Month: October 2014

What I love about this list are that these are simple, purposeful, and pragmatic suggestions that any teacher could implement in existing class structures.

 

Posted By Sherwen Mohan 

Original Source 

A new school year always brings about new ideas and hopeful ambition for teachers. However, it’s almost 2015.  Gone are the days when we can use the excuse that “we don’t do technology”.  Part of being a teacher in the 21st century is being creative in integrating academics and learning into student’s digital lives. With access to content being ubiquitous and instant in student’s out of school lives, we can either reject their world for our more traditional one, or embrace it.

While some of the ideas that follow may seem a bit trendy, it’s never hurts to model ways to interact with all this new media as a covert way of teaching digital literacy and citizenship.   The great news is, you don’t need every student to have a device to make these happen. Heck, in most cases all you would need is a single smart phone.  All you need is an open mind and some student-led creative thinking.

And so, I present the 21 things every 21st century teacher should try in their classroom this year:

1. Post a question of the week on your class blog

One of the best ways to engage student (and family) interaction with your classroom is to have a class blog.  While these are becoming more common, I like the trend of having a weekly student “guest author” write up the ideas and learning objectives discussed in class.  This is also a good place to discuss appropriate commenting behavior on blogs and websites.

2. Have a class twitter account to post a tweet about the day’s learning

Just like a blog only smaller.  Nominate a “guest tweeter” and have them summarize the day’s learning in 140 characters or less. Then ask parents to follow the account so they can also get a little insight into the happenings of the school day.

3. Make a parody of a hit song

The ultimate form of flattery is imitation.  The ultimate form of stardom is when Weird Al makes a parody of your song.  Why not take that to an creative level and have students re-write lyrics to their favorite hit or a popular tune?  Sure, this might take more time than it’s worth academically, but the collaborative sharing and engaging aspect of producing such a thing can be a positive.  Who knows, maybe someone in history class will remake “Chaka Khan” into “Genghis Khan” or something like this classic:

4. Create an infographic as a review

Those clever little graphics are appearing everywhere from Popular Mechanics to Cosmopolitan. Why not make one as a way to help visual learners review and remember information?

5. Go paperless for a week

Depending on your grade level, this might be harder than you think. Even in a 1:1 district we still print or have need to print things from time to time.  The idea behind this challenge is see if you can figure out ways to make things more digital.  Maybe instead of a newsletter you print and send home, you write a blog or send a MailChimp?  Or instead of asking kids to write and peer-edit each other’s papers, you ask them to share a Google doc?   If your students don’t have devices, then challenge yourself to try this personally for a month.

6. Have a “No Tech Day” just for nostalgia’s sake

And then have your students blog about the experience.

7. Create your own class hashtag

Tell your students and their parents about the hashtag and have them post ideas, photos, and questions to it.  It’s a great way to get people from not only in your class but also around the world to contribute to your class conversation. You can also use this with your blog posts (#1) or classroom tweets (#2). Bonus points if you use something like VisibleTweets to display your posts in your class.

8. Create a List.ly list to encourage democracy in your class.

It could be as simple as a list of choices for a project or something as grand as what is one thing you want to learn about this year?  Whatever the choice, use List.ly to create a crowd-sourced voting list and let your students have some say in their learning!

9. Integrate Selfies into your curriculum

This one might take some outside the box thinking,  but I’m guessing that there are students in your class that could come up with a creative way to do this.  Maybe take a selfie next to a science experiment? Or a selfie with an A+ paper? #SuperStudent

10. Curate a class Pinterest account 

Pinterest is a great visible way to curate resources but why not create a class account that has a different board based on projects throughout the year.  Add students as collaborators and let them post their projects to the board.  You could also have a board on gathering resources and information for a topic which would be a good time to mention what is and what isn’t a valid resource?

11. AppSmash Something

Besides just fun to say, you should definitely take multiple apps on whatever device you use and smash them together into a project.  Check out this post for the basics and remember, it doesn’t have to be you who is doing the smashing.  Let your kids come smash too!

12. Participate in a Twitter Chat

Twitter can be like drinking information from a fire house at times, but finding a good twitter chat on a topic and participating can be a great way to learn and grow as a teacher.  Check out Cybraryman’s list of twitter chats and times to find one that interests you. Don’t see any you like? Make your own!Remember in step #7 when you created your own class hashtag?

12. Make part of your classroom “Augmented”

Why not make take an app like Aurasma and hide some easter eggs around your room? You could make them about a project or just secret nuggets about you.  It’ll keep kids (and parents during back to school night) engaged and turn dead space in your classroom into an interactive learning opportunity.  Need some ideas?  Check out Lisa Johnson‘s List.ly List (Remember, you know how to make those now from #8!) of over 50 Augmented Reality apps.

13. Create a recipe on IFTTT.com to make your life easier

With all of these tools and social media platforms, it might be a good idea to create some ways to automate tasks in your classroom.  IFTTT.com has some great pre-made “recipes” to combine some of your accounts into simple workflow solutions.  You can even have your plant email you when it needs water.

14. Create a Class Instagram Account 

Have a daily student photographer who’s job is to post an example of something your class/students did that day. If you don’t want to mess with “do not publish” lists, you could ask that it be of an object or artifact, not a person.  This would also be a good time to talk about when and how to ask permission to take someone’s photo.  Mix in your class hashtag(#6), throw in an IFTTT (#13)recipe, and all the sudden you can also auto-post selfies (#9) to your class Pinterest board (#9)

15. Perform in a LipDub Video 

This can be either a solo project or for even greater effect, tie in your parody song (#3) and have your students act out their learning throughout the video.  Don’t forget to hashtag it. Bonus points if said video goes viral like this one:

16. Make a class book

The ease with which you can publish books now is amazing.  Using a tool like Book Creator or iBooks Author, you can publish to the iBooks store or Amazon.  Don’t want to do something that intense? Keep it simple and make a book using Shutterfly and then have it printed as a keepsake.

17. Participate in a Mystery Hangout

This sounds a lot scarier than it is but essentially think of playing the game 20 questions with another classroom somewhere in the world. Here’s a link to a community page with more resources. It’s a great way to increase cultural and global awareness and you could event invite the other class to add to your Pinterest board (#10), vote on your List.ly (#8), comment on your blog (#1) or maybe co-collaborate on an eBook (#16).

18. Produce a class Audio podcast

Have students create a podcast highlighting classroom activities, projects or students.  To get it to the web quickly, post it to Soundcloud.  For the more advanced user, use a podcasting site like Podbean.com and actually get the podcast posted to iTunes.  That way mom and dad can listen to the weekly recap while going on their evening walk or driving to work.

19. GHO on Air with an expert

With so many resources and experts available, it only makes sense to bring in someone from “the real world”. This not only creates interest in the topic, it adds an air of authenticity.  Using Google Hangouts On Air means you can record this session on the fly and post it to your class site or embed it on your blog to generate discussion at home.

20. Become an activist for a worthy cause.

If the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge can teach us anything, it’s that sometimes a little creativity is all you need to awareness to a cause. Whether it’s helping a country in need or finding a cure for a disease,  our new connected society can be a powerful thing when galvanized for good.  Participating in a global project gives students perspective on their own lives while helping others with their own life challenges.

21. Let your students drive the learning

While you could do all of these challenges by yourself, the real power comes in letting students own a piece of it.  They have the curiosity and the digital acumen, it’s the teacher’s job to give them instructional focus and empowerment.  We live in wonderfully connected times.  Despite all of technology’s perceived misgivings and the apocalyptic fears that we are losing ourselves as a society, why not use some of this power for good?

Just know that as a teacher in the 21st century you ultimately hold the key to unleash this creative beast.  So try something on the list this year that may force you a bit out of your comfort zone because there is no better way to learn than trying.

Just be sure you blog about it when you are finished as learning in isolation helps no one.

Oh….and be sure to hashtag it.

It’s no surprise that teachers help other teachers. Sharing textbooks, lending supplies and co-planning lessons are just a few examples of how teachers pull together to share materials and wisdom for the betterment of their students. Not surprisingly, teachers are also helping other teachers find digital games to incorporate during instruction. MindShift continues its analysis of the report entitled Level Up Learning: A National Survey on Teaching with Digital Games published by the Games and Learning Publishing Council.

posted by: Ryan Schaaf

Original Source

While more teachers are using digital games in the classroom, how they decide which games to use and why is less standardized, according to a teacher survey of 694 K-8 teachers by the Games and Learning Publishing Council called Level Up Learning: A National Survey on Teaching with Digital Games.

The report finds that teachers learn about games through informal means, such as peers within the school or school district, and could benefit from more explicit training programs. By not having a more formal process, the report finds that “teachers may not be getting exposure to the broader range of pedagogical strategies, resources, and types of games that can enhance and facilitate digital game integration.”

“There’s a problem with discovery. They aren’t aware of all the types of games they could be using and all the ways they could be using them,” said Lori Takeuchi, senior director and research scientist at the Joan Ganz Cooney Center who co-authored the report. The GLPC is a project of the Cooney Center. “We need an easier way for teachers to find the best game titles that will meet their needs,” she said.

The report says a minority of teachers are using resources available to them. Teachers already using digital games get most of their professional learning  from other teachers within the school or district (68 percent) and a quarter of surveyed teachers go to online forums for educators. For those reasons, the report authors recommend finding alternative ways to reach out to teachers. The report states, “This means that we need to do more to promote these online resources and identify how they can more effectively address teachers’ pedagogical questions as well as their lifestyles, learning styles, and organizational constraints.”

Overall, most teachers they surveyed use games in the classroom. Many times, a teacher’s exposure to gaming outside of school impacts whether students get the benefit of games in the classroom. Of the teachers surveyed, 74 percent use digital games to teach in the classroom. Most of those said they let their students play at least monthly. About 40 percent of teachers who use digital games are using them to meet curriculum standards.

The report also finds that certain types of games are favored over others, and that duration plays a key part. Role-playing games, like World of Warcraft, can help students with problem solving skills, but only 5 percent of teachers surveyed report using such involved games. “All the research shows the potential of video games for learning and its usually through these immersive games, but those are not the types of games we’re seeing in the classroom,” said Takeuchi.

“Teachers tend to use shorter form games that could be finished in a class period or just a few minutes. Because developers realize that teachers can fit a shorter form game into a classroom period, they’re going to make those games.”

Part of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation funded report was released earlier this year and highlighted how teachers use games for reasons like assessment, reaching low-performing students, motivating students, and teaching new material. The full report shows which games the teachers surveyed are using in their classroom.

Note: MindShift has been developing The MindShift Guide to Games and Learning with the support of the Joan Ganz Cooney Center. The guide is a project of the Games and Learning Publishing Council.

 

 

The Games and Learning Publishing Council have published their findings in a comprehensive, 67-page report investigating if and how digital games are being used in classrooms. The survey illustrates the mainstream appeal of learning with games starts a new conversation of how to use long-form digital games for deeper learning experiences. Thank you to Benjamin Herold at Education Week for sharing the survey results.

Posted by: Ryan Schaaf

Original Source

Digital learning games have officially gone mainstream, with nearly three-quarters of K-8 teachers saying they use the games for classroom instruction, according to a new national survey. 

But the rise of digital gaming within schools still pales in comparison to the advances seen in the commercial gaming sector, according to a comprehensive, 67-page report issued by the Games and Learning Publishing Council, a project of the Joan Ganz Cooney Center at Sesame Workshop, a New York-based nonprofit that studies digital media use and children. 

Students are still mostly using desktop and laptop computers to access digital learning games in the classroom, and most teachers are still using short-form games to deliver content and allow students to practice basic skills, rather than leveraging the significant learning potential to be found in long-form, multi-player, and immersive games, the report found. 

“When scholars and practitioners first began inspiring us with their visions for digital game-based learning, they certainly weren’t writing about drill-and-practice games. Yet this is what so many K-8 teachers are still using with students today,” says the report. 

Barriers include lack of support and training for teachers, limited time within the school day, and difficulty finding games that are clearly aligned to curricular standards, according to the study. 

Recommendations from the report include creation of an “industry-wide framework” and taxonomy for categorizing and reviewing games so they are easier for teachers to identify and better and more widespread pre-service technology training and professional development on how to integrate digital games into the classroom. 

The results are based on a survey of 694 K-8 teachers from across the United States, conducted in the fall of 2013. Unlike previous research efforts, the study included teachers who don’t use digital games in the classroom. 

As part of their analysis, researchers from the Games and Learning Publishing Council/Joan Ganz Cooney Center used statistical methods to create an entertaining and illuminating typology of teachers. At one end of the spectrum, they say, are “dabblers” who use games to teach a few times per month, but are not particularly comfortable doing so, in part because they face significant barriers and a lack of training and other resources. 

At the other end of the spectrum are the “naturals” who frequently play digital games themselves, teach with them often, and receive lots of support. 

Really, though, the strength of the new study, titled “Level Up Learning: A National Survey on Teaching With Digital Games,” is in how thoroughly it surveys the field. 

Some findings that caught my eye:

• 74 percent of the K-8 teachers surveyed report using digital games for instruction, most at least monthly and more than half at least weekly.

• More than 40 percent of those surveyed say they use digital learning games to deliver mandated academic content, while roughly one-third said they use games to assess student learning.

• Popular titles that teachers report using in the classroom included Starfall, Cool Math, PBS Kids, ABC Mouse, and Brain Pop.

• Immersive and commercial games are not widely used.

• 71 percent of teachers surveyed said digital learning games were helpful for teaching math, while just 42 percent said they were helpful for teaching science.

• Of those teachers who do use games in the classroom, 56 percent said they base instructional decisions on what they learn from game-related assessments, and 54 percent said that games have been helpful in gauging student mastery of concepts or content.

• The majority of teachers—more than two-thirds—report turning to other teachers within their school or district for support using games in the classroom.

• Students are overwhelmingly accessing digital games via desktop PC or laptop (72 percent said they were doing so), followed by interactive whiteboard (40 percent) or tablet (39 percent). According to the report, “these data suggest that students’ gaming experiences at school are flipped images of ther gaming experiences at home,” where gaming systems are most popular.

• Younger teachers, teachers who regularly play digital games themselves, and teachers working in schools serving high proportions of low-income students reported using digital games in the classroom more frequently than other teachers.

• More than 60 percent reported playing digital games themselves at least once per week.

The word cloud below, from the report, provides a visual snapshot of the games that teachers report using most frequently.

 

Times must change in the classroom. The role of teachers and textbooks must transform to better prepare students for the jobs of today and tomorrow. Textbooks, although a valuable source of information,  must no longer be considered THE source of all information. The role of the teacher must also change from the ‘sage on the stage’ to the ‘guide on the side’. Despite the need for this role transformation (from lecturer to facilitator), teachers are absolutely critical for learning and assessment in today’s classrooms. Hear from Sarah Wike Loyola at the Huffington Post on her insights into preparing students for their future, and not our past.

Posted by: Ryan Schaaf

Original Source

Historically, the teacher has been the omniscient presence in just about every classroom in the world. They were the only ones who possessed the all-mighty knowledge which was passed on to their yearning students. Traditionally, pupils were placed in rows directed towards the maestro perched at the front of the room spouting facts that the students madly scribbled in their notebooks. The aforementioned students would then, at a later time, pour over their notebooks attempting to commit these facts to their short-term memory for long enough to get a decent grade on the corresponding test. Then, they would promptly forget most everything they “supposedly” learned. Sound familiar?

The only other source of knowledge on any particular subject was the textbook. In modern times, these were, and still often are, assigned in a course to each student at the beginning of the school year. Textbooks have existed since the time of papyrus and have represented a portable form of knowledge for centuries. However, for many of us who toted them around risking scoliosis for nearly two decades, textbooks have left a very negative taste in our mouths. I can clearly remember trying to read from them while fighting to keep my eyes from clamping shut.

Okay class, let’s review. For thousands of years, there have generally only been two sources of knowledge in a classroom: 1) the teacher; and 2) the text book.

So, is it possible that all of this could change in a matter of a few short years? Is it conceivable that educational tradition and history could be disrupted in a radical way? Is it imaginable that neither the teacher nor the textbook are the most powerful tools in the classroom in 2014? The answer to all of these questions is a resounding YES.

The most influential tool in the classrooms of today is the Internet, and districts, schools, and/or teachers that are not dealing with this reality are truly doing a huge disservice to their students. As we progress in this technologically charged world, we face a very important question. What is to become of the role of teachers? Will they become obsolete?

Fortunately, the answer is no, but what I hope to prove to you is that a teacher’s role in the classroom must change. We have all heard teachers referred to as the “sage on the stage”, but now that they are no longer the most sagacious presence in the room, they truly must become more of a “guide on the side”. I too am a teacher, but like to describe my role to students as one of facilitator, mentor and coach.

The hard truth is that the tech-savvy students of today do not want to be lectured to about facts they can instantly find with the click of a button on their smart phones. Siri can often give a more comprehensive answer than many of us on any given topic. Therefore, the honest truth is that HOW we teach must change. Making students memorize rote facts and regurgitate them is no longer sensible, and educators now have the opportunity to have students think much more critically, solve problems, and use their creativity in ways they never have been pushed to do in the past.

This can be done by making classrooms much more student-centered than ever before. We, as facilitators, can broach broad and meaningful questions based around the units we teach, but our students can do the research, seek out the answers, and teach themselves the material. Let me give you an example. In my AP Spanish class, one of our themes is “World Challenges”. I start the unit by simply asking, “What are the greatest challenges facing our world and how do we solve them?” I know the answer to this question, but that is unimportant because I charge them with seeking out the answers. I divide them into small groups and give them time to investigate on their own. Once they have researched the topic, I have them make a poster using the Explain Everything App that demonstrates their results. If your students do not have an iPad, they can use actual poster board. Then, they present their poster and their discoveries to their classmates. I guide them through the process, but they teach themselves and their peers the material. Later in the unit when they have to write a persuasive essay on, “What is one of the greatest challenges facing our planet and how can we solve it?” they are able to think critically on the matter because they already did when they explored the material earlier.

We were taught very differently because we only had access to the “Encyclopedia Britannica”, text books, and card catalogs. The students of today have access to a colossal amount of information. We must take this into consideration if we are going to prepare them for the modern workplace and a future so technologically advanced that it is inconceivable at this moment.

For teachers, the hardest part is letting go of control in their classrooms. Many educators are experts in what they teach, so it can be hard for them to not demonstrate their breadth of knowledge in their subjects on a daily basis. Also, teachers must now become receptive and open to a classroom full of lively, yet organized chaos. Educators have to develop a level of comfort with the fact that they are no longer simply lecturing to a silent audience.

I hope that I have shown that students need to be more in control of their own learning. In order for this to occur, educators must move aside and give up some power. This is the only way we can begin to make true educational progress, and the Internet must be our guiding force.

If you are an educator, a parent, or anyone else interested in education, get inspired the same way I did by watching Sugata Mitra’s TEDTalk.

Follow Sarah Wike Loyola on Twitter: www.twitter.com/SWLoyola

Vicki Davis at Edutopia shares with us the fundamentals of game-based learning and provides helpful definitions and scenarios for educators to consider when they are incorporating learning games into instruction. 

Posted by: Ryan Schaaf

Original Source

You want students to learn. Shall we play a game? Absolutely!

But what is a game?

Game: a form of play or sport, especially a competitive one played according to rules and decided by skill, strength, or luck.

Is Game-Based Learning the Same as Gamification?

Not exactly. Gamification is “applying typical elements of game playing (e.g., point scoring, competition with others, rules of play) to other areas of activity.” Great classrooms often use both.

Every day in my classroom, I’m using the essentials: gamification elements, reward systems, and game-based learning. I’ve already covered 5 Ways to Design Effective Rewards for Game-Based Learning. Let’s learn how to pick the games.

Understanding Games

Powerful games in the classroom often include:

• Multiple levels or challenges
• A compelling or intriguing storyline
• A personalized, unique experience for each learner
• Rewards such as unlocking certain capabilities based upon achievements
• Additional rewards and feedback from the teacher or classroom.

Tools to Analyze Game-Based Learning

As you choose games, you’ll want to mix up the games you use. These tools will help you analyze which works for you.

Computer Games vs. Simulations

Computer games are often fantasy based. Simulations are a form of computer game that simulates something happening in real life. Both are useful.

A simulation might have students dissect a body online, while a computer game that teaches the same thing would be Whack a Bone. Both can teach the bones and parts of the body. Dissection is more realistic than the game to “whack” the proper bone.

Single- vs. Multi-Player

In a single-player game, each student plays as an individual. There may be a leaderboard at the end, but they aren’t playing against or with other players inside the game.

Multi-player games include other players as either competitors or teammates.

For example, the AIC Conflict Simulation from the University of Michigan is a multi-player simulation of the Arab-Israeli conflict. Students play the role of world leaders, and their mentors are grad students at the University of Michigan. Every single game is unique. The learning experience is powerful.

A single-player game, PeaceMaker, also simulates the Arab-Israeli conflict — however, it’s just the student against the computer. There are no unique elements determined by other players in the game, just the software.

Single-player games can be easier to play and coach, but I’ve gravitated toward at least one multi-player simulation per school year per course. Multi-player simulation environments require higher-order thinking. Students are analyzing, creating, and having to deeply understand their topic.

One of my favorite methods to amp up single-player games is creating teams. For example, using the typing speeds of my students, I create teams with the same average typing speed. These evenly-matched teams play their favorite typing game, Baron von Typefast. We add up all the scores, and the winning team receives a medal (as I play Olympic music). I’ve seen my eighth graders wear these all day long!

One-Time vs. Persistent Games

One-time games make fun bell ringers. Every time a student logs in, he or she starts over. A persistent game is a permanent game environment where the student achieves over multiple playing sessions.

Right now, my ninth graders are participating in the H&R Block Budget Challenge. In this persistent game, they have to create a budget, pay bills, and save money on the salary of a person who is just six months out of college. It goes along with the real calendar and will last from October through December. (Students can win real cash scholarships, which makes it even more intense.) If you coach a persistent game well, the game itself becomes the reward.

While students are playing the simulation game, I am still teaching with one-time games. This week I used a Tax Bingo game where students fill a bingo card by getting answers from their classmates. (Think of it as a massivethink-pair-share.)

Real-Life vs. Electronic Gaming

You can game in the physical classroom. Some gamers call this RL (real life) or IRL (in real life). For example, I invented an accounting game to use with a physical Monopoly board. As my students entered debits and credits, they produced financial documents. While electronic games are fast and easy, the physical classroom is a powerful place to use game-based learning.

Thematic Games with a Storyline

Some teachers like Michael Matera are using game-based learning every day. Every student is in a “house” or “clan,” and these groups compete for points all year long. (See Gamification in Education for more about this model.)

Preparation vs. On-the-Fly Game Play

Some formative assessment tools or games like Kahoot! require some preparation ahead of time. Socrative, another formative assessment tool with built-in games, has some “on-the-fly” tools that let teachers ask for answers without preparation.

Feedback vs. No Feedback

Teachers need data on gaps in knowledge. Many of today’s educational “games” have no feedback for parents or teachers. Look for games with good teacher feedback systems.

Where Do I Find the Games?

If you want to find great games, I recommend the Gamifi-ed wiki that my ninth graders compiled with the Master’s program students from the University of Alaska Southeast. (As an aside, we found a major disconnect between recommendations by app stores and the games that are actually the best for learning.)

Additionally, sites like Common Sense Media and Free Technology for Teachers are always featuring new games and simulations.

Game-Based Learning

Games have always been in the classroom, but improvements in technology have launched us forward. Not all games are alike, so be smart — but GAME ON!

VICKI DAVIS @COOLCATTEACHER’S PROFILE

It makes sense that the rise in teenage weirdness is directly related to our children reaching puberty earlier and adulthood later. It also makes sense that we don’t have to just accept this developmental change without recognizing our responsibly to “properly instruct and exercise” the brain of our adolescent children.

Posted By Sherwen Mohan

Original Source

“What was he thinking?” It’s the familiar cry of bewildered parents trying to understand why their teenagers act the way they do. 

How does the boy who can thoughtfully explain the reasons never to drink and drive end up in a drunken crash? Why does the girl who knows all about birth control find herself pregnant by a boy she doesn’t even like? What happened to the gifted, imaginative child who excelled through high school but then dropped out of college, drifted from job to job and now lives in his parents’ basement?

If you think of the teenage brain as a car, today’s adolescents acquire an accelerator a long time before they can steer and brake. Harry Campbell

Adolescence has always been troubled, but for reasons that are somewhat mysterious, puberty is now kicking in at an earlier and earlier age. A leading theory points to changes in energy balance as children eat more and move less.

At the same time, first with the industrial revolution and then even more dramatically with the information revolution, children have come to take on adult roles later and later. Five hundred years ago, Shakespeare knew that the emotionally intense combination of teenage sexuality and peer-induced risk could be tragic—witness “Romeo and Juliet.” But, on the other hand, if not for fate, 13-year-old Juliet would have become a wife and mother within a year or two.

Our Juliets (as parents longing for grandchildren will recognize with a sigh) may experience the tumult of love for 20 years before they settle down into motherhood. And our Romeos may be poetic lunatics under the influence of Queen Mab until they are well into graduate school.

What happens when children reach puberty earlier and adulthood later? The answer is: a good deal of teenage weirdness. Fortunately, developmental psychologists and neuroscientists are starting to explain the foundations of that weirdness. 

Photos: The Trials of Teenagers

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James Dean in the 1955 film ‘Rebel Without A Cause’ Everett Collection

The crucial new idea is that there are two different neural and psychological systems that interact to turn children into adults. Over the past two centuries, and even more over the past generation, the developmental timing of these two systems has changed. That, in turn, has profoundly changed adolescence and produced new kinds of adolescent woe. The big question for anyone who deals with young people today is how we can go about bringing these cogs of the teenage mind into sync once again. 

The first of these systems has to do with emotion and motivation. It is very closely linked to the biological and chemical changes of puberty and involves the areas of the brain that respond to rewards. This is the system that turns placid 10-year-olds into restless, exuberant, emotionally intense teenagers, desperate to attain every goal, fulfill every desire and experience every sensation. Later, it turns them back into relatively placid adults. 

Recent studies in the neuroscientist B.J. Casey’s lab at Cornell University suggest that adolescents aren’t reckless because they underestimate risks, but because they overestimate rewards—or, rather, find rewards more rewarding than adults do. The reward centers of the adolescent brain are much more active than those of either children or adults. Think about the incomparable intensity of first love, the never-to-be-recaptured glory of the high-school basketball championship.

What teenagers want most of all are social rewards, especially the respect of their peers. In a recent study by the developmental psychologist Laurence Steinberg at Temple University, teenagers did a simulated high-risk driving task while they were lying in an fMRI brain-imaging machine. The reward system of their brains lighted up much more when they thought another teenager was watching what they did—and they took more risks.

From an evolutionary point of view, this all makes perfect sense. One of the most distinctive evolutionary features of human beings is our unusually long, protected childhood. Human children depend on adults for much longer than those of any other primate. That long protected period also allows us to learn much more than any other animal. But eventually, we have to leave the safe bubble of family life, take what we learned as children and apply it to the real adult world. 

Becoming an adult means leaving the world of your parents and starting to make your way toward the future that you will share with your peers. Puberty not only turns on the motivational and emotional system with new force, it also turns it away from the family and toward the world of equals. 

The second crucial system in our brains has to do with control; it channels and harnesses all that seething energy. In particular, the prefrontal cortex reaches out to guide other parts of the brain, including the parts that govern motivation and emotion. This is the system that inhibits impulses and guides decision-making, that encourages long-term planning and delays gratification.

This control system depends much more on learning. It becomes increasingly effective throughout childhood and continues to develop during adolescence and adulthood, as we gain more experience. You come to make better decisions by making not-so-good decisions and then correcting them. You get to be a good planner by making plans, implementing them and seeing the results again and again. Expertise comes with experience. As the old joke has it, the answer to the tourist’s question “How do you get to Carnegie Hall?” is “Practice, practice, practice.”

In the distant (and even the not-so-distant) historical past, these systems of motivation and control were largely in sync. In gatherer-hunter and farming societies, childhood education involves formal and informal apprenticeship. Children have lots of chances to practice the skills that they need to accomplish their goals as adults, and so to become expert planners and actors. The cultural psychologist Barbara Rogoff studied this kind of informal education in a Guatemalan Indian society, where she found that apprenticeship allowed even young children to become adept at difficult and dangerous tasks like using a machete. 

In the past, to become a good gatherer or hunter, cook or caregiver, you would actually practice gathering, hunting, cooking and taking care of children all through middle childhood and early adolescence—tuning up just the prefrontal wiring you’d need as an adult. But you’d do all that under expert adult supervision and in the protected world of childhood, where the impact of your inevitable failures would be blunted. When the motivational juice of puberty arrived, you’d be ready to go after the real rewards, in the world outside, with new intensity and exuberance, but you’d also have the skill and control to do it effectively and reasonably safely.

In contemporary life, the relationship between these two systems has changed dramatically. Puberty arrives earlier, and the motivational system kicks in earlier too. 

At the same time, contemporary children have very little experience with the kinds of tasks that they’ll have to perform as grown-ups. Children have increasingly little chance to practice even basic skills like cooking and caregiving. Contemporary adolescents and pre-adolescents often don’t do much of anything except go to school. Even the paper route and the baby-sitting job have largely disappeared.

The experience of trying to achieve a real goal in real time in the real world is increasingly delayed, and the growth of the control system depends on just those experiences. The pediatrician and developmental psychologist Ronald Dahl at the University of California, Berkeley, has a good metaphor for the result: Today’s adolescents develop an accelerator a long time before they can steer and brake.

This doesn’t mean that adolescents are stupider than they used to be. In many ways, they are much smarter. An ever longer protected period of immaturity and dependence—a childhood that extends through college—means that young humans can learn more than ever before. There is strong evidence that IQ has increased dramatically as more children spend more time in school, and there is even some evidence that higher IQ is correlated with delayed frontal lobe development.

All that school means that children know more about more different subjects than they ever did in the days of apprenticeships. Becoming a really expert cook doesn’t tell you about the nature of heat or the chemical composition of salt—the sorts of things you learn in school.

But there are different ways of being smart. Knowing physics and chemistry is no help with a soufflé. Wide-ranging, flexible and broad learning, the kind we encourage in high-school and college, may actually be in tension with the ability to develop finely-honed, controlled, focused expertise in a particular skill, the kind of learning that once routinely took place in human societies. For most of our history, children have started their internships when they were seven, not 27.

The old have always complained about the young, of course. But this new explanation based on developmental timing elegantly accounts for the paradoxes of our particular crop of adolescents. 

There do seem to be many young adults who are enormously smart and knowledgeable but directionless, who are enthusiastic and exuberant but unable to commit to a particular kind of work or a particular love until well into their 20s or 30s. And there is the graver case of children who are faced with the uncompromising reality of the drive for sex, power and respect, without the expertise and impulse control it takes to ward off unwanted pregnancy or violence.

This new explanation also illustrates two really important and often overlooked facts about the mind and brain. First, experience shapes the brain. People often think that if some ability is located in a particular part of the brain, that must mean that it’s “hard-wired” and inflexible. But, in fact, the brain is so powerful precisely because it is so sensitive to experience. It’s as true to say that our experience of controlling our impulses make the prefrontal cortex develop as it is to say that prefrontal development makes us better at controlling our impulses. Our social and cultural life shapes our biology.

Second, development plays a crucial role in explaining human nature. The old “evolutionary psychology” picture was that genes were directly responsible for some particular pattern of adult behavior—a “module.” In fact, there is more and more evidence that genes are just the first step in complex developmental sequences, cascades of interactions between organism and environment, and that those developmental processes shape the adult brain. Even small changes in developmental timing can lead to big changes in who we become.

Fortunately, these characteristics of the brain mean that dealing with modern adolescence is not as hopeless as it might sound. Though we aren’t likely to return to an agricultural life or to stop feeding our children well and sending them to school, the very flexibility of the developing brain points to solutions.

Brain research is often taken to mean that adolescents are really just defective adults—grown-ups with a missing part. Public policy debates about teenagers thus often turn on the question of when, exactly, certain areas of the brain develop, and so at what age children should be allowed to drive or marry or vote—or be held fully responsible for crimes. But the new view of the adolescent brain isn’t that the prefrontal lobes just fail to show up; it’s that they aren’t properly instructed and exercised.

Simply increasing the driving age by a year or two doesn’t have much influence on the accident rate, for example. What does make a difference is having a graduated system in which teenagers slowly acquire both more skill and more freedom—a driving apprenticeship.

Instead of simply giving adolescents more and more school experiences—those extra hours of after-school classes and homework—we could try to arrange more opportunities for apprenticeship. AmeriCorps, the federal community-service program for youth, is an excellent example, since it provides both challenging real-life experiences and a degree of protection and supervision. 

“Take your child to work” could become a routine practice rather than a single-day annual event, and college students could spend more time watching and helping scientists and scholars at work rather than just listening to their lectures. Summer enrichment activities like camp and travel, now so common for children whose parents have means, might be usefully alternated with summer jobs, with real responsibilities. 

The good news, in short, is that we don’t have to just accept the developmental patterns of adolescent brains. We can actually shape and change them.