On Friday the 15th of May, I attended a full day workshop with Ruben Puentedura, the man behind the SAMR model. All his slides can be found here.
Continue reading “SAMR, TPACK and the EduTech Quintet, with Ruben Puentedura”
Category: ideas
bookmark_borderMy view of History
I wrote the following for our Middle School Newsletter:
As a History teacher, I am always interested to hear about the different experiences people have with studying History. During parent-teacher interviews, some parents shared with me that History bored them to tears because they were forced to rote learn endless streams of dates and facts. Others told me how much they loved History all through High School and that they still read History books and watch many documentaries. It is hard to pinpoint exactly where a love of History is fostered, but one thing is clear to me; an interest in History does not come from dry facts and figures, it comes from the compelling stories, different perspectives, and the problems of interpretation. Continue reading “My view of History”
bookmark_borderIB DP History Workshop Melbourne: the New Guide 2017
From the 2nd of May to the 4th of May 2015, I attended a three day IB DP History workshop in Melbourne. It was a very busy and well attended event, with over 300 hundred participants in total and 35 history teachers from all over the southern hemisphere in our workshop.
Below are the notes I’ve taken for each day:
- IB DP Workshop Day 1, A general overview of the changes in the new course. How to construct a course. Big changes to Paper 1: Four instead of five sources, new OPVL, new question specific mark schemes.
- IB DP Workshop Day 2, overview of changes to Paper 2, new mark bands. We did a lot of trial marking. Grades were often higher than we expected. There is more ‘positive’ marking.
- IB DP Workshop Day 3, IA has been completely overhauled, three sections now. Also looked at approaches to teaching and learning.
Continue reading “IB DP History Workshop Melbourne: the New Guide 2017”
bookmark_borderIB DP History Workshop, Day 3
Three day IB DP History workshop, Category 3, Day 3
Melbourne. 02/05/15 – 04/05/15.
Workshop leaders: Colin Aitken and Jenny McArthur
Group page on Google+ (closed, invitation only)
Notes for Day 1, Day 2 and Day 3
Continue reading “IB DP History Workshop, Day 3”
bookmark_borderIB DP History Workshop, Day 2
Three day IB DP History workshop, Category 3, Day 2
Melbourne. 02/05/15 – 04/05/15.
Workshop leaders: Colin Aitken and Jenny McArthur
Group page on Google+ (closed, invitation only)
Notes for Day 1, Day 2 and Day 3
Continue reading “IB DP History Workshop, Day 2”
bookmark_borderIB DP History Workshop, Day 1
Three day IB DP History workshop, Category 3, Day 1.
Melbourne. 02/05/15 – 04/05/15.
Workshop leaders: Colin Aitken and Jenny McArthur
Group page on Google+ (closed, invitation only)
Notes for Day 1, Day 2 and Day 3
Continue reading “IB DP History Workshop, Day 1”
bookmark_borderPersonal Project, IB MYP workshop, Day 1
Two day workshop, Monday 27th and Tuesday 28th of April, 2015, led by Gary Green.
The Personal Project is an independent research project that a student produces in Year 10. It is a creative endeavor of the student’s choosing that demonstrates the skills the student has learned in Approaches to Learning. Assessment of the Personal Project is based on a set of 8 specific criteria that are normalized to a scale of 1–7. The Personal Project is designed to demonstrate the student’s ability to organise, create, and complete a significant body of work.
(Source) Also see notes from Day 2.
The essential structure of every lesson and every personal project is:
- Know (knowledge)
- Understand (think about)
- Do (skills, processes)
The personal project is the one time in which students set their own course completely.
Continue reading “Personal Project, IB MYP workshop, Day 1”
bookmark_borderA visit to Botswana
I
n our Year 10 Unit “The Geography of Wellbeing”, we are using Botswana as a case study to investigate responses to the HIV/AIDS epidemic.
Since many of my students initially had no idea of where Botswana is (could you point it out on a map right now?) and because none of them had been to Africa, I decided to take them on a virtual visit: Continue reading “A visit to Botswana”
bookmark_border“How People Learn” Effective teaching in History
I have enjoyed skim reading the book “How people learn” by the National Research Council. It aims to give practical ideas on how to use current pedagogical research in the classroom.
The three key findings that the book presents are:
- Students come to the classroom with preconceptions about how the world works. If their initial understanding is not engaged, they may fail to grasp the new concepts and information that are taught, or they may learn them for purposes of a test but revert to their preconceptions outside the classroom.
- To develop competence in an area of inquiry, students must:
(a) have a deep foundation of factual knowledge,
(b) understand facts and ideas in the context of a conceptual framework, and
(c) organize knowledge in ways that facilitate retrieval and application. - A “metacognitive” approach to instruction can help students learn to take control of their own learning by defining learning goals and monitoring their progress in achieving them.
It has a very interesting chapter about History teaching. You can download that chapter here: Continue reading ““How People Learn” Effective teaching in History”
bookmark_borderRevision with “Heads Up!”
In 2013, Ellen Degeneres released an app called Heads Up. It’s a simple app, it works like “Celebrity heads” and it nicely made with some fun features. I used this app to revise key words from our History course, the students loved it.
(https://itunes.apple.com/au/app/heads-up!/id623592465?mt=8)
Here is Ellen playing the game with Owen Wilson:
Continue reading “Revision with “Heads Up!””