Term 3 Week 8: Thunks

Everyone is flat out with marking and other school activities so this week's PD bite is short and fun. It is about "thunks".

"A Thunk is a beguilingly simple-looking question about everyday things that stops you in your tracks and helps you start to look at the world in a whole new light." http://www.thunks.co.uk/

Want examples?

• Is there more future or past?
• Is black a colour?
• If I switch the lights off does the wall change colour?
• If you are caught in a thunderstorm will you get wetter if you run to shelter or if you walk?

They are a great way to get students thinking, which is one of the key competencies of the New Zealand Curriculum, and could be used as "Do Nows" or plenaries. Once you've modelled a few thunks, the students will be able to write their own to share with the class.

 

The independent thinking website has lots of ideas about thunks, as well as other cool stuff. They even have their own Youtube channel.

 

It's all about supporting and motivating students to think independently.

Term 2 Week 11 - blogging, web tools and "Teach Like a Champion"

Professional Readings

• What students want - information gleaned from student focus groups about what they want from school and their teachers and what they need to do themselves in order to succeed.

e-Learning Readings and Strategies

• Fostering Student Creativity and Responsibility With Blogging - When sixth graders enter middle school, they are masters of some aspects of digital technology and lost when it comes to others. Despite their familiarity with some digital technology, they often lack specific skills needed for interacting with particular digital tools and interfaces. Many of them also lack the perseverance necessary for troubleshooting tech issues. This blog post also has links to other readings and resources about using blogs in education.
• Summer PD: Web Tools Collectives Part 3 -- Collecting, Organizing and Making Sense of Information - Access to the Internet brings an almost unlimited amount of content to our fingertips. Effectively collecting, organizing, and making sense of this information is critical to learning. Ubiquitous access to information provides many opportunities and challenges for "formal" education systems. After all, what good is memorizing the atomic number for Iridium when you can just text Cha Cha? This blog post has lots of great ideas about how to teach and support students as they conduct research online.
• Edutecher newsletter for July 2011 - This "Mega-Newsletter" shares some great new tools and resources, but you can also learn more about all of the new apps they have just released and see some of what went on at the ISTE conference last week.

General Strategies

Teach Like a Champion — Technique Number Two: Right is right. This technique accepts no half answers, but asks for complete and correct answers to questions.

Term 2 Week 3: A little bit on understanding, thinking & creativity

Upcoming Events:
22 May - International Day for Biological Diversity - Theme for 2011: Forest Biodiversity

Professional Reading:
Do You Check for Understanding Often Enough with Students?
The learning environment needs to be one in which students feel respected and safe to take risks; kids need to feel that their learning has a purpose and that the curriculum is relevant to their lives; and students need feedback on their progress -- they need to know what they're trying to accomplish, where they are in relation to the goal, and what they need to do in order to get there.
This blog post is also interesting - What is understanding?

Good teachers may not fit the mold
Research suggests that good teachers possess a few simple, quantifiable attributes.

Thinking/ Creative Strategy:

Using nonlinguistic representation
Is a picture really worth a thousand words? According to brain researcher John Medina (Brain Rules, 2008), when we receive information orally, we only remember about 10 percent of the content three days later. However, when that information is paired with a picture, we're likely to remember 65 percent of the content.

In Classroom Instruction that Works, McREL applied this research and found that when used correctly, nonlinguistic representations (e.g., graphic organizers, mindmaps, mental pictures, and manipulatives) can have a powerful, positive effect on student learning. So the next time you introduce a new concept in your classroom, remember to pair it with a "picture" to improve retention. This is where tools such as Hyerle Thinking Maps, picture dictations etc. come in to play.

Thinking on the Spot (from the Auckland SCT wiki)- use this powerpoint to encourage students to think quickly. Adapt it to suit your curriculum area and it could be used as a quick, fun plenary, especially for afternoon classes.