So much to contemplate!
Have taken in a lot of information and ideas over the last two days in Invercargill.
I was able to be inspired by a variety of international speakers like Rich Allan, Marcia Tate and Eric Jensen and also Dorothy Burt from Auckland, New Zealand who I enjoyed meeting after viewing some of her work with podcasts by Pt England School recently. I was keen to hear also what the other teachers learned in the workshops they attended in our discussions following them.
A couple of 'connections'...
Dorothy Burt's blog - lots about podcasting to improve literacy in Decile 1 schools, really good links with literacy and the new curriculum. Raises ideas about the importance of teaching our young learners safe use of the internet and using it as a tool for learning. Considers ideas about E-Portfolios too. Love the literacy cycle that has been adapted for each class/school but based on the same idea and links in the forms of literacy. The New Poor - people with an inability to work in this digital age. When did ICT become E-Learning, I must have missed that change in terminology. Check out the podcasted book reviews on the
Pt England School Blog!
An article by Eric Jensen - A fresh look at brain based education
an article with links to Jensen's work -
The Brain Based SkepticAnd from
Rich Allan -
Word Toons! an alphabet mat in production (will share when it's all go),
itunes getting a work out, the
green book of songs and my mind thinking, analysing, processing and establishing if and how different ideas can be incorporated into my class to improve childrens learning outcomes. I loved learning about some 'memory' strategies and creating 20 pegs to be able to do this, we don't do 'pop-quizzes' etc in New Zealand so not sure of the classroom relevance - remembering what to bring for athletics day maybe? But loved the idea of creating stories to help remember objects or events. Stories are fun :-)
Marcia Tate talked us through 20 strategies to take advantage of how the brain learns best - how to grow dendrites! Loved hearing about dendrites and synapses...nice tie in to my nursing! Speaking of Tie ins...for teachers or students to take something on board and 'learn it' Eric described 5 ways to implement brain based education:
- Buy-in - having a 'reason to believe'
- Tie-in - behavioral relevancy
- Foundation - competency
- Connections - practicality
- Action Sets - actionable
I'm sure I'll have lots more to add to this over the next few days/weeks as I process it all.
