the design, content and organisation of the curriculum;

2.the teaching, learning and assessment methods being used;

3.the student support and guidance measures in place;

4.the resources that are provided;

5.the ways in which the course is reviewed and renewed – the quality assurance (QA) and quality enhancement (QE) arrangements; and what evidence there was of achievement of these claims;

6.in the facts and figures of student achievement and progression.
It is important to understand how your part in the teaching process links to all other aspects of the students’ learning experience. In other words, how your teaching fits within the module, the level, the programme, the department, the university and beyond.

THE PRINCIPLE ELEMENTS OF LEARNING DESIGN!!

THE PRINCIPLE ELEMENTS OF LEARNING DESIGN!!

The principal elements that make teaching and learning possible and attainable are the teachers, the learners, and a conducive learning environment.
New lecturers, part-time teachers and graduate teaching assistants are often

required to both deliver an existing course and design their own teaching

based on a module description. But where do they start?

Underpinned by sound theory,

Designing Learning here are few tips that aims to help busy professionals design, develop and deliver a course, from module outline to effective teaching. Illustrated with useful checklists and action points, this covers the essentials of designing learning:

■supporting and promoting student learning

■matching content to outcomes

■selecting effective teaching and learning methods

■assessment that supports and promotes learning and provides feedback

■learning materials and resources for diverse learners

■tools and how to use them best

■creating an inclusive learning environment

■managing and evaluating your course

■quality enhancement and assurance processes.

consider methods and approaches for teaching and learning when there is an increasing diversity in learning and a growth in student numbers;

■encourage reflective practice and self-evaluation, and a means of developing the skills of teaching, learning and assessment; Titles in the series will prove invaluable whether they are used for self-study or as part of a formal induction programme on teaching in higher education, and will also be of relevance to teaching staff working in further education setting.

Unlimited memory - I

Unlimited Memory!! -Part I

 Introduction:
 “The great breakthrough in your life comes when you realize that you can learn anything you need to learn to accomplish any goal that you set for yourself. This means there are no limits on what you can be, have or do.” 
~ Brian Tracy

What would your life be like if you could learn and remember information easily, quickly, and effectively? Think about it.

 In this short, easy-to-read blog, I will provide you with a set of powerful memory-enhancing mindsets and skills, which will allow you to take control of your learning and your life. You will discover many amazing methods, both ancient and new, that have been modeled from the world’s best minds in the areas of accelerated learning and memory development. This book will give you information that school forgot to teach you. The approach is all about running your own brain; I believe that this can only be possible with the foundation of memory.

 Imagine if you were born without a memory. Who would you be? You would be nothing; if you don’t have a memory, you don’t have anything else. If I ask you, “Who are you?” you would immediately start rearranging memories in your mind to answer that question. Your memory is the glue that binds your life together; everything you are today is because of your amazing memory. You are a data collecting being, and your memory is where your life is lived. If you didn’t have a memory, you wouldn’t be able to learn, think, have intelligence, create, or even know how to tie your shoes. You wouldn’t be able to build experience in any field because experience is just a collection of memories after all! Only if you can remember information can you live it.

 Over the years, memory has been given a bad name. It has been associated with rote learning and cramming information into your brain. Educators have said that understanding is the key to learning but how can you understand something if you can’t remember it? We have all had this experience: we recognize and understand information but can’t recall it when we need it. For example, how many jokes do you know? You’ve probably heard thousands, but you can only recall about four or five right now. There is a big difference between remembering your four jokes and recognizing or understanding thousands. Understanding doesn’t create use: only when you can instantly recall what you understand, and practise using your remembered understanding, do you achieve mastery.

Memory means storing what you have learned; otherwise, why would we bother learning in the first place?
Some people say you don’t need a good memory in the Google age.Ken Jennings said, “When you make a decision, you need facts. If those facts are in your brain, they’re at your fingertips. If they’re all in Google somewhere, you may not make the right decision on the spur of the moment.”

 Which raises the question: would or have you hired a person for his or her ability to Google information? No, you want people with information and experience at their fingertips. You want confident people, people that are certain about what they know. Not storing information in your mind is expensive and can lead to embarrassment and poor judgment. If you have to continually refer to notes or manuals to do your work, you will waste time and look unprofessional. Would you rather buy a product from someone that forgets your name or from someone that remembers it? Would you allow a doctor to operate on you if she had to continually refer to a manual or an iPad? Definitely not!

Memory is the corner stone of our existence. It determines the quality of our decisions and, therefore, our entire life!

Learning and memory are the two most magical properties of the human mind. Learning is the ability to acquire new information, and memory holds the new information in place over time. Memory is the foundation to all learning. If memory is not set in place, all you are doing is throwing information into a deep hole never to be used again. The problem is that many people are not recalling what they know, and they are constantly learning and forgetting, and learning and forgetting, and learning and forgetting…
When you improve your memory, you improve everything. You can access information more quickly and more easily – creating greater opportunities for connections and associations. The more facts and memories that you have properly stored in your brain, the more potential you have to make unique combinations and connections. An increased memory also enhances basic intelligence because intelligence is based on all of the events, people, and facts that you can recall. The more you remember, the more you can create and do because factual knowledge always precedes skill. Information can only be built onto more information, so the more you know the easier it is to get to know more.

Now, with your memory you have two choices. The first choice is that your memory cannot be improved; you can do nothing to make any difference to your in-born ability. Many people choose this as their life’s choice because through the thousands of hours of schooling, not one hour is spent on showing you how your amazing memory can be made better. School never told you anything about your amazing brain.

When one of  my friend was eight years old, a school psychologist gave him a bit of advice about his  brain. He said he may have a form of brain damage, and he wanted to send him to a special class.He  was a classic dyslexic: he wasn’t born with a good memory, and he couldn’t concentrate; reading and writing were always a challenge for him. Throughout his  school career, he learned by having his  mother and friends read the syllabus to him;he  forced himself to memorize it and what he didn’t get, which was most of it,he just didn’t get.He  had no future because he just couldn’t grasp what was being taught to him. In twelve years of school, he couldn’t read a book from cover-to-cover alone and in his  final year of school, he still couldn’t read much better than when he started out in First Grade. To cut a long story short, he somehow managed to graduate from high school in 1989.

A couple of years later, his life was changed when he was walking through a local bookstore. Up until that point, he had not read a book from cover-to-cover by himself, but that night he decided to buy three books.They were all written by Tony Buzan. The first book was Use Your Head, the second Use Your Memory, and the third The Speed Reading Book. Back then, he honestly thought he would begin with the speed reading book and then read the other two quickly. However, it didn’t work out that way.He  started reading Use Your Memory and discovered that we all have a second choice. This choice is: our memory is just a habit, and habits can be improved with the right kind of training and practice.He discovered that there are basic fundamentals to memory improvement and that if we apply them consistently, we will get the same results that great memory masters do. If we don’t, we won’t. Then I too started studying psychology and anything I could get my hands on in the areas of the brain, mind, and memory. I studied hundreds of books and tapes, and I also interviewed people with great memories. Through this long journey, I overcame all of my problematic issues and took myself to a point where I was reading and taking in, on average, four books a week. I could learn in an hour what took the average person months to master.

Considering my past difficulties and from where I had come, this was a great achievement. . Why did I do it, you ask? Mainly because people said it was impossible to do, and that’s what my life is all about: breaking limitations and showing people what our memories are capable of. Ever since then, I have been training, teaching, and coaching people to remember key information that they need for their lives and that the joy of learning is available to us all.

Many people say I have a photographic memory, but that is not true. I have just discovered many ‘secrets’ about memory, and I have been able to use and make these methods my own.
I don’t tell you all this to impress you but to impress the point that every person has the same potential to master his or her memory. It doesn’t matter where you come from; all that matters is where you are going. However, if you keep on doing what you have always done, you are going to get what you have always gotten. You need to do different to get different. Thus, a word of warning: mastering your memory is going to require a different kind of thinking.

Don’t judge or look for perfection from this blog ; rather look for value.When you judge information, you stop yourself from learning it.You can judge the methods, you can criticize them, you can try another approach, but I promise you, you will not be able to get the same results as us memory masters without applying these principles I ask you to read with an open mind; I have no doubt that everything that you will learn in this blog works and works amazingly well. The methods that I will share with you are the same methods that memory masters use. This is the strategy!

You will see that this blog is broken up into three sections covering the four keys (or Cs) to improving your memory. The first section talks about improving your Concentration.The second section is about improving your ability to Create imagery and Connecting concepts together, and the final key is about creating a habit with Continuous use. These four Cs are the solution to any memory problem that you have or will face in the future. Some of the examples that I have used in this blog  come from personal development and business books so not only will you learn to improve your memory, but you will also learn some key concepts that you can use for your personal development.

I will teach you to transform bland information into something that is real and well organized. This, in turn, means the information has meaning and will then be used instead of being discarded.I am not talking about rote learning but a way to store information differently with far better results. The goal is to improve learning and understanding. There are many books out there that do a lot of talking before you find any meat. This blog  is different; I want to get straight to the point and save you a lot of time and energy. It is my goal to show you the wonderful world of memory improvement in a way I wish someone would have taught me. Don’t just read this blog ; play with the concepts and make it part of your thinking and your life. If you are ready, then turn to the first part and unleash the power of your memory.

Peace and Success go hand in hand

Peace and Success go hand in hand

There is a robust phenomenon nature follows that directs humans and every organism to create,grow and nurture love and peace into the atmosphere then only self-growth,development and success is possible.

Pounding on others,expoiting and killing the innocents,the silent life can no longer gives you inner strength and satisfaction.Stabbing,criticizing and verbal abuses are not going to make you advance in the field of achievement.
Nature reverts back,be it abiotic or biotic factors if the equilibrium is disturbed.
Moving on to or looking at every corner of the world,the crime rate is noticed to be higher than the good old days. The killings,the brutal murders are at its high  on the context of religion,caste,property,ego etc.

There are examples of fights between blacks and whites but the result came out to be the positive-the winners were Bapu ji and Mandela ji who created history with a proof that peace is the crux of any road to success where there should not be any discrimination.There were fights between the kingdoms,disputes because of varied religions but here comes the voice of Acharya Gyansagar ji,’the places of worship are symbolic only,they should not be politicized’.

The question to humans is only one,we are all humans with a little difference in built-up and only as male or female,then why a fight of superiority amongst all four religions?The supreme power-the God is one.All scriptures,holy books do preach for unity,do convey for the message “Love all and hate none”,then why the riots amongst Hindus,Sikhs,Christians and Mohammadens?

If technology has led to improvements,changes in life-style,new innovations and discoveries to easy survival but the peace is lost somewhere caused drasting effects still the children are malnourished,with poor frail bodies,there are beggars on the roads,the sleeping class under the bridges or platforms.However,the worst of all is the enemity of one human to another which is very haunting from deep inside.So deep inside,we need to meditate and think that all that worse is because of our own negative ‘Karmas’ and then the nature’s punishment in the end.We need to adopt the habit and soulful thinking of wellbeing of others to let every individual enjoy his/her own share on this mother earth.

PEACE IS TO HOLD A CALM HEART DURING STORMS IN LIFE"

PEACE IS TO HOLD A CALM HEART DURING STORMS IN LIFE"

Peace is an occurrence of harmony characterized by the lack of violence, conflict behaviors and the freedom from fear of violence. Peace is the beauty of life. It is sunshine. It is the smile of a child, the love of a mother, the joy of a father, the togetherness of a family. It is the advancement of man, the victory of a just cause, the triumph of truth.
Why It’s Important to Have Peace In Your Life
It seems like the more a society advances, the less peace there seems to be.

There’s noise everywhere.

Gone are the days of just sitting under a tree and thinking about life. There’s Twitter feeds to read, Facebook statuses to update, videos to take and upload on Youtube, drama to indulge in, gossip to listen to and spread, advertising bombarding us everywhere.

It seems like we’re saturated in figurative and literal noise all the time.

Peace seems to have gone by the wayside but it’s very important we have it in our lives because how many great decisions do you make when you’re not at peace?

Very few, if any.

You tend to make mostly bad decisions which creates even more disorder in your life, which doesn’t contribute to any peace, so you make more bad decisions and the spiral just continues downward.

When you have peace in your life, you’re able to see clearly, think clearly, plan clearly, and take action clearly, and clearly see the results of those actions, and then think clearly as to how to proceed next, and the cycle perpetuates itself.

Education

Importance of Education

Education is the only tool to uplift Indian society from age - old afflications, responsible for its degenerate conditions. Our society needs a man - making education which would lead to nation - building. This type of education has the capacity for the social regeneration of Indian society because it is supposed to have the potential of purging the human mind of mental decadence, that is the tendency towards ignorance, laziness and a resigned attitude which accepts anything that is prescribed without personal reflection.

The prevailing unscientific attitude has to be replaced by a scientific attitude, whose constituents were objectivity, rationally and a critical temper without the inculcation of a critical, scientific attitude it was not possible to bring the social and economic regeneration of Indian society.
In the social context, the development of a humanistic attitude which impartial and free from the clutches of individual differences of caste community race, religion ad nationally and dogmatic irrational beliefs and practices.

A development of the human self could be achieved through education, which involved the training of the physical and mental self with the aim of elevating both to the highest spiritual level.
The concept of man - making education thus gives an extremely dignified optimistic and realistic picture of the human personality. Man making education had to be purposive and free from narrowly conceived objectives. Education should be for all and it should involve a continual growth of personality, steady development of character and the qualitative improvement of life. Education should not involve simply stuffing of the brain, but the training of the mind we want that education by which character is formed, strength of mind is increased the intellect is expanded and by which one can stand on one's own feet.

According to Swami Vivekanandha " The end of all education should be man making. The end and aim of all training is to make the man grow. The training by which the current and expression of will are brought under control and become frutiful is called education."

Boost PFM / PFM Attendance

Boost PFM / PFM Attendance

Since most people view meetings as a form of slow torture, it's not surprising that schools face enormous challenges in getting parents together for such a purpose. With so many demands on their limited time—and the perception that meetings are a waste of that time—parents often choose to bypass these traditional powwows. While poor attendance can feel like failure, the most successful groups recognize that getting parents to meetings is not vital. In fact, building parent involvement in other activities can be much more effective than trying to lure everyone to sit through monthly recitations of the marks, the report, and other agenda items.

Still, it's good for parents to feel that they have a stake in the school and a voice in its decision making—and meetings are one way to accomplish that. So here are some ideas for boosting the numbers at your next meeting.

Vary the Meeting Time
Surveys are one way to discover what times best suit your population; variety is often appreciated. To accommodate its parents' schedules,  hold meetings on rotating days: Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, or Thursday. Consider the timings also …like hold evening meetings in October and March, when it seems to be hot & with morning meetings the rest of the year. Have flexible schedules.

Vary the Meeting Place
Either the school cafeteria, at a skating rink; Conference Hall, local restaurant, potluck dinner meetings, school potluck lunch in a park etc. The result is that attendance at the monthly meetings has increased from five people to 50.

Encourage Attendance as a Responsibility
Some parents respond to direct appeals by teachers or the parent group about the importance of their presence at meetings.

Make Meetings More Fun
Another approach is to invite guest speakers or have students perform. The guest speakers are the school's less visible faces, people not everyone would know, like the guidance counselor and the resource teacher. This gives parents an opportunity to come and meet these people. Advertise each month who will be attending. They can put a face and name to some of these people so if in the future they come across them, parents will be more comfortable. It's especially helpful for our new families. In addition, a different grade level of students makes a presentation each month, such as reciting poems they've written, and parents are notified ahead of time when their children will be performing.

Give Prizes
Sometimes  prizes or awards bring people in. One attendee wins a gift certificate.

Offer Baby-sitting and Other Services
Make it easier for parents to attend by eliminating reasons why they can't, especially when it comes to childcare. Offer translation services at PT meetings for parents who don't speak English. The school may also offers baby-sitting and that option is mentioned in all monthly PTO reminders.

Make Meetings Shorter
Who isn't in a hurry these days? Who doesn't want to avoid meetings that go on and on? That's why a reputation for concise meetings might boost attendance. Cut the meeting time  by eliminating unnecessary discussion about details. There is no time to get into the nitty-gritty at meeting. That is one of the factors that has increased attendance—the length of the meeting.

Hold Fewer Meetings
Monthly meetings are a tradition that some schools hold only three/four PT meetings per year. We found out we had a lot better attendance when we shortened the amount of meetings. With everybody as busy as they are, it's almost worthless to try to get them all out for a meeting. We realize people's time is important. For most it's a relief—one less thing off their calendar. And it's a huge help for us to have better participation."

Combine Meetings With Other School Events
When the meeting is held in conjunction with a school event, attendance doubles or even triples. Meetings can also be held after the science and book fairs.  The group sets up a table where parents can fill out a survey about their own ideas for increasing parent involvement or sign up to volunteer at the fall festival.
Have the PTM  in conjunction with another event such as a dinner, exhibition, book fair, or performances by the choir and band or  immediately preceding school concerts.

Publicize
Parents with full appointment books need a heads-up about meeting dates. Have  meetings listed on a school calendar magnet and on the school sign and also sends out reminders a week or two ahead of time. This can be done  through a newsletter, website, school calendar, and district TV station. And on the day of a meeting, teachers can put little round stickers that say "PTO meeting today/tomorrow" on the children before they leave.

Use Other Vehicles To Get the Word Out
If your PTO meetings still aren't standing room only, don't despair. Communicate the necessary information to parents through newsletters and websites. Then focus on drawing parents in for the fun family events that will keep them coming back. Make creating and sending group emails (and managing all those addresses!)

How to make our primary students independent??

How to make our  primary students independent??

1 Teach them to be patient .
2 Let them do little tasks independently n just keep a watch on their job n guide n help them if, needed .
3 Teach them the value of money . Make them practical.
4 Always show that their efforts are noticed ,inspire them to work harder.
5 Fix a clean up time . Teach them to keep their room and surroundings clean .
6 Read stories to them and  encourage them to read a story a day .
7  Instill confidence in the students .
8 Ask the students to honestly evaluate their hardwork.
9 Talk regularly to the students about their future goals.
10 Always use positive reinforcement, when you talk to them .

TEACHERS RESPONSE IS THE LEARNERS BEHAVIOR!!!

TEACHERS RESPONSE IS THE LEARNERS BEHAVIOR!!!

Behavior is the range of actions and mannerisms made by individuals, organisms, systems, or artificial entities in conjunction with themselves or their environment, which includes the other systems or organisms around as well as the (inanimate) physical environment. It is the response of the system or organism to various stimuli or inputs, whether internal or ex ternal, conscious or subconscious, overt or covert, and voluntary or involuntary.

Taking a behavior informatics perspective, a behavior consists of behavior actor, operation, interactions, and their properties. A behavior can be represented as a behavior vector.
What are the positive behavior?
Positive behavior support (PBS) is a behavior management system used to understand what maintains an individual's challenging behavior.

People's inappropriate behaviors are difficult to change because they are functional; they serve a purpose for them. These behaviors are supported by reinforcement in the environment
Positive behavior support (PBS) is a behavior management system used to understand what maintains an individual's challenging behavior.

People's inappropriate behaviors are difficult to change because they are functional; they serve a purpose for them. These behaviors are supported by reinforcement in the environment. In the case of students and children, often adults in a child’s environment will reinforce his or her undesired behaviors because the child will receive objects and/or attention because of his behavior.

Functional behavior assessments (FBAs) clearly describe behaviors, identify the contexts (events, times, and situation) that predict when behavior will and will not occur, and identify consequences that maintain the behavior. They also summarize and create a hypothesis about the behavior, directly observe the behavior and take data to get a baseline. The positive behavior support process involves goal identification, information gathering, hypothesis development, support plan design, implementation and monitoring.

In order for techniques to work in decreasing undesired behavior, they should include: feasibility, desirability, and effectiveness. Strategies are needed that teachers and parents are able and willing to use and that affect the child's ability to participate in community and school activities. Positive behavior support is increasingly being recognized as a strategy that meets these criteria. By changing stimulus and reinforcement in the environment and teaching the child to strengthen deficit skill areas the student's behavior changes in ways that allow him/her to be included in the general education setting.

The three areas of deficit skills identified in the article were communication skills, social skills, and self-management skills. Re-directive therapy as positive behavior support is especially effective in the parent–child relationship. Where other treatment plans have failed re-directive therapy allows for a positive interaction between parents and children. Positive behavior support is successful in the school setting because it is primarily a teaching method (Schwartz, 1999).

How to encourage good behaviour in your child

How to encourage good behaviour in your child

A positive and constructive approach is often the best way to guide your child’s behaviour. This means giving your child attention when he behaves well, rather than just applying consequences when he does something you don’t like.

Here are some practical tips for putting this positive approach into action.

Tips for good behaviour

1. Be a role model
Use your own behaviour to guide your child. Your child watches you to get clues on how to behave – and what you do is often much more important than what you say. For example, if you want your child to say ‘please’, say it yourself. If you don’t want your child to raise her voice, speak quietly and gently yourself.

2. Show your child how you feel
Telling your child honestly how his behaviour affects you helps him see his own feelings in yours. And if you start sentences with ‘I’, it gives your child the chance to see things from your perspective. For example, ‘I’m getting upset because there is so much noise that I can’t talk on the phone’.

3. Catch your child being ‘good’
When your child is behaving in a way you like, give her some positive feedback. For example, ‘Wow, you’re playing so nicely. I really like the way you’re keeping all the blocks on the table’. This works better than waiting for the blocks to come crashing to the floor before you take notice and say, ‘Hey, stop that’.

This positive feedback is sometimes called descriptive praise because it tells children specifically what they’re doing well. Try to make six positive comments for every negative comment. And remember that if children have a choice between no attention or negative attention, they’ll often seek out negative attention.

4. Get down to your child’s level
When you get close to your child, you can tune in to what he might be feeling or thinking. Being close also helps him focus on what you’re saying about his behaviour. If you’re close to your child and have his attention, you don’t need to make him look at you.

5. Listen actively
To listen actively, you can nod as your child talks, and repeat back what you think your child is feeling. For example, ‘It sounds like you feel really sad that your blocks fell down’. When you do this, it can help young children cope with tension and big emotions like frustration, which sometimes lead to unwanted behaviour. It also makes them feel respected and comforted. It can even diffuse potential temper tantrums.

6. Keep promises
When you follow through on your promises, good or bad, your child learns to trust and respect you. She learns that you won’t let her down when you’ve promised something nice, and she also learns not to try to change your mind when you’ve explained a consequence. So when you promise to go for a walk after your child picks up her toys, make sure you have your walking shoes handy. When you say you’ll leave the library if your child doesn’t stop running around, be prepared to leave straight away.

7. Create an environment for good behaviour
The environment around your child can influence his behaviour, so you can shape the environment to help your child behave well. This can be as simple as making sure your child’s space has plenty of safe, stimulating things for him to play with. Make sure that your child can’t reach things he could break or that might hurt him. Your glasses look like so much fun to play with – it’s hard for children to remember not to touch. Reduce the chance of problems by keeping breakables and valuables out of sight.

8. Choose your battles
Before you get involved in anything your child is doing – especially to say ‘no’ or ‘stop’ – ask yourself if it really matters. By keeping instructions, requests and negative feedback to a minimum, you create less opportunity for conflict and bad feelings. Rules are important, but use them only when it’s really important.

9. Be firm about whining
If you give in when your child is whining for something, you can accidentally train her to whine more. ‘No’ means ‘no’, not maybe, so don’t say it unless you mean it.

10. Keep things simple and positive
If you give clear instructions in simple terms, your child will know what’s expected of him – for example, ‘Please hold my hand when we cross the road’. And positive rules are usually better than negative ones, because they guide your child’s behaviour in a positive way. For example, ‘Please shut the gate’ is better than ‘Don’t leave the gate open’.

11. Give children responsibility – and consequences
As your child gets older, you can give her more responsibility for her own behaviour. You can also give her the chance to experience the natural consequences of that behaviour. You don’t have to be the bad guy all the time. For example, if it’s your child’s responsibility to pack her lunch box and she forgets, the natural consequence is feeling hungry at lunch time.

At other times you might need to provide consequences for unacceptable or dangerous behaviour. For these times, it’s best to ensure that you’ve explained the consequences and that your child has agreed to them in advance.

12. Say it once and move on
If you tell your child what to do – or what not to do – too often, he might end up just tuning out. If you want to give him one last chance to cooperate, remind him of the consequences for not cooperating. Then start counting to three.

13. Make your child feel important
Give your child some simple chores or things that she can do to help the family. This will make her feel important. If you can give your child lots of practice doing a chore, she’ll get better at it, feel good about doing it, and want to keep doing it. And if you give her some praise for her behaviour and effort, it’ll help to build her self-esteem.

14. Prepare for challenging situations
There are times when looking after your child and doing things you need to do will be tricky. If you think about these challenging situations in advance, you can plan around your child’s needs. Give him a five-minute warning before you need him to change activities. Talk to him about why you need his cooperation. Then he’s prepared for what you expect.

15. Maintain a sense of humour
It often helps to keep daily life with children light. You can do this by using songs, humour and fun. For example, you can pretend to be the menacing tickle monster who needs the toys picked up off the floor. Humour that has you both laughing is great, but humour at your child’s expense won’t help. Young children are easily hurt by parental ‘teasing’.

Difference between tantrums and meltdowns

Managing Temper Tantrums and Meltdowns in children:

Tantrums and sensory meltdowns are not the same thing.

It can be hard to tell the difference between them by just looking at an upset child.

Knowing the causes of tantrums and meltdowns can help you learn how to manage them.

Many people think the words “tantrum” and “meltdown” mean the same thing. And they can look very similar when you see a child in the middle of having one. But for kids who have sensory processing issues or who lack self-control, a meltdown is very different from a tantrum. Knowing the differences can help you learn how to respond in a way that better supports your child.

What a Tantrum Is
A tantrum is an outburst that happens when a child is trying to get something he wants or needs. Some kids with learning and attention issues are more prone to tantrums. For instance, some can be impulsive and have trouble keeping their emotions in check. They may get angry or frustrated quickly.

A child may have a tantrum if he didn’t get to go first in a game of kickball. Or he might get upset when you pay attention to his sister and he wants your attention. Yelling, crying or lashing out isn’t an appropriate way for him to express his feelings, but he’s doing it for a reason. And he has some control over his behavior.

Your child may even stop in the middle of a tantrum to make sure you’re looking at him. When he sees that you’re watching him, he may pick up where he left off. His tantrum is likely to stop when he gets what he wants—or when he realizes he won’t get what he wants by acting out.

What a Sensory Meltdown Is
A meltdown is a reaction to feeling overwhelmed.

For some kids, it happens when there’s too much sensory information to process. The commotion of an amusement park might set them off, for instance. For other kids, it can be a reaction to having too many things to think about. A back-to-school shopping trip could cause a tantrum that triggers a meltdown.

Here’s one way to think about too much sensory input. Imagine filling a small water pitcher. Most of the time, you can control the flow of water and fill the pitcher a little at a time. But sometimes the water flow is too strong and the pitcher overflows before you can turn the water off.

That’s how a sensory meltdown works. The noise at the amusement park or the stack of clothes to try on in the dressing room at the mall is sensory input that floods your child’s brain. Once that happens, some experts think your child’s fight-or-flight response kicks in. That excess input overflows in the form of yelling, crying, lashing out or running away.

Different Strategies for Tantrums and Meltdowns
The causes of tantrums and meltdowns are different, and so are the strategies that can help stop them. It’s important to remember that the key difference between the two types of outbursts is that tantrums usually have a purpose. Kids are looking for a certain response. Meltdowns are a reaction to something and are usually beyond a child’s control.

A child can often stop a tantrum if he gets what he wants. Or if he’s rewarded for using a more appropriate behavior. But a meltdown isn’t likely to stop when a child gets what he wants. In fact, he may not even know what he wants.

Meltdowns tend to end in one of two ways. One is fatigue—kids wear themselves out. The other way a change in the amount of sensory input. This can help kids feel less overwhelmed. For example, your child may start to feel calmer when you step outside the store and leave the mall.

So how can you handle tantrums and meltdowns differently?

To tame tantrums, acknowledge what your child needs without giving in. Make it clear that you understand what he’s after. “I see that you want my attention. When your sister is done talking, it’ll be your turn.” Then help him see there’s a more appropriate behavior that will work. “When you’re done yelling, tell me calmly that you’re ready for my time.”
To manage a meltdown, help your child find a safe, quiet place to de-escalate. “Let’s leave the mall and sit in the car for a few minutes.” Then provide a calm, reassuring presence without talking too much to your child. The goal is to reduce the input coming at him.
Knowing the difference between tantrums and meltdowns is the key to helping your child through them. It may also help to get a better idea of the kinds of situations that can be challenging for your child. You can also explore tips on how to deal with noise and other sensitivities.

Key Takeaways
Tantrums happen when a child is trying to get something he wants or needs.
Meltdowns occur when a child feels overwhelmed by his feelings or surroundings.

Knowing the difference between tantrums and meltdowns can help you manage these outbursts.

Re-Reading

Re-reading
The most important comparison is with re-reading, because (unfortunately) this is the most common study strategy used by students. In a study in which college students were tested on their recall of two short passages each about 250-275 words long, the students studied the texts in one half-hour session.

During each of four 7-minute periods, they either read a text, re-read one of the texts, or took a recall test on the text they didn't re-read — meaning that one passage was read twice, while the other was read once and tested once.

When tested a mere five minutes after the study session, the passage read twice was recalled slightly better (the recency effect in action). However, when tested a week later, the passage that had been read once and tested once (not counting the 5-minute-delay test, on which no feedback was given) was remembered decidedly better than the one that had been read twice. Those re-reading scored 81% on an immediate test, but only 42% a week later.

Those who read it only once, followed by a test, scored Only 75% immediately, but 56% a week later (the  difference, I note, between a passing grade and a fail!).

 In other words, while re-reading gave the immediate illusion of having been learned better , it was forgotten at a much greater rate over time (and bear in mind that this is only after a week; the gap is expected to get wider over time).

In a further experiment , using only one of the two prose passages, some students read and re-read the passage during four 5-minute study periods, while another group studied their passage for three of the periods then were tested during
 the fourth, and the final group studied their passage during the first period before being given three recall tests.