- OK, so he starts off by showing us a 3D printer... it print objects!!!! That is crazy! Like a whole chess set! And a few people in the room raised their hands that they actually already have one. Note to self - research that for copying/creating Christmas presents ;-) No more shopping!
- Here's one idea for the art teachers, math teachers, tech teachers...some students at a college in Britain who struggle with Asperger's and other disabilities are given a pocket GPS, and they walk around the town with it on trying to create art. They then download it to Google Earth and it draws their paths (hopefully, it looks artistic as they planned). But they really have to do some hard thinking about direction, how far they go, etc.
- kids at a school in Scotland play the Nintendo DS Brain Training game for 20 minutes every morning...scores have gone up across the board
- Singapore's national eduQuest gave video cameras to do science projects
- Australian School has students from age 11 sitting in for 4 hours per week on undergraduate classes
- schools shutting their staff rooms! we don't actually have staff rooms anymore...I would like to see those rooms turned into those "shared spaces" mentioned below...a place where students can work on the Internet and relax with teachers and other students :-)
- schools around the world allowing kids to take their shoes off
- schools where students stay in homes bases (buildings) of no more than 125 kids
- students attend staff development days and staff meetings, do lesson observations, and interview new staff - How cool would that be? Students actually involved in making the decisions that will affect them!!! They might start taking ownership AND we might actually learn something from them -heaven forbid ;-0
- intense focus...one class in 1 month and then they are finished with that course - results have gone up dramatically... kids are younger and are completing the coursework faster
- Praise Pod - manned by peers and videoed - students articulate their own "special" thing they accomplished. Peers can recognize them or teahers/staff. DVDs go home to parents - radically changes school's culture
- family learning spaces (see more in follow-up blog)
- stair wells become learning spaces
- schools being built without industrial scale toilets - shared male/female toilets in every class space. I LOVE this idea! Imagine if we had bathrooms in every classroom. It would cut down on the time students wander in the halls, bullying, smoking, vandalism, etc. The bathrooms would be cleaner and students wouldn't mind using them so much. Teachers could monitor their own bathroom just as they do the classroom.
- COOL, funky furniture that allows for collaboration
POLLED STUDENTS and here is what they had to say:
What are the most common teaching methods used in classes?
- 52% we copy from a book or board
- 33% listening to the teacher talk
What would they like to do?
- work together
- have phones on
- do practical things
how do you know your teacher is literate?
- they think there teachers should know how to upload to YouTube and add a comment, edit a wiki, turn on or off predictive text on your phone, find a safe way to pay online
personalization is not individualization, community needs to be a key element, collegiate
Good parenting ("mumology") far outweighs psychopharmacology - "study of drug-induced changes in mood, sensation, thinking, and behavior" He really promotes educating the parents as well.
Why can't the school become a place of research where teachers who study, develop, and implement plans for change? If the school is successful, then why shouldn't the teachers who participated in this receive doctoral degrees? Wouldn't that be lovely? Instead of doing online courses full of book work and incidentals, we could actually be making a change (SO MUCH MORE VALUABLE) in our classrooms, schools, etc. [see more on this in the follow up blog]
This presentation was so exciting...so many ideas about different ways to think about teaching. The tools are there, but we have to rethink how we present them!
I also decided to go to the follow-up session with Heppell. If you liked anything you read here, please read that post, too.
No comments:
Post a Comment