 Hello EVERYONE,I'm excited to share with you the VSAUCE video on Magic, a card trick my kids have loved. I find Michael's VSAUCE channel a constant sauce, or let's say, VSAUCE of inspiration. Try the trick out and let me know how you go with it. It covers so many outcomes, including working mathematically, performance, presentation, working on explanations and strategies.
Take a look at Mark's table of LEARNING SYSTEMS, his ideas are inspirational and his PD sessions sound amazing.
I am interested to hear your thoughts on the Gates Foundation findings, I think we need to provide teachers with less paperwork and data entry and get back time to be creative and inspiring and collegial and let teachers do the job they love - teaching.
Finally choose your AVENGER, which one are you? This is a lot of fun for a staffroom wall.
Support VT it costs just $10.00 per year. Thanks in advance it helps a lot and covers the cost of hosting and distribution of the newsletter AND I will send you the FREE Link to the 4BIG IDEAS ebook. Take a look at some of the pages here.
And send in your Impossible ideas. |
If Every Teacher At Your School Was One of the Avengers…
Everyone already knows that teachers are superheroes, so we wondered how it would go if actual superheroes took on the job. I mean, sure, they can save the world—but can they teach sophomores? Here is the official guide to decoding your colleagues through the Avengers.
This is a great bit of fun from Samantha Edmonds of WeAreTeachers - I have an example below
Which Avenger are you??????
Thor is the charismatic teacher.
Y’all know the teachers who all the students want to be like, who are asked to be in charge of a dozen after-school programs, and are just generally the most popular with the students? That’s definitely Thor as a teacher—approachable, friendly and well-liked by everyone.
CREATIVE THINKING
There are lots of fabulous creative ideas here - the newsletter is worth subscribing to, here's a recent one I enjoyed.
Think of one word that can form a compound word with “sauce,” “pine,” and “crab.” Take a moment and think. See if you figure it out.
Now, try to form a compound word with “fence,” “card,” and “master.”
And last, form a compound word with “bump,” “step,” and “egg.”
If you’re like many people, you tried to solve each problem methodically, first finding a word that would go with, say, “sauce” and then trying it out with “pine” and “crab.” In most cases people become stuck. It’s only after over thinking the problem will people relax and allow their thoughts to flow freely and intermingle with each other that suddenly the answer pops up seemingly from nowhere. “Eureka!” [The answers to the above, incidentally, are at the end of the article.]
Cognitive scientists are trying to figure out how and why the answers pop up out of thin air, partly because some of the more notable achievements in, especially, science and math came to their discoverers through such “Eureka” moments—Archimedes' law of buoyancy and Newton’s theory of gravity, for instance. (“Eureka” is in fact what Archimedes yelled when he leapt out of his bathtub upon figuring out how to calculate the volume of an irregularly shaped object: measure how much water it displaces.)
Research suggests that success depends on an unconscious restructuring of information. The more work you put into thinking about a problem, the more thoughts and bits of information you put into random motion in your subconscious. When you quit thinking about the subject and decide to forget it, your subconscious mind doesn’t quit working. Your thoughts keep colliding, combining and making associations millions of times.
This is when scientists believe your subconscious mind goes into what they call “an internal retrieval process,” which searches your memory for appropriate and inappropriate ideas that can be used to reinterpret your knowledge (for instance, don’t think only of words that come before the given ones).
ANSWERS:
Think of one word that can form a compound word with “sauce,” “pine,” and “crab.” ANSWER: APPLE
“Fence,” “card,” and “master.” ANSWER: POST
“Bump,” “step,” and “egg.” ANSWER: GOOSE
Here is one last one to take with you. What is the one word that can form a compound word with: “back” “clip” and “wall?”
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A $US1 billion Gates Foundation -backed education initiative centered on improving teacher effectiveness & Teacher Evaluation failed, Gates Foundation Says, “Oops”
"The Gates Foundation came out with a report this morning admitting that their heavy-handed, and expensive, focus on teacher evaluation was a failure.
The report’s authors suggest that maybe other factors were more important for students which, of course, just about any teacher could have told Gates before the money was spent." June 21, 2018, by Larry
Ferlazzo
So what will improve student outcomes, student performance?
There are outside factors that influence student learning but of the factors we can control within the school, I think it is teacher enthusiasm, connection and creativity that will HIT THE BALL OUT OF THE PARK.
To be creative, connected and enthusiastic you need time, and that's one thing the modern teacher doesn't have.
The whole school day is a rush between meetings, preparation, writing their program, testing, Naplan, PISA, writing reports, getting and maintaining accreditation, data entry &
documenting everything etc.
In fact, since the introduction of the Professional Teaching Standards in 2011,
no-one has any time. Everyone is so busy documenting their own teaching practice they have no time. No time to assist beginning teachers, no time to assist and support colleagues, in many cases the profession has become adversarial as teachers compete for positions and make themselves "look" employable for new advancement positions. The demands of the job have simply become too much.
Comments like:
I don't know how much longer I can take this."
"I love teaching but 80% of the time you are doing something else and not teaching."
"I need a break."
are common.
Teachers are leaving the profession in significant numbers — the latest figures from the Australian Bureau of Statistics suggest 53 percent of people who hold a teaching degree, do not currently work in education.
Although the figure varies by locality, about 40 to 50 percent of our newest teachers leave within their first five years on the job.
Why are they leaving?
These graduates are leaving for various reasons, but similar themes recur: they feel burnt out, unsupported, frustrated and disillusioned.
There must be a better way.
1. The International Baccalaureate Curriculum is a fully developed curriculum supplied to teachers, they do not program, they implement an existing program. A huge amount of teacher time could be reduced by implementing this system in Australian schools.
2. Testing should be drastically reduced and if required should be conducted online and automatically marked with results feeding into individual student reports. The first casualty of testing is creativity.
3. Report writing should be streamlined, all data entry should be automated directly from existing programs students are working on, eg Mathletics, Reading Eggs etc. REport categories should be reduced. Reporting on individual outcomes removed.
4. Reduction of administrative task undertaken by teachers from the current 80% to say 20% by using automation and administrative staff.
Get back time to be creative and inspiring and collegial, and let teachers do the job they love - teaching.
The whole school day is a rush between meetings, preparation, writing their program, testing, Naplan, writing reports, getting and maintaining accreditation, data entry, documenting everything etc. In fact, since the introduction of the Professional Teaching Standards in 2011, no-one has any time. Everyone is so busy documenting their own teaching practice they have no time. No time to assist beginning teachers, no time to assist and support colleagues, in many cases the profession has become adversarial as teachers compete for positions and make themselves "look" employable for new advancement positions. The demands of the job have simply become too much.
"Experienced teachers have had enough," Professor Riley says.
Comments like
I don't know how much longer I can take this"
I love teaching but 80% of the time you are doing something else and not teaching."
I need a break
Teachers are leaving the profession in significant numbers — the latest figures from the Australian Bureau of Statistics suggest 53 percent of people who hold a teaching degree, do not currently work in education.
Although the figure varies by locality, about 40 to 50 percent of our newest teachers leave within their first five years on the job.
Why are they leaving
These graduates are leaving for various reasons, but similar themes recur: they feel burnt out, unsupported, frustrated and disillusioned.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-02-04/why-do-teachers-leave/8234054
There must be a better way.
1. The International Baccalaureate Curriculum is a fully developed curriculum supplied to teachers, they do not program, they implement an existing program. A huge amount of teacher time could be reduced by implementing this system in Australian schools.
2. Testing should be drastically reduced and if required should be conducted online and automatically marked with results feeding into individual student reports.
3. Report writing should be streamlined, all data entry should be automated directly from existing programs students are working on, eg Mathletics, Reading Eggs etc. REport categories should be reduced. Reporting on individual outcomes removed.
4. Reduction of administrative task undertaken by teachers from the current 80% to say 20% by using automation and administrative staff.
Get back time to be creative and inspiring and collegial, and let teachers do the job they love - teaching
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This latest graphic from Mark Treadwell shows learning systems and their time frame, this is truly insightful. And helps make sense of the importance of creativity, speaking listening and ideas, and the power of using these very highly efficient learning systems.
Mark offers a PDL guided program on "The Future of Learning" encompassing these ideas. The feedback on these courses has been amazing, and he is currently working with a number of schools internationally.
I first reviewed some of the work of Mark back in 2004 and have followed his research and read his books ever since. I loved his most amazing video of 2 - 11 year old boys explaining the learning process which can still be viewed at:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RGbGiMeLk_M
He has spent over 10 years researching how the brain learns from a neuroscience perspective.
The original book I read called, "The Future of Learning" can still be downloaded for free at:
This is really a move forward in educational practice.
Here is what Mark has to say.
We are educating our young people for a new era, one that requires a new design brief and a new overarching framework.
With a number of schools finishing the 3-4 year PDL programme this year we are ...
offering the opportunity for five schools to take part in this 3-4 year Professional Learning Programme beginning in term four 2018 or term one 2019.
The Future of Learning can be downloaded from the link above. The programme of Professional Development is an adaptive one ... with each school applying the resources provided to meet their specific aspirational goals.
Schools in the program meet up with Mark four times a year for a full day, with Skype sessions scheduled in between the face-face meetings. Schools will be supplied a comprehensive set of resources as part of this programme.
We can put you in contact with reference schools who can provide you with 'their story' on the implementation of this programme within their school.
You may also like to take a look at some of the presentations Mark does.
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I love this card trick and so did my students. A great thinking spelling maths game. The students came up with so many different strategies and ideas. They were so engaged.
Watch the Video stop it at 3.08 minutes in and let your students try to figure it out.
The stages were:
1. Performance - doing the trick with pinache and flair.
2. Working out strategies to investigate how the trick worked.
3. Testing the strategies and ideas.
4. Presenting their explanations to the class.
5. Changing the trick and use different final reveals.
Some of the Outcomes
MA2-2WM, MA3-2WM, MA2-3WM, MA3-3WM
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I do answer all emails so send them along with your questions ideas and great sites.
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And because you linked to this article on EdTech:
It inspired us to create our own detailed guide on the benefits (and cons) of technology with some great graphics and information on how people can start introducing it to their classroom!
We think it's a real doozy.
Either way, thanks for the inspiration and keep up your great work.
Toodles,
Anna
P.S. Feel free to use any of the graphics–no strings attached.
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The opinions expressed here are purely those of the editor, Cathy Brown. All other small print clauses apply. Such as: Use at your own risk. Nothing in life is guaranteed. If it doesn't work for you send an email or tweet me.
Editor: Cathy Brown cathy@virtualteacher.com.au
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