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 1 Week 8 - thinking & creativity

Upcoming Events

• 22 March - World Day for Water


• 23 March - World Meteorogical Day (WMO)


• 24 March - World Tuberculosis Day (WHO)


• Seaweek - Children of Tangaroa - Marine Mammals of Aotearoa
  Exhibitions - Natural History Events
  Voyager New Zealand Maritime Museum, Auckland CBD
  On until Thursday 31 March 2011
  Children of Tangaroa - Marine Mammals of Aotearoa explores the stories of New Zealand's threatened marine mammals. Learn about the effects of whaling and Maori myths and legends surrounding each...

Professional Reading/ viewing:

• Scott McCloud on Comics - In this unmissable look at the magic of comics, Scott McCloud bends the presentation format into a cartoon-like experience, where colorful diversions whiz through childhood fascinations and imagined futures that our eyes can hear and touch. Scott McCloud is a comic book artist.


• 'Seeking, using and creating' -education for a creative age .Tapping the intellectual curiosity of the learner - a blog post

Thinking/ Creative Strategy:
The Showing Evidence Tool helps students learn how to construct well-reasoned arguments and prove their case with credible evidence. The tool provides a visual framework to make claims, identify evidence, evaluate the quality of that evidence, explain how the evidence supports or weakens claims, and reach conclusions based on the evidence. This thinking tool supports activities where students debate differences, make and defend decisions, and analyze conflicting infor-mation. The tool and related resources are available free online. Students may work on their claims and evidence at home or at school, and can be paired with another team to review their ideas. Michal Denny, LENScience

General resources:

The Best Sites for Learning about the Japan Earthquake and Tsunami Part I

http://larryferlazzo.edublogs.org/2011/03/11/the-best-sites-for-learning-about-the-japan-earthquake-tsunami/

The Best Sites for Learning about the Japan Earthquake and Tsunami Part II

http://larryferlazzo.edublogs.org/2011/03/12/useful-updates-on-japan-earthquake/

Today's Japan Update

http://larryferlazzo.edublogs.org/2011/03/20/todays-japan-update-3/

A Compilation of the Best Lists about Natural Disasters

http://larryferlazzo.edublogs.org/2010/03/11/a-compilation-of-the-best-lists-about-natural-disasters/


Children Worldwide Fold Paper Cranes to Support Rebuilding Effort in Sendai - Dozens of Countries Responding Including Over a Thousand Haitian Children

SAN FRANCISCO, March 21, 2011 -- In response to the devastating earthquake and resulting tsunami in Japan on March 11th, Students Rebuild has partnered with DoSomething.org's "Paper Cranes for Japan" campaign to inspire young people worldwide to support their Japanese peers.

Paper Cranes for Japan combines the power of DoSomething.org's deep experience engaging youth audiences and the Bezos Family Foundation's commitment to help young people connect, learn, and take action around critical global issues.

In less than a week, 7 schools in Haiti are making cranes, representing more than 1000 kids collectively folding for Japan; over 7,000 young people posted origami cranes and wishes of support on the "Paper Cranes for Japan" Facebook page and Students Rebuild has had over 200 requests for mailing labels to send in cranes from over 15 different countries including Romania and New Zealand. Building on that momentum, the Bezos Family Foundation announced today a pledge to donate $2 for every crane mailed in to fund Architecture for Humanity's plan to support Japanese architects' rebuilding efforts.

According to legend, anyone who folds a thousand paper cranes, which are sacred creatures in Japanese culture, will be granted a wish by a crane. With a goal to collect 100,000 origami cranes from young people to represent wishes of support and healing, the challenge hopes to raise $200,000 for the reconstruction of a youth facility by the Japanese team from Architecture for Humanity. The thousands of cranes will go on to become a permanent art installation in a school or youth facility being rebuilt by Architecture for Humanity in Japan. This huge display of cranes will be a symbolic gift from students around the globe.

Architecture for Humanity and the Bezos Family Foundation partnered previously through Students Rebuild in response to the devastating Haiti earthquake in January, 2010. Paper Cranes for Japan represents a second Students Rebuild challenge, in collaboration with DoSomething.org, mobilizing young people to connect and address critical global issues including young people in Haiti who know firsthand the devastating impact of a massive earthquake.

"This initiative empowers children around the world to created a simple gesture that will become more than just symbolic," says Architecture for Humanity co-founder Cameron Sinclair. "Through Students Rebuild, we look forward to updating the crane makers on how their efforts allowed our Japanese architects to respond to the rebuilding efforts in Japan."

"DoSomething.org started 'Paper Cranes for Japan' as a way for all young people who want to help to do so without a car, an adult, or money. With this partnership, their wishes of support will now translate into funding to rebuild schools and communities," says DoSomething.org Editor in Chief Betsy Fast.


Architecture for Humanity and its teams of local pro bono building professionals in Kyoto, Osaka, Sendai, and Tokyo are actively partnering and lending their services to organizations and community groups to mobilizing around long-term reconstruction efforts.


"We believe young people are uniquely poised to affect the world's most pressing problems," says Bezos Family Foundation president Jackie Bezos. "They're often overlooked as a source of talent and solutions."


For more information on Paper Cranes for Japan log on to Students Rebuild http://studentsrebuild.org/japan/


Get your friends involved. Fold, Show & Mail You Tube: How to Fold Cranes Video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ux1ECrNDZl4
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/papercranesforjapan

(We are going to be making paper cranes at Peace Group over the next few weeks)

Term 1 Week 4 2011 - thinking & creativity

Professional Reading/ Viewing
How can we ignite the creative spark in our students?
This talk (Gever Tulley teaches life lessons through tinkering) given at a TED conference by Gever Tulley uses engaging photos and footage to demonstrate the valuable lessons kids learn at his Tinkering School. When given tools, materials and guidance, these young imaginations run wild and creative problem-solving takes over to build unique boats, bridges and even a rollercoaster!

Gever Tulley founded the Tinkering School to offer an exploratory curriculum designed to help kids – ages 8 to 17 – learn how to build things. He says "by providing a collaborative environment in which to explore basic and advanced building techniques and principles, we strive to create a school where we all learn by fooling around. All activities are hands-on, supervised, and at least partly improvisational. Grand schemes, wild ideas, crazy notions, and intuitive leaps of imagination are, of course, encouraged and fertilized."
If you want to know more about Tinkering School check out their website: http://www.tinkeringschool.com/

Thinking/ Creativity
This short video (Exploring Thinking Processes) shows how a secondary school teacher uses the wrong answers as a tool for teaching.
Summary: A secondary teacher shows how she reveals the thinking processes behind students' answers in a Year 7 maths class, using a technique which can be used across Key Stage 3 and Key Stage 4 as part of Assessing Pupils' Progress (APP).

General Resource
Term 1's Good Teacher Magazine has articles and readings on the following topics and is worth a look:
Creative emergence or planning studies - Bruce Hammonds
A Student’s Voice for the 21st Century - Anna-Rose Davies
UK approach to degrees supports productivity
Taking Strategic Steps Towards a Focus on Learning

School’s in for finances - Anneli Knight

Tools 4 Talent Development - Elaine Le Sueur
Talent Spotting & Creativity - Elaine Le Sueur
Big bang or slow burn - Laurie Loper
The History of St Valentine
Responding to a Child in Crisis - Gary Weber
Using Irrational Behaviour to Your Advantage - Michelle LaBrosse
Changing Lives - Bernie Hiha
Books and Things

Term 3 Week 6 - Stress management

This was sent to me by my mum on Monday. I'm not sure who came up with it but I felt it pertinent to how I am feeling at the moment with trying to balance work and life commitments.



A lecturer when explaining stress management to an audience,
raised a glass of water and asked, 'How heavy is this glass of water?'

Answers called out ranged from 20g to 500g.

The lecturer replied, 'The absolute weight doesn't matter.
It depends on how long you try to hold it.

If I hold it for a minute, that's not a problem.

If I hold it for an hour, I'll have an ache in my right arm.

If I hold it for a day, you'll have to call an ambulance.

In each case, it's the same weight, but the longer I hold it, the heavier it
becomes.'

He continued, 'And that's the way it is with stress management.

If we carry our burdens all the time, sooner or later,

As the burden becomes increasingly heavy,

We won't be able to carry on. '

' As with the glass of water,

You have to put it down for a while and rest before holding it again.

When we're refreshed, we can carry on with the burden.'

'So, before you return home tonight, put the burden of work down.

Don't carry it home.

You can pick it up tomorrow.

Whatever burdens you're carrying now,

Let them down for a moment if you can.'

So, put down anything that may be a burden to you right now.

Don't pick it up again until after you've rested a while.

Here are some great ways of dealing with the burdens of life:

* Accept that some days you're the pigeon, And some days you're the statue.

* Always keep your words soft and sweet, Just in case you have to eat them.

* Always wear stuff that will make you look good if you die in the middle of it.

* If you can't be kind, at least have the decency to be vague.

* If you lend someone $20 and never see that person again, it was probably worth it.

* It may be that your sole purpose in life is simply to be kind to others.

* Never put both feet in your mouth at the same time, because then you won't have a leg to stand on.

* Nobody cares if you can't dance well. Just get up and dance.

* Since it's the early worm that gets eaten by the bird, sleep late.

* The second mouse gets the cheese.

* When everything's coming your way, you're in the wrong lane.

* Birthdays are good for you. The more you have, the longer you live.

* You may be only one person in the world, but you may also be the world to one person.

* Some mistakes are too much fun to only make once.

* We could learn a lot from crayons... Some are sharp, some are pretty and some are dull. Some have weird names, and all are different colours, but they all have to live in the same box.

* A truly happy person is one who can enjoy the scenery on a detour.

Have an awesome day...

Term 3 Week 3 - inspiration, technology & student engagement

INSPIRATION:
The pothole gardener










A GREAT WEBSITE:

Centre for Learning and Performance Technologies (C4LPT)
This website provides details and links to free resources about new trends, technologies and tools. You can keep up to date with what's new in this area, by reading the Pick of the Day blog as well as the Social Media for Working and Learning blog.

Pages that I find really useful and insightful are: The Emerging List of Top 100 Tools for Learning 2010 (as at 03 August 2010) and TOOLS DIRECTORY: Image, Audio and Video tools


PROFESSIONAL LEARNING: READINGS
Being consistent is the key to a well behaved classroom - find out how you can be consistent in the way you treat student behaviour.

Student engagement
Rearrange the Desks: Reposition the Students' Seats to Help Retain their Attention
What They See Is What We Get: A Primer on Light - Ten myths about lighting and color in schools.

PROFESSIONAL LEARNING: VIDEO

Big Thinkers: Katie Salen on Learning with Games
A professor of design and technology at Parsons The New School for Design talks about the value of games and the empowerment of play.

Something extra

An email arrived in my inbox overnight which I really wanted to share and which I think would be something special to share with your form classes, classes or perhaps at year level assembly...

The email is from a website which I signed up to which sends out all sorts of great teaching and learning ideas plus ideas for assemblies every week. This week's idea encourages us to introduce our students to the website 1000awesomethings.com and invite them to end each day on a positive note.

Some days I find I need reminding about all the blessings that I have in my life so from now on if I need inspiration I have a blog (1000awesomethings.com) I can read to remind myself.

Have a great day everyone.

PD bites - Term 4 Week 4 "Take a break"

Today's PD bite is about taking a bit of time out from the frenetic pace of Term 4.

This YouTube video of the winner of Ukraine's Got Talent 2009 - sand animation - was shown to me by Shawn. It helps you appreciate the beauty and importance of art in our lives. Make sure you have the sound on while you watch.





For those of you who like words, especially words you don't hear every day, click on this site and have some fun: http://savethewords.org/

Lastly, some cool digital poetry.

Enjoy ...

PD bite - Term 3 Week 7 2009

Teaching Strategy

Read while waiting

(a) Train students to take out a book and read if you are interrupted or delayed on your way to class. When you arrive, reward the ones who have remembered to do this.

(b) Fast Finishers
There are always a few fast finishers! IF their work is neat, correct, and well done, they should take out a book (novel/chapter book) to read. Train your classes to always take out a book to read whenever their work is completed. You can also have a pile of readings related to your subject, magazines for them or even the newspaper.

Provide time at first to train them in this. Give an in-class assignment and then allocate 30 minutes or so to do it, so that every student will have time to finish and then have time to read.

NEVER give more work as a reward/punishment? Reading will benefit all.

An inspirational story - without words

http://www.newsfromanacorn.com/2009/06/a-story-without-words.html