Dylan Wiliam

Dylan Wiliam's video  above is  extremely thought provoking and  I hope you can find the time to watch it. He poses the question "what makes an expert teacher?" Dylan Wiliam, an international authority on assessment for learning, believes that to be an expert you need 10 years of deliberate practice. He debunks the notion that our teaching profession needs the most academically talented, preferring those that are passionate about working with young people and are in the profession for the long haul. He states that all teachers need to believe that they can improve. Interesting to hear him say that teachers tend to improve for the first three years of their careers and then plateau. So you can teach old dogs new tricks!

 

The Principal of Change

I have been following George Couros on Twitter for some time now. He is an inspirational  US school principal who believes that classrooms need to be learner focussed. George is also an Innovative Teaching, Learning and Leadership consultant. He is well worth following on your own PLN. He has come up with 8 things that he believes will help today's  learner be successful. The 8 things are elements that you would discover in a personalised learning environment where learners are self directed and self motivated.
Sylvia Duckwork created the fabulous visual above that represents the 8 things which are:

• Voice
• Choice
• Time for reflection
• Opportunities for innovation
• Critical thinkers
• Problem solvers
• Self Assessment
• Connected Learning

Read George's blog post for further explanation of these 8 elements

http://georgecouros.ca/blog/archives/3586

The Growth mindset

Welcome back to the ISC's In The Know blog. I thought I would kick off the new year with Carol Dweck's TED Talk that discusses the power of believing that you can improve. As you are aware, Carol is the guru of the Growth mindset - a mindset that welcomes difficulties and challenges, seeing them as a way to improve your learning.
She talks about being wise with your praise, praising the process the students engage in(effort, focus, strategies, perseverance) rather than talent and intelligence.

Revamping the Year 7 Ripping into Research

One of the activities in our Year 7 Ripping into Research Program this year will be a QR Challenge.
With the help of QR codes,  students will discover different areas and services within the ISC. Our Junior school has kindly  lent us 12 ipads  for the week and our Year 7's  will use them to access QR codes that have been strategically placed around the ISC. QR codes allow us to provide easy access to videos, glogs and wordles, that  provide information relating to the use of the ISC. A big thank you to Anthony and Lyn for  their acting and technical skills

eBooks @ Gippsland Grammar

This week we received the exciting news that we can now install a free Wheelers eplatform app to our mobile devices. This will allow us to conveniently  access the ISC's ebook collection (over 900 titles) anytime, anywhere.
The app is easy to install and will allow you to borrow on your iphone, ipad, Galaxy, Kindle Fire or other tablet/mobile device - without needing to download any additional software. When your loan expires after fourteen days, the ebooks simply disappears from your device.

If you are not already registered with Wheelers ebooks you will need to follow the prompts after installing the app.