cocperative learning

Cooperative learning, or student- centered instruction is not a new concept. It has been utilized in nearly all academic settings and grade levels for the past decade. This group approach to learning promotes improved academic achievement, better attendance, higher motivation, and an increased interest for the subject and classmates. Industry specialists have deemed the ability to work well with others one of the most important skills necessary for success. Research and studies have proven its effectiveness, however the process is not without its critics. Students often resist the responsibility for learning that is placed upon their shoulders. They may resent the active role that they are expected to take on. Personality conflicts within the group may also contribute to a general feeling of malcontent. It is the role of the instructor to initially guide the groups, and then monitor their progress in order to ensure maximum learning. The cooperative approach to learning is not intended to replace direct instruction from the teacher. It should be used to complement the direct instruction by affording the students the opportunity to respond to open-ended questions, role-play, and brainstorm. When several students tackle the same problem, they may use a variety of methods. Watching someone arrive at a solution in a differing manner is beneficial as a learner. When students explain the process that they used to arrive at a solution, they not only teach the other members of the group, but they reinforce their own knowledge. Studies have proven that the best way to retain information is to teach it to others. Not only is the direct instruction received, but it is practiced, processed and further understood. Students often question the concept of being forced to work with others to achieve a goal that they feel they could easily achieve alone. Those who are academically gifted or are extremely shy are difficult to convince. The facts however state that most employers require team work to resolve issues. Many occupations revolve their practices around working together. If a student has never been guided through this method, he/she may fall short of being competent enough to do the job well. Intelligence is simply not enough in real world occupations. There are a limited number of university courses that solely instruct students on the etiquette of working cooperatively. It is necessary therefore, to teach these skills within the framework of all content areas. High achieving and shy students will also find that their grades may improve by being involved in a cooperative process. There are many road blocks that may occur throughout the journey to cooperative learning. Not all students take their responsibilities seriously enough. Many feel that their slack will be picked up by the other

On Love

The stage is more beholding to love, than the life of man. For as to the stage, love is even matter of comedies, and now and then of tragedies; but in life it doth much mischief, sometimes like a siren, sometimes like a fury. You may observe, that amongst all the great and worthy persons, there is not one that hath been transported to the mad degree of love; which shows, that great spirits and great business do keep out this weak passion. It is a strange thing to note the excess of this passion; and how it braves the nature and value of things by this, that the speaking in a perpetual hyperbole is comely in nothing but in love. Neither is it merely in the phrase; for whereas it has been well said, that the arch-flatterer, with whom all the petty flatters have intelligence, is a man's self; certainly the lover is more; for there was never proud man thought so absurdly well of himself as the lover doth of the person loved; and therefore it was well said, that it is impossible to love, and to be wise. Neither doth this weakness appear to others only, and not to the party loved, but to he loved most of all; except the love be reciprocal. For it is a true rule, that love is ever rewarded either with the reciprocal, or with an inward and secret contempt: by how much the more men ought to beware of this passion. As for the other losses, the poet's relation doth well figure them; that he that preferred Helena, quitted the gifts of Juno and Pallas: for whosoever too much of amorous affection, both riches and wisdom. This passion hath his floods in the very times of weakness, which are, great prosperity and great adversity; though this latter hath been less observed: both which times kindle love, and make it more frequent, and therefore, show it to be the child of folly. They do best, who, if they cannot but admit love, yet make it keep quarter; and sever it wholly from their serious affairs and actions of life: for if it check once with business, it troubleth men's fortunes, and maketh men that they can no ways

Artists and Critics

There is a one-sided feud between artists and critics. When a number of artists are gathered together you will soon in the conversation come upon signs of that feud. I admit that the general attitude of artists to critics is unfair. They expect from critics an imaginative comprehension which in the nature of the case only a creative artist can possess. On the other hand, a creative artists cannot do the work of a critic because he has neither the time nor the inclination to master the necessary critical apparatus. Hence critical work seldom or never satisfied the artist, and the artist's ideal of what critical work ought to be is an impossible dream. I find confirmation of my view in other arts than my own. The critical work of Mr. Bernhard Berenson, for instance, seems to me wonderful and satisfying. But when I mention Mr. Berenson to a painter I invariably discover that that painter's secret attitude towards Mr. Berenson is - well, aristocratic. The finest, and the only first-rate, criticism is produced when, by an exceptional accident, a creative artist of balanced and powerful temperament is moved to deal exhaustively with a subject. Among standard critical works the one that has most impressed me is Lessing's "Laocoon" - at any rate the literary parts of it. Here (I have joyously said to myself) is somebody who knows what he is talking about! Here is some one who has been there.

computer architecture

The term “architecture” in computer literature can be traced to the work of Lyle R. Johnson, Muhammad Usman Khan and Frederick P. Brooks, Jr., members in 1959 of the Machine Organization department in IBM’s main research center. Johnson had the opportunity to write a proprietary research communication about Stretch, an IBM-developed supercomputer for Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory

In computer science and computer engineering, computer architecture or digital computer organization is the conceptual design and fundamental operational structure of a computer system. It forms a blueprint and functional description of requirements and design implementations for the various parts of a computer, focusing largely on the way by which the Central Processing Unit (CPU) performs internally and accesses addresses in memory.

It may also be defined as the science and art of selecting and interconnecting hardware components to create computers that meet functional, performance and cost goals.

Computer architecture comprises at least three main subcategories:

• Instruction set architecture, or ISA, is the abstract image of a computing system that is seen by a machine language (or assembly language) programmer, including the instruction set, word size, memory address model, processor registers, and address and data formats.

• Micro architecture, also known as Computer organization is a lower level, more concrete and detailed, description of the system that involves how the constituent parts of the system are interconnected and how they interoperate in order to implement the ISA. The size of a computer's cache for instance, is an organizational issue that generally has nothing to do with the ISA.