Introductions
Michael Lambert, a Middle School teacher from Concordia International School in Shanghai joined Jeff and David for tonight’s show.
Essential Question
How to go deeper in student learning? Why go deeper?
David: See his blog post.
Jeff: Engage student and allow them to be nodes of information.
Take away from the discussion-
Mike’s 5 Strategies for Deeper Learning:
- Go one to one with laptops so students have access to information to answer their questions. Let’s students “rewind”, go back to information when they need to further their understanding.
- Project-based Learning: cross discipline the learning in real world applications. Example: Mike’s class visited a bike shop which connected economics, science, math and community building. They also went to a landfill, about learned alternative fuels and made further connections to being better citizens of the Earth.
- Visuals- let the images tell the story. Strong connection to student brains. Evokes the emotion which brings attention which drives learning. Using graphs. How to filer the information, make meaning of it. Media Literacy.
- Build in multi-sensory experiences. Get the kids outside the classroom and engage in field trips, real world–new brain experiences. These are deeper. Sometimes means making mistakes, being uncomfortable which leads to learning.
- Teachers need to let go. Let the kids be more in control. We need to be the coach. We can be co-learners.
Inquiry. Everyone provides questions. Help students take their passions and questions to design question to research and then come up with more questions that they want to answer.
Make connections across the curriculum then lead to questions and further applications that combine subject areas. Cannot be narrow with our curriculum. Ready to go in different directions.
We need to really focus on teaching students to be learners. If they are truly going to be independent life long learners, they have to have the skills to be active learners.
What does a shifted school look like?
Jeff: What is a Shifted School? A school that understands that learning is a 24/7 activity and engages students in THEIR spaces to learn. A school that instead of forcing student to come to them to learn, they go to them and create learning opportunities where the students are. They use tools that are familiar to the students, that engage them in the learning process and allow them to not only connect nodes of information, but also always them and teaches them to be a node as well.
David: What shifted looks like see 21st Century Schools & his post on the topic. School 2.0 wiki by Steve Hargadon as a place to read opinions on what shifted schools look like and add your opinion. And listen to episode 8 where Brent Loken talks about Hsinchu International School.
Mike: If you are using strategies for deeper learning and helping kids make connections, you are really focusing on learning which is what shifted schools are all about. We need to look at our pre-service teacher programs to shift them where teachers learn teaching 2.0 strategies while taking part in mentoring programs to get them up to speed.
Blog Posts of the Week:
Jeff: Remote Access A Difference Mark’s EdTech Learning is Messy
David: See Margaret’s comment for SOS episode 3.
Sign Off
* Next show is Wednesday April 30th at 8:00 PM Shanghai time. Note: This is a different day and time than our usual show.
* Our guest will be David Navis of Hong Kong International School.
* Essential Question for the show: When not to use technology?
* Don’t forget to post Web sites/blogs to the SOS Del.icio.us bookmarking site that support our upcoming EQ.
