Danish. (2006). The effectiveness of teaching a life skills program in a physical education context.  Virginia Commonwealth University, U.S. Retrieved from: https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/23421391.pdf

Background: This source demonstrates how research was done to show that there is a correlation between physical education and learning life skills. It is seen that many life skills such as posture, decision making, and social communication provoke very physical learning opportunities. They also contribute to the health of the youth which is considered very physical. An experiment and research study was made on the program GOAL in physical education classes. The study focused on the effectiveness of life skills delivered through physical education within eight 15 minutes sessions. The results showed “a significant increase in the participants’ knowledge of life skills and perception of their competence to achieve the goals they have set.”

How I Used It: I used this study as evidence for integrating the teaching of life skills into the classic education structure. If specific life skills can be applied to a gym setting, why not find other skills that could apply to english or math? This same process can happen in those traditional classrooms, but with still keeping the original subject in mind. A math class could integrate teaching the skill of dealing with money though taxes or loans. An english class can integrate the discussion of real life issues through literature and use it to teach life lessons. It could also apply to the communication aspect. The list could go on, but if teaching life skills in a physical education class for just 15 minutes in eight sessions significantly increased the students’ life skill knowledge, then imagine what would happen if it was used more often in traditional classrooms.

Gould. (2006). Future Directions in Coaching Life Skills:
Understanding High School Coaches’ Views and Needs. Michigan State University. Retrieved from: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.498.6098&rep=rep1&type=pdf

Background: This journal researched the types of personal and social issues high school coaches need to realized and what they believed their role in these issues are. A survey of 154 varsity high school sport coaches representing seven sports was conducted. The journal begins to explain how the American system likes to promote sportsmanship and goal setting as life practices which leads into the use of teaching life skills through physical education and coaching sports.

How I Used It: I did not use this source in my paper. I ended up using a similar source that went into detail about once research study done about a specific physical education classroom. This source seemed useless since the other one tackled the idea perfectly.

Boyinaband. (2015). Don’t Stay in School. Retrieved from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8xe6nLVXEC0

Background: This video discusses the lack of life skills being taught in schools. The Education System finds it more valuable to teach abstract math or make students memorize useless information rather than incorporating important skills into the lessons. Ignoring these essential skills causes students to be lost in the real world once they are faced with adult reality. How do you pay tax? What are my rights as a citizen? These questions and many others remain unanswered when beginning adulthood because a poorly structured education got in the way of learning. Something must change.

How I Used It: I used this as a form of background information to support the fact that school systems are not preparing students for adult tasks such as paying taxes or knowing how to handle finances. Of course school can be used to explore the STEM subjects, but a fair portion, especially in the high school level should be spent informing students about the near future and how to deal with it. This video opened my eyes to the problems that our school system has, so it aided my thinking of what to do to fix these issues.

Boyinaband. (2015, March 3). Holy crap, a school actually listened! Retrieved from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fCM4GEBDjz4

Background: This is a squeal to the “Don’t Stay in School” video. A group of students circled the original video around to their school and it reached teachers and administration. The school then listened to the video’s message and the opinions of the student body to encourage the teaching of life skills. The song writer who made the video explains how it shouldn’t be the teachers job to fix this broken system and teach extra skills. They will not be paid for their extra work, but in this case with small integrations of skills being taught in this specific school, it is a start to change the system itself.

How I Used It: I did not directly use this source as a quote or reference, but I used it to help encourage ideas on how this change can be made since it worked well for this particular school. I also thought it was a great follow up to the original video and had to include it in mt thought process.

Marshall. (1997). Does education and training get in the way of learning?. Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy, USA. Retrieved from: https://search-proquest-com.ezproxy.rowan.edu/docview/1307303159/FC04C60614784382PQ/1?accountid=13605&imgSeq=1

Background: This source argues the importance of changing the education system to fit the new era of the knowledge era that we are entering. The text describes a lot about scientific jobs and how machines are beginning to replace human labor, but the author eases into the issue of today’s youth not being able to keep up with tomorrow because of what they are supposedly taught. One of the main points that the author makes about this topic is that we must encourage students “to connect and integrate concepts to participate in the important work of the community and become ethical leaders.” If we do not, the author explains his fear of the continuous development of learning disabled youth who will seek for the simple narrow solution to complex problems. As a result, it will prohibit them from becoming lifelong learners. 

How I Used It: I used this source as a blueprint to my evolving education plan. It lists many of the same thoughts I share to execute my plan and it also gives an outcome to what may happen if this plan is not implemented. In some ways, technology is ruining the learning process, but in others we need technology to stay with the evolving times. Ultimately, there needs to be a balance and that is what I have included in my plan. Continuing to send out the youth unprepared will just result in them not only not  understanding life skills, but the ability to become lifelong learners. We never stop learning, but our education stops. The life skills must be integrated into schools so that they acquire the proper life skills to begin an adult life, but they will also have the ability to continue to thrive and learn from what the real world throws their way. There is no simple solution to complex problems. 

S, P. (2011, July 28). Difference Between Education and Learning. Retrieved from http://www.differencebetween.net/miscellaneous/difference-between-education-and-learning/

Background: This source basically compares the difference between education and learning at many different angles. Many believe that both have the same definition. While they are similar, they do not mean the same thing. Looking at the big picture, education is the process in which knowledge, values and skills are passed down at one point in life while learning is defined as acquiring new knowledge, values and skills. The difference is difficult to see, but it makes a huge difference when discussing how education gets in the way of our learning. Education simply just introduces information to us that we will most likely forget. Learning allows us to imbed this information or skills into our natural thought process for as long as we use it in our daily lives. 

How I Used It: I used these definitions to argue the fact that these two words are different. I am aware that this is no new information, but it shows that my hypothesis is on the right track with integrating life skills into subjects. The definitions aided me in the definition essay to point out the difference between the words and show how we teach students with only education in mind. The more we try to allow students to acquire skills and knowledge rather than just passing it down, the better prepared they will be for what the world demands. This information will not be forgotten. Truly learning math for the purpose of actually using it in real life situations will stay with a student more than trying to find the area of a 3D object.

Education vs. Learning. (2014, July 24). Biblio. Retrieved from: https://medium.com/the-graph/education-vs-learning-9f0d0d5696b5

Background: This site shows the difference between education and learning, but also lends other information. The main use of this site was for the graphic that not only compares education and learning, but also curriculum and curiosity and intrinsic vs. extrinsic motivation.

How I Used It: I used this source as inspiration from the graphic mentioned in the background. It helped me mentally split up different ways of showing the difference between education and learning. For example, it visually showed me how learning is an active thing when education is not and reminded me about the two types of motivation that cause us to learn.

When School is Counterintuitive (2017, August 25). Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kGClJGjsNxk 

Background: Tiffany Cabrera, a high school senior at the time of this video’s publication, discusses her concern over her education and her peers. Her and her peers were posed a question in government class about political polarization. The question related to Tiffany’s thoughts about the current education system. She believes that when we hear the word education, we think of memorizing information for a test and once the test is over, we forget everything. What if we applied knowledge that we were interested in? She believes that this will help us learn not only information, but skills to be active members of society in the real world. Instead of making a silly poster project that could be done in 30 minutes, why not take on a bigger project that will actually help us learn?

How I Used It: I used this source to show how the students are beginning to notice how little prepared they are for the adult world. It is not the laziness of “I don’t want to complete work.” It is now becoming a cry for help to fix or at least evolve the education system into a learning system. Education does not allow us to learn, so why continue the same ineffective curriculum? Tiffany also makes many great points to support the argument that education is not the same as learning which will strengthen my argument. If we could take a class such as math and teach math problems that would relate to real life situations, then maybe we could learn a valuable life skill so that the youth is not lost when they enter adulthood. 

Philp. (2007). Engaging ‘Tweens and Teens. Corwin Press. Retrieved from: https://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=XU1OAwAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PR7&dq=%22engaging+the+brain%22+learning&ots=jj-UsdTADV&sig=5faRBH6o6mRtKXyJEjUrbMRN09k#v=onepage&q=%22engaging%20the%20brain%22%20learning&f=false

Background: This book was written to help teachers who teach the secondary levels understand their student’s behaviors. Research has been done to back up the information given in this book. Much of it is neurobiological, but behaviors of teenagers come down to the three main overlapping sciences, biology, psychology, and chemistry. The research in these areas help teachers understand the structure and development of the brain’s stages of maturity. Extensive research shows that the brain is best at learning when it needs to survive. A typical student’s brain does not rank academic success high on the to do list for this reason, but what if academic success relied heavily on survival in the real world? It would only be then where students would be engaged to learn because of the need of that survival in the future. The main goal is to engage, so that students will take an interest in learning. This would be the best tool to figure out the teenage brain to do so.

How I Used It: I used this book to show scientific research on how the teenage brain is engaged. The biology and chemistry of an adolescent is very different from a fully grown adult, so it can be hard for a teacher to tap into the interests and engagement of their students. Though I am a teenager myself, I did not know about this specific research done on the teen brain. I was able to take these research points and connect them to the life skills plan. It is clear that the brain learns so it can survive. If students are educated on meaningless information, they will not learn it. It is only when the information becomes essential that they will be engaged. 

The Learning Pyramid. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.educationcorner.com/the-learning-pyramid.html

Background: This source is mainly a photo of a learning pyramid. It shows the retention rates of different forms of learning information. Kinesthetic learning allows students to retain the most information, so having them learn and being able to teach their peers re-enforces the information. This is important so students do not just know information to pass a class and then it is all lost.

How I Used It: I used it to show the method that allows students to retain the most information. Kinesthetic learning works best so I used this to show that students need those life skills and practice at them in order to prepare for their futures. It will not do them any good to read an article and answer questions or to just listen to a lecture. The lessons will not stick so to speak.

Learning Pyramid. (2019, August 23). Tofas Akademi. Retrieved from: https://tofasakademi.com/the-learning-pyramid/

Background: The site shows this graphic as a distribution of how how information is retained through different teaching methods. Each method is also broken down into its specifics. The first graphic on the site also splits the first half of methods and the second half to create the categories of “Passive Teaching Methods” and “Participatory Teaching Methods.” This further shows the distinct different between different types of learning.

How I Used It: I used this source as a back up reference to the other learning pyramid. Sometimes graphics can vary in information, so I wanted to confirm the percentages and have a second opinion of the retention of these teaching methods.

Common Core. (2020). Retrieved from: http://www.corestandards.org/Math/

Background: This is the official website for the Common Core curriculum. It explains when and why it was developed and what it hopes to achieve. Each state that has developed this has their own standards for passing the benchmarks of mathematics and lanaguage arts.

How I Used It: I used this site to reference a anecdote to provide a prize. It also served as an example of the opposite of my plan for learning. Common Core went the wrong way to trying to replace the old curriculum and caused a lot of havoc on the transition for the students and even the teachers teaching the new material.

Deci & Ryan. (2010). Intrinsic Motivation. Retrieved from: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/9780470479216.corpsy0467

Background: This book was a focus on motivation and specifically, intrinsic motivation. I was drawn to the book when I read the introduction and its abstract when it stated, “Throughout life, when they are in their healthiest states, they are active and interested, and the intrinsically motivated behaviors that result help them acquire knowledge about themselves and their world.”

How I Used It: I did not end up using this book as a reference in my final paper. When writing, my ideas lead be elsewhere and there wasn’t room keep adding extra points to the overall idea. The source did allude to other sources that showed how people learn the best.

Slavin. (1980). Cooperative Learning. Johns Hopkins University. Retrieved from: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.3102/00346543050002315?casa_token=K79uGICt_Y8AAAAA:WDAKcr768EZ6n54IyeB9vuJKCtR5h0wd69CMU_lRwa2L4Bu2KrFth26gakeXjKa1-8RmVw74a9GO

Background: This is an academic journal that explains what cooperative learning is and the benefits for using it in the classroom. The journal uses over 28 field projects to support the use of cooperative learning in classroom and the positive effects that this method brings to the learning experience.

How I Used It: I did not reference this journal specifically in my paper, but I did use the idea of cooperative learning in my paper. I did not go into detail, but I mentioned it to back up the learning pyramid and how students teaching each other can help them retain the information better. Students teaching each other relates to cooperative learning with students in small groups. This also connects to the life skills needed to be taught in classrooms. The social part of sharing lessons with each other builds the social skills of the students for their futures.

A Typical Day at School. (2020). Ciee. Retrieved from: https://www.ciee.org/typical-day-school

Background: This source explains and shows a graphic of a typical American high school schedule and school day. It is a simple source that gathers a generalization of American schools.

How I Used It: I used this source to confirm my own knowledge of a school schedule. It helped me create a general image of what a typical schedule looked like since some schools can create different schedules to follow. I did not reference this source, but I created a similar graphic as a model in my paper to show a visual image of this type of schedule. It also acted as a comparison to the new schedule that I created.