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giovedì 27 agosto 2015

LEARNING DIFFERENCES SUMMER 2015

LEARNING  DIFFERENCES    

This summer I  took up a  course run by  The Friday Institute  https://twitter.com/FridayInstitute.

The issue was great because it was about the best ways we  can approach our students and their difficulties.I teach in a vocational school in my  country and more and more  I have to  cope with students who are  struggling to get positive  grades and  families are not aware of their  learning difficulties.
The six modules were engaging, with  lots of interesting weblinks and we  could discuss online important issues:

  • Working Memory
  • Executive Functions
  • how we can   better understand the  difficulties of our  students
  • Student Motivation 
  • Coaching for  teachers  


We were provided with interesting web links for learning  about   Motivation and how to work with students with learning  difficulties.
I have kept most of the notes, I have bookmarked a lot of pages so that I will try to learn more about these  interesting topics which were  discussed online and I have  written about this  great  course in my  website - the one I use for writing about my learning experience on line as  a teacher :

https://sites.google.com/site/thenewworldoflearning/home/learning-differences

This is part of my  CPD, but I would like to say that I have learnt a lot. 
The activities were  guided and had to reflect on videos and  experiences shared by  learners and teachers.
We could also use   GOOGLEHANGOUT for  getting in touch with other  teachers and share ideas.  
The Toolbox was part of the final session and I could learn more about  ways and tools which can help us teach and  support our learners. You can find them in the weblink to my site.
There will be a new session in autumn and I think it is worth doing such an experience as the tutors of this course have made a great  MOOC on line.  

Thanks to the Friday Institute!  You can access the hashtag of this MOOC  if you are on Twitter:

#all_learn

And finally this is my certificate for  attending the course online:  I am proud of what I have learnt and I will  try to better my teaching because  "we are all different but we can learn together".

We have  talked about   mantra  and I have   created mine . 








domenica 23 agosto 2015

BACK TO SCHOOL September 2015

BACK TO SCHOOL
Getting organized and  getting more engaged
Yesterday I was online and I could  follow some interesting sections about the new school year and how to approach it.  There were some interesting webminars with  SimpleK12 -  this is the link where you can have  access to the many  webminars which they run for  CPD and  PLN  :
http://community.simplek12.com/scripts/student/webinars/

The day was centred on presentations by great educators who provided ideas about the best ways for approaching the first day at school with students and the best ways for getting in touch with families and parents. It was a great  experience. I particularly liked the  ideas  expressed by  Sally Sanchez who made a presentation about  Teacher Zen, which I  have  now embedded and I think I will have to think more  about   her  great ideas.
Her ideas were inspiring as she suggested some key points to bear in mind when starting school again:
1) try to organize your way of working so that you can manage the beginning of a new school year in the best  ways. She also
suggested some  tools for better organizing the activities and getting in touch with other  teachers and developing  a PLN
2)find  a way to be connected with your students and develop nice  activities and more creative ways of teaching.
The ideas were presented in a  30minute presentation on line but  I think that these  documents should be  read twice or more times because she  has created a list of tools and documents to help all teachers.  She made me realize that the first thing we do need to have is  enthusiasm and love for what we do need to do.


Teacher Zen! Ways to Prepare Yourself for Your Best Year Yet from Shelly Sanchez Terrell

This is her work on line, there are plenty of useful links:



Teacher Zen, by shellyterrell
This is another  presentation by Shelly which is  worth  checking:



Finally, there is a great source which  Shelly  Sanchez  left us:
A  Teacher's Survival Kit:

Goal: Build a Teacher's Survival Kit, by shellyterrell

Another interesting webminar by a great teacher was about  GETTING  CONNECTED WITH  STUDENTS: the presenter was   TIA SIMMONS  https://twitter.com/TechTia


https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1DMgB_tF2rZonWWTZNxyJf-hXl5PmeAJSstsW7K1HLbI/pub?start=false&loop=false&delayms=3000#slide=id.gd4288a07_0218

This is  a list of the tools we should use to get in touch with  students and establish relationships with students and families:

  • google docs and  google spreadsheets
  • Padlet
  • TitanPad
  • Today'sMeet


All these tools  can help us to " break the walls" and try to communicate with our  students, they can post their presentations with Padlet or they can collaborate and discuss with the teacher.  Google docs is a great  suite as we can work online and share documents.  Google spreadsheets can help us to collect  information like  emails, data from the parents so that the teacher can work better.

Some teachers provided this  interesting link about the best ways for using  Padlet :  https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1mAQJRu1aODAiBslDxNoliCARyAVrVX6hiK4nc_JdghA/present?slide=id.i0#slide=id.gf9f60697_10



Matt Bergmann -  this is great blog  with some tips 
http://bergman-udl.blogspot.it/2015/08/3-ways-you-can-creatively-engage.html           -
 provided an interesting presentation for teachers who need to work  without   technology but  do need to work with students:

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1BEJPcG3Ng_oLKmTGJG_e0yUs_OaMaJjOZFqoYPUX0pU/present?slide=id.p#slide=id.gc62a45ef1_0_3


I liked the approach: we can use any materials for getting organized and work with our  students! Never give up!!!

Matt introduced also a new webtool which is useful in education:  audioboom.com

https://audioboom.com/about/education

This is a great use of the tool, especially for students with special needs:




But the tool can be used to give voice to students too: it seems to be  a  " cool " tool, you just need to follow the link and you will learn more.


https://audioboom.com/Mattbergman14

Here are Matt's suggestions for teachers who can use social media to get engaged with other  teachers by using  this tool:




Finally, there were some engaging  sessions by Catlin Tucker:

http://catlintucker.com/2012/09/back-to-school-night-2-0/

She made a great presentation by providing links to her website
and I am sharing this with you:

http://catlintucker.com/2015/08/dont-waste-the-first-day-of-school/



I found her ideas were new to me: less teacher-centred activities and more  engagement from the students.She suggested  using a  learning style quiz on the first day:


http://www.educationplanner.org/students/self-assessments/learning-styles-quiz.shtml


Catlin has also  provided us with two new web tools:

http://piktochart.com/     to create infographics , but it is not  free

http://www.easel.ly/        to create  templates and infographics

HelpDoHomework

easel.ly


Some great webminars that have helped me become a better
" learner" and now it is time to get  started with the new school year.