This is a TED talk that’s worth watching, I think. We talk lots in education about the jobs our students will enter into upon leaving school. We discuss the importance of fostering creativity and even entrepreneurship in students. So I was interested that, in this TED talk, those things were discussed but there was … Continue reading »
At the Emerging Leaders Un-conference in the holidays I was lucky to hear Claire Amos discuss her experiences in the Self-Diredcted schools in Canada. A lot of what she discussed was very much secondary focused but one particular idea stuck with me and I decided to see if I could primary school-ify it and see if I could make it work in a … Continue reading »
Interestingly, when I’ve spoken to the students in Year 6 lately, they’ve told me that they have lots of control in the classroom. I can’t say I agree, though they may well have plenty of control compared to previous years at school. So, to give both myself and the kids in my class a better idea of who had … Continue reading »
It is interesting to ask students what successful learners do – you always get students who say the secret to success is to concentrate hard or work hard. I agree this is important, but is there more to a really great learner than that? I wanted to pose this question to the students in my class to … Continue reading »
I recently visited all 3 Year 6 classes and spoke informally to randomly chosen students. I had decided to do this to get an idea of where the students were at with their learning and what our next steps as teachers were. This is what we came up with after reflecting as a team on the students’ responses: … Continue reading »
How many times have you attended a conference, PD session or seminar and ended up doing the most meaningful learning through informal discussions with fellow educators? How often have you wished you had more time to meet up with other educators to discuss issues face-to-face? How often have you wanted to connect more with like-minded educators beyond … Continue reading »
This year, the Year 6 syndicate started off the term with an intense focus on learning. We have focused on the following ideas: What successful learners do. What switches us on and off learning. What meaningful learning is. (Useful, get a sense of accomplishment out of it, enjoyable, interesting and … Continue reading »
I’ve been so very slack with my blogging so now that I’m back into it, I have an awful lot to share from the past few weeks. So I thought I’d write a series of posts about all the exciting things that have happened this year. Today: A Survey of Year 6. At the very … Continue reading »
“There’s zero correlation between being the best talker and having the best ideas.” (Susan Cain) I’ve been wanting to read Susan Cain’s book Quiet for a little while so, when I saw her video on TED talks laziness prevailed and I decided to watch it. The talk really resonated with me as I would consider myself more … Continue reading »
I was lucky enough to be taken along to the International Conference on Thinking (ICOT) held in Wellington over the summer holidays. I say lucky as there were so many inspiring minds there, both in the education field and beyond, from New Zealand and overseas, from higher education as well as practitioners. I was humbled to hear … Continue reading »
