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Thinking, Learning, Teaching by @vanweringh

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bookmark_borderTarsia Puzzle for History

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Sometimes (often), preparing lessons is playing around and being creative. I could have been doing more useful things I’m sure, but making this Tarsia puzzle was just a bit of fun.

It started with a tweet by @Shawtimesmiles and @misterwootube about a Maths puzzle:

I really liked the look of this puzzle and then I learnt from another Maths teacher (shout out to Mr Pearson) that these puzzles are called Tarsia or Tarzia puzzles. It has clearly been around for a very long time, and I’m late to this game, but excited none the less to discover something that is new to ME. Continue reading “Tarsia Puzzle for History”

bookmark_borderPractical ways to make your lessons more concept-based

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Concepts are like containers for knowledge and understanding. They are like puzzle pieces which together provide a big picture overview. Concepts help students develop a deeper, transferable and cross-disciplinary understanding of overarching ideas. As the students move through PYP, MYP and possibly DP, they encounter these concepts in different areas and in different ways. For example, please see the Venn diagram of some of the key and related concepts in MYP Science, Individuals and Societies and the Arts. As you can see, there is quite some overlap between their subject-specific concepts.

Here is a checklist and a reminder for teaching ‘concept-based’: Continue reading “Practical ways to make your lessons more concept-based”

bookmark_borderHistory Textbooks

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I have recently spent quite a bit of time thinking about History textbooks and how they are written. My thinking hasn’t fully crystallised yet but I want to share the articles that I have read so far. As I continue my journey in the textbook world, I will write more here.

Continue reading “History Textbooks”

bookmark_borderMy booksnap notes of: “Why don’t students like school?” By Daniel Willingham

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Over the last few weeks I read ‘Why don’t students like school’ by Daniel Willingham. It was a very popular book when it was published in 2009. Willingham is a professor of Psychology with a specialisation in neuroscience, and I appreciated having these ideas about how the brain learns presented in such an accessible way, although it was a bit too narrative at times for my liking.

While reading I like to make visual booksnaps using Piccollage. This strategy allows the information to rattle around in my working memory a bit longer; I DO something with the info which means that it will (hopefully) be stored better in my long term memory. Willingham explains this in Chapter 1, page 10, “How thinking works”.

I print the booksnaps off and will refer to them occasionally to remind myself of what I  have read. You can download all of them here in one PDF.

This book is also part of the holiday reading for the Twitter #edureading group.
All the info you need can be found here: sites.google.com/view/educational-reading-group/

Here are my booksnap notes: Continue reading “My booksnap notes of: “Why don’t students like school?” By Daniel Willingham”

bookmark_borderDylan Wiliam, Leadership for Teacher Learning: Booksnap notes

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Over the long weekend, I read Dylan Wiliam’s “Leadership for Teacher Learning.  In order to remember what I read and formulate my thoughts,  I make #booksnaps, using piccollage or snapchat. This post contains my key take-aways.

I also recommend that you listen to Ollie Lovell’s podcast in which he interviews Wiliam himself, it is a fantastic listen and it’s great to hear so many of the things that stood out for me while reading reflected back in the interview. Another good one to read is a post I wrote back in 2015, when Dylan Wiliam visited our school.  I took detailed notes, there are photos of the slides and I made a simple resolution for myself which I have since party fulfilled (before class, prepare thoughtful and critical questions to ask students).

DylanWiliam_all booksnaps in a PDF

Dylan Wiliam visiting our school in May 2015

Continue reading “Dylan Wiliam, Leadership for Teacher Learning: Booksnap notes”

bookmark_borderRussian Revolution in Paintings, Ivan Vladimirov

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Ivan Vladimirov was a Russian painter who specialised in battle painting and documented many Russian military scenes through out this turbulent time in Russian history. He painted scenes in the Russo-Turkish war of 1877, the Russo Japanese war of 1905, the 1912 Balkan war, the First World War and then the Russian Revolution and its Civil War aftermath. Vladimirov spoke English, spent time in London and Paris, and by the time the Russian Civil war broke out in 1918, he was 50 years old. Continue reading “Russian Revolution in Paintings, Ivan Vladimirov”

bookmark_borderTuning In: Online Post-it notes with Google Drawings

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Today I used ‘Google Drawings’ to create online post-it notes for a tuning in / predicting activity: it was quick and effective.

  1. Create a Google Drawings canvas. Open the share settings and make sure everyone can edit.
  2. Adjust the size of the canvas. I made mine the size of an A3 sheet of paper.
  3. Create one textbox with the desired text, then duplicate that textbox for the amount of students in your class.
  4. Go to Bitly.com and create an easy to share shortlink. Mine was: “bit.ly/godsavethetsar”

Continue reading “Tuning In: Online Post-it notes with Google Drawings”

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