The Research Masters' Blog Archives
Starting a new business is not easy. Smart entrepreneurs realize that there are great risks involved in starting up every new business. An unstable market, lack of funding and choosing the wrong team are the top three reasons businesses fail. Below are a tips to ensure that your business will thrive.
Television and video games like most anything else, can have a negative influence on our children if used incorrectly. Violence on television and video games can desensitize children to violence and give false expectations of real life. However, when parents take an active role in monitoring and guiding their children toward appropriate, educational games and videos, they can greatly enhance children’s learning with undeniable, positive, life-changing results.
I just had no idea. No one told me. They painted a rosy picture for me, so I thought it would be like anything else I set out to accomplish in life. Let me be the first to admit that I was gravely mistaken.
When I think about my personal journey as a nursing student, two aspects of Lifelong Media, The Research Masters’ new initiative, stand out to me: A Day in the Life and Project Nightingale. These would have been valuable resources 20 years ago as I took my first steps toward a lifelong career in nursing…
I’ve been asked why I love my team and I can only guess that this will be an atypical response. Honestly, I love my team because I am not a team player. Not in any way, shape, or form. I grew up an only child and spent my days reading or playing outside. I’ve never desired to work with anyone else and the occasional projects in school that required teamwork were something I absolutely dreaded, while my classmates found them fun.
A few weeks ago, The Research Masters had its first live meeting. Some of the members of our team members convened for the very first time, and I had the honor of meeting some of the wonderful individuals that I have worked with for several years. Words cannot express how grateful I am to have had this privilege! Working in a virtual environment has its advantages, however, meeting face to face has several advantages as well.
In the month of July some of us from The Research Masters team met in Winston Salem, NC to discuss the exciting projects ahead of us with Lifelong Media. This was no ordinary meeting. For some of us, we have worked together for years on various projects and have never met. We have had hundreds (or is it thousands?) of emails and a lot of phone calls, but never a face-to-face meeting. What an incredible experience!
One of the most frequent questions that parents and colleagues ask me is how teachers address the range of needs in a classroom of students, each of whom have unique needs, learning styles, and prior knowledge. While there are several answers that I could give, the one that I feel is most important to a students’ success is Differentiated Instruction.
I am a bumblebee. Well, technically no, but my name “Melissa” is from Greek mythology meaning “sweet as a honey bee.” Back when MTV still played music videos, the alternative rock band Blind Melon released a video for their song “No Rain.” The video followed a girl, dressed as bumblebee, moving through the city. The bumblebee girl was looking for others like her. Eventually, she came across a park and through the gates there were people just like her, dressed as bumblebees.
Can video games serve as a driving tool for education? What I observe when it comes to learning and human development reveals that games are extremely useful educational tools. With video games becoming a mainstay component in entertainment for today’s youth, it is important that parents and educators harness and promote positive reinforcement of the gaming experience. Video games can compliment the traditional stand-and-deliver form of education by enriching children’s lives with improved opportunities for meaningful learning and the development of new skills, I have come up with important reasons why I believe video games are a necessary tool and should be used as a force for positive change in the education of children.
“Project Nightingale will blossom into a resource for nurses, but first we must bloom as a lifeline for student and graduate nurses.” Nurses of every variety must have compassion. They also must carry around an encyclopedia’s-worth of knowledge in their brains and the skillset to put it to use. But, does every graduate who fulfills that criteria become a nurse?
Nursing students today are challenged with the need to acquire a large amount of information with the desire to acquire this knowledge as quickly as possible. Students have technology and answers at their fingertips by way of smart phones, the Internet, and tablets. When studying for the next exam, these students are seen searching the Internet to find videos, handouts, and illustrations for the complex topics they are learning in an effort to simplify and remember the information.
As we move further into the Digital Age, technology is changing the way we conduct nearly every aspect of our lives, including how we learn and are taught in the classroom. While bionic instructors or cyborgs will not replace human teachers anytime soon, it is very likely that digital brains will do most of the work or at least a good portion of it, in 21st century classrooms.