Geography Bee Champ-Remembers places because every place has a story

Check you the front page of the Omaha World-Herald Living Section today, Saturday, June 7, 2008. This year's National Geography Bee winner is and 11-year-old boy from Lincoln. It is the cover story on the Living Section of the paper with a big picture and article. The caption under the picture says, "Every physical place in the world, says Aksha Rajagopal, has some kind of story." That is one of the ideas we were just studying about and one of the chapters in the book we read. He talks about one of the ways he remembers is by stories that go with the place and name.

Articulation, Participation and Citizenship-Podcasting as a Scaffold for Signifcance

It is important to keep the conceptual mind (L-Brain) but with more emphasis on the creative (R-Brain). Some of the roadblock to the shift to more emphasis towards creative: financial, NCLB, assessments, changing mind-set of parents and students, changing my own mind set. Holistic-Will the components of a one-room school will come back. Now we have the means for mass customization. Some of the smallest changes we make may have the biggest impact on our students. When developing a podcast: 80% development and 20% production for time spent.

Empathy

Three websites that let you test your empathy quotient:

EQ website: tinyurl.com/dbsd8

Spot the Fake Smile: tinyurl.com/2u7sh

Mind in the Eye Test: tinyurl.com/ckrj3

Six Ways to Teach for Independent and Higher Learning

Presentation by Katie Morrow. Things we should be aware of to change the way I teach: 1. We must resist the temptation to tell. Giving students content without generating any interest in the material is like having only one side of a piece of Velcro--it just doesn't stick. 2. We must stop teaching decontextualized content. Context=Frame of Reference. 3. We must stop giving kids the final product of our thinking. 4. We must make a fundamental shift-problems first, teaching second. Transform with Role-Play. Ex. Website for business--animated intro. Dept. of Environment-Fish dying. Magazine Editor-edited submitted articles. 5. We must progressively withdraw from helping students. "Sucess is a lousy teacher because it seduces people into thinking they can't lose." Bill Gates. 6. We must reevaluate evaluation. Is the tail wagging the dog? Food for thought!

Julie and Sarah-Symphony Presentation

Boundary Crosser, Inventor, Metaphor Maker: we need to be able to mesh all three relationships. Ways to develop symphony: Listen to actual classic symphonies, look at magazines you never read, draw, keep a metaphor log, lookk for soltions in search of problems, create and Inspiration Board, read suggested books, brainstorm, look for negative spaces.

Dicky Brown's Presentation-The Whole New Mind: the Six Senses

The six new senses are: design, story, symphony, empathy, play, and meaning. Design is one of the new senses. Design is not fluff. Everything is designed now for the masses, not just the rich. To succeed in the marketplace, companies need to pay attention to design.

Cheryl Lemke-It's Different Learning...

Collaboration gets kids talking to each other. Research (Johnson & Johnson) shows that higher proficiency students talk a lot more than lower functioning students. Attention should be paid to how students are grouped. She suggests putting students that are operating at a similar level together. There must be a commitment from all in the group to work with the group. There needs to be a shared work space. It can be a piece of paper or a whiteboard or... The student's need to feel safe to explore and take a risk. There needs to be a balance of socialization and getting the task done. I would like to hear more.