teaching » Philly Teacher

WebSLAM is Here!

education, teaching, technology No Responses »

May 072013

For those of you who may have been wondering where I’ve been for the last few months, I can tell you, I haven’t been resting. Over much of the last three years I have taken on endeavors outside of Philly, but I have spent this past year entrenched in the tech community in my home city. Much of the motivation for this was my dream of bringing a student hackathon to Philly.

This weekend, that dream becomes a reality.

Back in August, I invited Andrew Coy and Shelly Blake-Plock to come share their STEM League project with a group of highly engaged and respected educators and technology folks here in Philly. After the presentation and discussion at the Science Leadership Academy, I then went on a 2-3 month binge of all things technology in Philly. Along the way, I joined up with Donna Murdoch to co-organize the Philly EdTech Meetup, connected with Tracey Welson-Rossman of TechGirlz, attended a Philly Tech Meetup, and a GiveCamp, co-hosted an amazing panel at the Science Leadership Academy, attended TechCamp, and co-hosted a Philly Tech Week event with Technically Philly, and attended (more like crashed) a few Code for Philly Workshops.

Over this time, I was able to recruit 4 amazing Philly educators and 4 technologist mentors to work with 5 student teams from district, charter and independent schools. I was lucky enough to pair up with an old friend (who also happens to be an event-planning guru) to host the event at New Foundations Charter School in Northeast Philadelphia.

Our first meeting of teachers & mentors was on April 7th at National Mechanics, and from there we hit the ground running. I am so thankful for the passionate, energetic and dedicated teachers and mentors who have been working hard with their student teams these past few weeks and I have been elated to watch each link to student work come through the @STEMLeaguePHL mentions. (A big HT to Ivan Chang for showing us JS Fiddle!) You can see what student have been working on by checking out the Student Teams page of the website.

This Friday night, students will meet their clients, local non-profits, to discuss the design and content strategy for their new site. Then all day Saturday, students will work side by side with the non-profit to build an attractive and functional website using WordPress. The websites will be judged by three well-respected members of the tech community, Mark Headd, Youngjin Yoo and Yuriy Porytko, and the winning team will win year of free hosting from the DHF. In addition, we have volunteers coming out to help with coding, set up and overall operations (feel free to stop by, wink wink).

Thanks to Comcast, we will be able to purchase food for all of our hard working teams and volunteers, and thanks to NFCS, we will have access to all if the space and technology we’ll need. Technically Philly has also been supportive, running an article on WebSLAM during Tech Week. Of course, none of this would have been possible without the guidance of the Digital Harbor Foundation in Baltimore.

It has been quite a ride over the last few months, but I feel closer to the heartbeat of Philly than ever before. After spending three years connecting to educators across the globe, it has been rewarding & inspiring to see the amazing work being done here in my home town.

If you’ve got some time this weekend, stop by and check us out!

WebSLAM: Philadelphia’s first hackathon for high school students

When: May 11th, 9:00am-7:00pm
Where: New Foundations Charter School, 4850 Rhawn St, Philadelphia, PA 19136

Teacher as Coach: It’s Magic

reflection, teaching, technology 2 Responses »

Mar 102013

My students at last year’s computer fair waiting for the judging to finish.

I have been blessed to have spent the last 3-4 months working with eleven 7th and 8th graders as they create projects for the annual PA Middle School Computer Fair. We are now only a couple of weeks away from the Fair and I can’t help but reflect on the way my role working with these students differs greatly from my traditional role in the classroom. I teach a Computer Fair Elective class twice a cycle, and this class is unlike any other that I teach. There are two reasons for this: 1) the students are working on 5 different projects that they developed on their own and that will conclude with a competition against other middle school students across the city. 2) the students and I work as a team to help realize their vision for their project.

While this may sound simple enough, it breaks the mold of the traditional model of having an objective on the board and everyone mastering said objective by the end of 45 minutes. When these students walk into my classroom, they discuss the next steps they need to work on and talk about who will tackle what during the period. I don’t even turn on the projector and there is no class ‘objective’ on the board. They are able to figure out what they will try to accomplish on their own and they delegate work to each other. My job is to rotate from group to group to check in and act as a consultant, making sure that students have the larger picture in mind and that what they are working on will help them meet their desired target. When they need someone to critique their design or double check their code syntax, or re-read their narrative, they ask for help. If they need to learn something, they may use YouTube or even each other. During the 45 minute period, students are working, discussing and giving each other feedback. There are little to no behavior issues and I rarely have to tell someone to “get started,” or to make sure that they are engaged or have “mastered the material.”

Things did not start this way, however.

At the beginning of the project, students had to reflect on what they worked on the last class and create a manageable goal for the class period. I worked with students to rephrase goals like, “work on project,” to “finish the buttons for the game.” I stressed the importance of choosing a goal that is manageable and attainable in 45 minutes. I also gave the students a chance to talk with each other to agree on what each person would work on before getting started. Sometimes this meant that I helped them designate and define roles for each other. It has been magical to watch how teams are now able to see how the work that each person is doing plays into the larger goal they are working towards.

Things are not always rosy, however.

This kind of learning is messy. Since I am no longer the expert in the room, when we hit a snag, students may be derailed from their goal for the day while they search YouTube for solutions or while they solicit feedback or ideas from their teammates. While traditional behavior problems are nearly non existent, we do run into normal issues that every team, no matter what age, run into. Disagreements abound when students are passionate about what they are working on. Sometimes coming to compromise can take an entire class period.

Experiencing learning in this way has been eye opening and energizing. It has also made it clear to me what real student-centered, hands-on, authentic (though I vowed never to use that word again) learning looks and sounds like.

It is messy, time-consuming and unbelievably rewarding.

Failure is Always an Option

reflection, teaching 12 Responses »

Jan 252013

Right now my students and I are in the middle of a research project. One of the most important things that we are delving into right now is honing our skills in evaluating websites for accuracy and bias. We did the traditional exercise of evaluating the Northwestern Tree Octopus and then I gave them the challenge of evaluating three websites about Ferdinand Magellan. Thanks to my friend and colleague, Gerald Aungst, I was able to provide them with a severely erroneous site about him as part of the challenge. As part of the evaluation process, I provided a template for them to track the evaluation process.

It was a complete failure.

The first class that attempted to use the template struggled. I reflected that the template was not detailed enough to guide the process, so the students were struggling with where to start.

So I redesigned it.

All of my classes had already received the template, so for my remaining classes, I included this slide in my lesson.

I told them that I had failed, that the original template I had designed was not effective. Then, each student crumpled up the old one and put their name on the new one. The new template proved extremely effective and students easily completed it, reaching the conclusions that I hoped they would about each site provided.

So why bother telling this story?

Too often, teachers feel that they need to be perfect, that they can’t falter in front of their students. I find it more effective to be real with my students and let them know that I am also a learner and that I learn from my mistakes. Also, in a climate of ‘no excuses’ and where failure is seen as the worst thing that can happen, it is important to model learning from failure and turning failure into success for our students.

My students didn’t flinch when I told them “I failed.” We put our names on the new paper, moved on and in the end, they were able to identify the site that was phony all by themselves, using the new template as a guide.

Actions Speak Louder Than Tattoos

reflection, teaching 24 Responses »

Jan 102013

L to R: Me with a photo of me at ISTE 2012, as a panelist at #140edu conference, my newest tattoo freshly finished

I recently heard a conversation on the BAM Radio Network entitled, “Teachers, Tattoos, Piercings and Provocative Dress: Fashion Anarchy vs Fashion Fascism?” As someone who has spent a large portion of her life as a non-conformist, I definitely connected with the topic. First, let me say that I believe that the way teachers dress for school sends a message to their students about how they feel about their students and how they feel about their job. I am NOT saying that teachers have to always look like they are heading to an important business meeting. Teachers need to be free to sit on the carpet, do an art project, monitor recess and walk around the classroom all day. However, we still need to keep in mind that what we wear does matter.

That said, I think I finally learned how to dress myself at age 22 when I started to realize that, as an adult, I was being judged and mistreated by other adults, who assumed that I was 16 (I look young for my age). Now, ageism could take up a different post entirely, but in a nutshell, I learned pretty quickly that what you wear matters. Even now that I know how to buy clothes that (mostly) fit me properly and shoes that match my outfits, I still have a number of tattoos on my arms and legs that, during the winter months, can be covered up by long sleeves, but in the warmer months are on display. I have often gotten looks from people who look at my tattoos and then look at me with this puzzled expression, saying, “They let you teach with those?”

Luckily, tattoos have a lost a lot of the stigma they once had. Still, these kinds of reactions are very common. But before I answer the question, let me back up a bit.

In high school, I was in National Honors Society almost every year, I had mostly A’s and some B’s on my reports cards (Except for Pre-Calculus, which kicked my butt. It was the only C I’d ever gotten.), I was yearbook editor-in-chief, I was in French Club, Art Club and I took part in 3 high school musicals (before they were cool). Needless to say, I was a pretty good student.

I also happened to have a bright pink, pixie-style hair cut, wore spikes and black eye makeup, wore clothes that I bought at rummage sales and wore nothing but sneakers and boots. From the outside, I looked like your average Goth/Metal/Punk kid. A misfit, if you will (a big wink to anyone who gets that joke). Anyone who didn’t know me would immediately judge me by my appearance. That judgement would stick until they actually had to interact with me and realized that I was a lot smarter than I looked. This trend continued when I entered Oberlin College, a place known for individuality and non-conformity. I went to school with some of the smartest, most passionate and engaging people I’d ever met. We may have looked like a bunch of crazy hippies, but we were smart, engaged, motivated and passionate students.

Oberlin, at the time, did not have a school of education, so I was not on a direct path to becoming a teacher. Though I did spend a large amount of time volunteering in classrooms, I did not spend four years thinking about what my classroom would look like or worrying about whether a school would hire me with tattoos, piercings and stretched earlobes. There are many teachers out there, like me, whose decisions earlier in life when their career path was either unclear or not clearly teaching, may have modified their bodies in some way. This does not make them unfit for the job. I would argue that there are more people turning to teaching as a second career than ever before. No one should have to change who they are and who’ve they’ve been just because they chose to change careers.

For most of my youth I was judged by how I dressed and how I looked. At the same time, once I opened my mouth, people were forced to change their perceptions. I keep this in mind when I am quick to judge young people, and I keep this in mind as an adult judging other adults. I will not pretend that I am free of stereotyping (is anyone?), but in the back of my mind I always remember that things are not always how they seem.

Which brings me back to the radio show.

I had the unique experience in high school of working four days a week in an office building, and after my freshman year of college I worked as a temp as a secretary for an HVAC company. I learned how to “code switch” my appearance when necessary (though my pink hair started to show through at my temp job as the black dye started to wash out). I learned early on the art of work clothes vs play clothes, though I’m sure that I was barely successful in pulling off “work clothes.”As a professional adult, I strike a balance between maintaining a professional appearance while also expressing my individuality. My experiences have shown me how important appearances are, but they have also shown me that it is important that professionals are able to maintain their individuality because, in the long run, what matters is how well you do your job. Honestly, if someone won’t hire me because of my tattoos, I probably don’t want to work there anyway. Instead of sending the message to our students that in order to be a professional you have to look a certain way or lose your individuality, we should be modeling for them how to do your job well, have a professional attitude and demeanor, dress the part and still be able to express your individuality.

Mentoring Matters

education, educational technology, reflection, teaching 2 Responses »

Nov 182012

A little over a month ago, fate brought me and Jonathan Leung from University of Pennsylvania together at a PhilaSoupevent. I was sitting next to Jonathan at the event and when I found out he was a Computer Science major, I began to share the details of an exciting project I’ve been working on. We discovered that we had a lot to talk about and we continued to talk about opportunities for student mentorship over email and a phone conversation. Fast forward to last week when Jonathan introduced me to the head of the Dining Philosophers the UPenn Computer Science club.

I have been working with two 7th graders on developing an educational math app for Kindergarten and 1st graders. They have been in desperate need of guidance with the programming side of the project, something I do not have the expertise to do. However, through my email communication with Jonathan, I learned that the Dining Philosophers would be holding a HackJam at a local venture capital firm, First Round Capital. During the 6 hour window, anyone could come in and get advice and feedback on any project they were working on.

Long story short, a few days later, my students and I were sitting at an oversized picnic bench as Jonathan guided our programmer, C, through the ins and outs of HTML and JavaScript. It was magic. C was beaming as he told me, “it’s getting easier!” and I marveled at Jonathan’s ability to challenge C while at the same time modeling the language syntax for him. Watching the two, who are close to a decade apart in age work at solving a problem and to listen to them speak to each other in what an outsider might consider a foreign language was a beautiful thing.

I feel blessed to have been able to give my students the opportunity to step into a hacker space, and to experience what a”work day” might feel like. Even more powerful, C now has a living, breathing mentor who is just a phone call away when he gets stuck or needs guidance. I could have never been able to provide such a deep learning experience on my own.

Mentoring like this matters. For one, everything C had learned about coding up until today was completely on his own. School doesn’t provide him the opportunity to develop the skills and knowledge that he is passionate about. Second, there are few teachers, through no fault of their own, that he comes in contact with that would even know where to start in helping him develop this talent.

It is time for schools to see that students are learning on their own and that this learning is often completely missing from their school life. It is time that schools, educators and the technology world (read: the business world) connect so that school, student passions and talents, and business leaders are all on the same page. I would argue that the skills that C is learning on his own outside of school will actually prepare him more for his future than the skills he learns in the classroom every day.

One way to make that connection is through mentoring. It is not just the students who need mentoring, either. The more educators are made aware of the skills required to be successful in today’s world and the future economy, the more likely they are to embrace changes in technology and the more likely they are to incorporate these skills into their classrooms. Teachers need mentors, too.

I was able to make this connection today through attending a local event and striking up a conversation. So the next time you are out at an event, bring business cards, ask for business cards or contact information. begin to build your own database of mentors. You never know when one might come in handy.

Photo credit: savetheclocktower on Flickr

The Four Pillars of Technology Use in the Classroom

reflection, teaching, technology 14 Responses »

Sep 112012

This past summer, with the help of my brilliant friend, Kristen Swanson, I took my Technology Curriculum to a place I had never imagined it could go. As a computer lab teacher, there has never been an easy to follow, mapped out path for instruction. As such, over the last 5 years I created a scope of skills and concepts across grade levels to guide my teaching and I had begun to map out what kinds of projects I could use to teach these skills. Still, my curriculum always seemed a bit disjointed and while my students created wonderful work and amazed me with their ability to apply their skills to video, music production, programming and more, I still felt like I wasn’t doing the best job at making it ‘stick.’

Fast forward to today.

This summer, I put together a framework for my curriculum that ties all instruction to four ‘pillars.’ These pillars are the glue that holds the curriculum together. As I told my students, after we had defined that pillars hold up buildings, that these pillars will ‘hold up our learning,’ that everything we learn this year will be held up by one of these four ideas. I am so intent on providing a metaphorical ‘hook’ on which my students can hang their skills that the first week or so of classes will be focused on knowing and understanding these four pillars and connecting them to the technology we use in the lab and in our daily lives. While I named them ‘competencies’ in my curriculum, I felt the word ‘pillar’ would mean more to my students.

The Four Pillars of Technology in the Classroom

Today, my 4th-6th graders and I focused on first understanding the idea of a pillar and what it is, and then we got into the work of unpacking the first pillar, Communicate. Through a ‘Think, Pair, Share,’ they pulled together a definition of what Communicate meant to them. It was thrilling to watch them discuss with each other, often using hand gestures to explain the back and forth of two people talking and sharing ideas. I then gave them the ‘official definition’ as a comparison. They then repeated the Think, Pair, Share activity with the following question: “What are some technology tools we use to communicate?” We then shared a variety of tools, ranging from YouTube to Skype to webcams, to keyboards, to cell phones, and even to pencil and paper. All of this brainstorming was recorded in the note-taking template I provided for them.

After reviewing their class notes and their ‘exit tickets,’ I have no doubt that my students understand how technology allows them to communicate in a variety of ways. This is powerful. We built knowledge together and they reached the learning goal I had hoped to achieve without me having to tell them anything except for ‘think about this question and talk to your neighbor when the timer goes off.’

I can’t wait to hear their thoughts and the connections they make for the other 3 pillars. I hope that these prove to be the glue that holds all of their learning together this year.

Building Strong, Self-Reliant Communities

book review, education, reflection, teaching No Responses »

May 292012

In their inspiring book, Walk Out Walk On, Deborah Frieze and Meg Wheatley take their readers on a journey across the world, engaging with various groups of people working together to build agency where there isn’t any and growing self-reliant communities that defy stereotypes. So many of their stories are reminiscent of the work that I am doing with the South Philly Food Co-op and The Edcamp Foundation. Both organizations are focused around building relationships and growing self-reliant communities.

I’m only a little over halfway through the book, but I already have a long list of quotes that are reminiscent of much of the work I have been doing over the last couple of years. It is refreshing to read about people working together to make their community stronger and the stories and reflections from the individuals in these communities sound familiar and resonate deeply with me. Here are a few of the quotes that stuck out and the connections I have made to them with my own work. Since I am reading it on my Kindle, I have included location numbers instead of page numbers for the selections.

We’ll observe how their experiments move horizontally, scaling across villages and nations, trans-locally, as many diverse people learn from their discoveries and are inspired to try their own. (location 233)

This is exactly how the edcamp movement has grown. It is also how co-operatives grow, with communities popping up around an idea, building something from the ground up, and then sharing their journey with others so that they can begin their own journey.

What I’ve come to realize is what we must do is share. We know that we have everything we need; we just have to take the time to discover it. (location 1697)

Anyone who is involved in a learning community like a PLN or PLC or has attended an edcamp knows this is true. Part of the beauty of these communities is that they are full of knowledge, and this knowledge is not hoarded, it is shared with anyone who asks. This path toward discovery takes time, spans many conversations and often months. It takes time to build trusting relationships that lead to this discovery, but once they are formed, they last a lifetime.

Ubuntu is very difficult to render into a Western language. It speaks to the very essence of being human…This means they are generous, hospitable, friendly, caring and compassionate. They share what they have. It also means that my humanity is caught up, is inextricably bound up, in theirs. We belong in a bundle of life. (location 1334)

After so many years talking about Linux and open source technologies, I never knew what the word Ubuntu actually meant. Now that I do, it has become one of my favorite words. It encompasses nearly all of the work that I do in education and with the food co-op.

Dana is a Sanskrit term meaning “generosity” or “giving” without any expectation of return. It’s a way of being in the world that flips self-interest on its head. (location 2303)

This is another word with no direct translation into the English language, but it is the backbone of healthy communities, and it is the life-blood of the co-operative movement.

Much of what inspires me in these stories is the way that people solve their own problems using only the resources they already have. There is so much to be learned from these experiences, especially in the current education climate of slashed budgets and the de-professionalization of the teaching profession.

I am hoping that the work I have been doing is part of a larger, global movement by people to self-organize and take ownership over their communities.

Are You Smarter Than a Second Grader?

education, educational technology, reflection, teaching 4 Responses »

May 202012

This year my 2nd graders completed a research project about African American Athletes using videos from History.com and a public Google Docs presentation.

The students worked in self-selected pairs and picked an athlete’s name out of a ‘hat’ (it was actually a plastic beach bucket!). Over the next few weeks, they listened to the videos and took notes on facts they learned. They wrote the facts on a slide template (below) and then typed them into a public, collaborative Google Doc presentation. Once the presentation was done, I changed the settings to ‘view only.’

Once the project was complete, I thought of a comment I overheard Gary Stager make once about districts and schools saying “we’re just not ready for Google Docs.” He said something to the effect of “what, you’re not ready for word processing?” After watching my 8 and 9 year old students successfully take on a collaborative Google Doc presentation, I can’t help but think that Gary’s statement is an important one to consider. What could possibly hold a school or district back from using tools that allow students to collaborate on digital projects and then share those projects with the word, without even needing an account?

Enjoy our work!

Thoughts on Teacher Appreciation Week

reflection, teaching 3 Responses »

May 082012

photo courtesy of msr on Flickr

Across the country, many teachers are arriving to work to find banners that say “We Appreciate You,” continental breakfasts laid out in the staff lounge, and “Thank You” cards placed in their mailboxes.

I’ll be honest, I’ve never really been ‘into’ Teacher Appreciation Week.

Don’t get me wrong, I appreciate being appreciated. What I don’t get is the shallow outpouring of Hallmark-style “Thank You’s” that, while a thoughtful gesture, do not really make me feel ‘appreciated.’

Here are some of my thoughts on how to make teachers feel truly appreciated:

Have students write letters to their teacher on any random day–maybe when s/he is out sick, or maybe through a publicly placed dropbox for “Letters to My Teacher.”
Give teachers a voice in the school—let teachers run events and be involved in planning for instructional and non-instructional initiatives.
Give teachers time to collaborate with their peers in meaningful ways, whether that means through structured meetings or peer observations.
Ensure that teachers have enough planning time to be prepared for high-quality instruction and assessment.
When something new is coming down the line, give teachers plenty of notice to prepare, clarify expectations and ask questions.
Trust teachers to be professionals and let their strengths shine every day.
Highlight amazing things going on in teachers’ classrooms and share them with the rest of the staff on at least a weekly basis.

As the old adage goes, “Actions speak louder than words.”

Everyone loves a table of goodies and coffee and card, but it’s the actions we do on a regular basis that really make people feel appreciated.

That said, to all of my colleagues out there, I appreciate the hard work that you do, the resources and advice that you share every day and the many times you have helped me get through a tough day and made me smile.

Keep shining!

Differentiated Instruction and the Brain

conference, education, reflection, teaching 5 Responses »

Mar 252012

As I reflect on my day at ASCD’s conference, I will be thinking and reflecting on a lot of topics and discussions. The one that really struck me, however, I feel I must reflect on first.

My last session of the day was one that I was really looking forward to. I am not one to easily be drawn in by big names, but I felt that with so many of them here, that I needed to attend at least one session and have my starstruck moment at the conference. At the end of the day, Carol Ann Tomlinson, the queen of differentiated instruction, presented on the connections between brain research and differentiated instruction.

I have done some reading on using neuroscience to inform the way we teach (Brain Rules, The Architecture of Learning), so this session really interested me. While some argue that we don’t have enough information about the brain to truly correlate neuroscience and learning, I think that we are silly to not pay attention to the way the brain fires during learning experiences. As Tomlinson stated during her presentation, everything that teachers do in the classroom sets off chemical reactions in the brain. If teachers have a better understanding of these chemical reactions, then we do a better job and building experiences around how the brain actually works.

First of all, Tomlinson’s session was structured in a way that allowed participants in the huge ballroom to talk and interact with each other about the session content. We had discussion ‘buddies’ that we had to identify before the session really began and we were given time after each section of the presentation to talk to our ‘buddies’ about what had been shared. This was a really powerful part of the presentation for me, as I am not a fan of ‘sit and get’ presentations, no matter how talented or famous someone is.

As far as the content of the presentation, it’s hard to know where to start. It was an incredible amount of information and ideas to digest.

One quote that really set the tone for the hour was Tomlinson’s view on differentiation itself. She said, “Differentiation is the logic of the classroom.” For all of the hype around differentiation (for better or for worse) I wonder how many people actually know what it means. It has become one of those buzz words that everyone uses, but few ever reflect on. Part of that may be because it really is a logical aspect of any reflective teacher’s practice. No successful and talented teacher can ignore the practice of differentiation in their classroom because it’s just what needs to be done.

I was also struck by the idea that students should think about class as much after they leave as they do in anticipation. My reflections here are an example of that. I was very excited to attend the session, and I left still thinking about what I heard.

While not all of the content of the session was mind blowing due to my own reading on the topic, (i.e., I already knew about the hierarchy of needs–survival comes first for the brain), Tomlinson was able to frame the research and the theory in an easy to digest, yet thought-provoking way.

I was struck by her statement that having clarity in our learning goals for students is not just for the learner, but also for the teacher. We can be as transparent as we want with kids, but if the learning goals are not transparent for us as teachers, then we won’t know what we are looking for and we cannot properly assess and educate our students.

She shared findings that the smaller amount of content that we ask kids to learn, the better, and that we need to teach big ideas because the brain needs patterns to link content. Some people call these ‘hooks’ that the brain ‘hangs’ information on. The hooks need to connect or retention does not occur.

She also referred to the teacher as a coach, similar to a football coach. The coach/teacher allows his or her students to practice, refining skills with guidance from the coach, in preparation for the big game. The better the practices, the better the players will do in the game. She argued that we need to make sure that we design the best practices for kids and that these practices use formative assessment and are not graded. Part of the grading process that hinders learning is the release of cortisol when the brain feels stressed.

I found it interesting that in the hierarchy of the brain, the main focus of the brain after survival is emotional data. According to Tomlinson, this explains why students in caring classrooms perform better than students in classrooms that tend to have high levels of emotional stress. She shared a chart that showed that there is a middle ground for the amount of challenge and stress we impose on learners and how it affects their learning.

Another interesting aspect of brain research she shared was the link between rote learning and convergent responses versus open ended, more problem-based learning that evokes divergent responses (just guess which one is occurring more often in schools). She stated that “we are legislating brain atrophy” by continuing to deny children the opportunity to engage in activities that promote divergent thinking. This kind of thinking, she argued is what is needed in the job market of the future.

For more of my notes on the presentation, you can click here.

Hopefully I will be able to reflect on my other parts of the day soon!

For more reading on the topic:

Judy Willis, Brain Friendly Strategies

David Sousa How the Brain Learns

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Coming soon: lunch with the Outstanding Young Educators and Edcamp as professional development