Recently I was asked to give a talk to first year IBDP students about the role of knowledge in ITGS as part of their regular TOK class. I chose to invoke the legendary Claude Shannon in discussing the transformative effect digitisation had on knowledge, and tie it in to the often specious arguments people make about the “half-life” of knowledge.
I love Ken Robinson, and think he makes a lot of really good points in the talk above. I think he’s right that the systems of education that I have encountered (English National Curriculum & International Baccalaureate) can squeeze out individualism, talent and passion in exchange for all students meeting mandatory minimums in the areas of knowledge & skill that policymakers believe...
A high-resolution collection of posters ready to download, share & print - all for free. Using selected quotes from TED talks, the posters feature thought-provoking ideas and links for further info.
Students often struggle with higher level thinking skills when introduced to them for the first time. In this post I talk about exceeding the expectations of exam boards by going beyond an A* through embedding deep, critical thinking throughout the curriculum.
For as long as I’ve been teaching content that requires more than a handful of notes, I have encouraged my students to use the Cornell method for note taking. Copying by rote doesn't work beyond remembering things. For comprehension & understanding we need a different approach - one I think is encouraged by this method.
There has been an understandably frenzied response to the initial findings of the National Curriculum Review expert panel report that was released earlier this month, particularly from ICT teachers who are facing the prospect of their subject being marginalised, or others who think it will be removed altogether. But are the report findings all bad news for ICT teachers?
Critical thinking was once the purview of classicists & philosophers, but with those subjects still being squeezed out of schools that view them as elitist or irrelevant in the modern world, where does critical thinking fit?
With the lack of colour ink & printer access here on St Helena, I'm having to get slightly more creative with the use of our laserjet printers & all the coloured paper I can lay my grubby little hands on. [...]
Ever felt like teaching was an uphill struggle? So does everyone else, but impossible it's not - we just need to consider carefully our definitions of the word success. People who say it's impossible to be an extraordinary teacher are part of that uphill struggle, making goals seem more difficult to achieve, but it is possible.