- 13th - 19th June - National gifted awareness week. Don't forget to visit the TKI Gifted & Talented community for ideas on how to support our gifted and talented students.
- Wednesday 15th June - National Support Staff Day
- Friday 17th June - World Day to Combat Desertification and Drought
- World Refugee Day is on 20th June with events around the country.
- A relatively old (2004) but nevertheless interesting paper from Rosemary Hipkins (NZCER) about the possibility of changing the way the curriculum is delivered in secondary schools.
- Teaching Secrets: Asking the Right Questions - by Elizabeth Stein. How the right questions can help students learn. Special-education teacher Elizabeth Stein offers suggestions for asking questions to determine whether students understand material or are merely recycling facts. Stein, who co-teaches an inclusion class, suggests educators first create an atmosphere conducive to meaningful learning. Then, she writes, teachers should ask open-ended, diagnostic and other questions that encourage students to analyze and evaluate what they have learned.
Do you know anything about "flip-thinking" or the "flipped classroom"? I didn't until today. Read all about it here or get involved in a webinar about the concept. This "flipped classroom" concept is one that we would need to adapt in NZ because we don't tend to encourage lecture style teaching anyway. Similar things are being done here at SMC - the Science Faculty were recording demonstrations for students to watch at home on the Science wikis that they've set up and Tim has been creating help videos for all sorts of e-products that we need to know how to use. Has anyone else been doing anything similar? Last year I videoed myself planning and writing an essay on my laptop for my Y13 class but was too embarrassed to upload it anywhere - anyone else hate the sound of their own voice...??
