Intellectual Humility

I was interested to read that Google named "intellectual humility" as one of its five essential qualities for hiring new employees. The executive in charge of hiring says "with out humility you are unable to learn

Humility Boosts Learning is a report from the John Templeton Foundation and ties in nicely with our Growth Mindset concept. Read about the report by clicking on the image below.

Intellectual Humility Boosts

John Hattie'e latest articles

You can always keep up to date with John Hattie's work on the Visible Learning website. You can also follow him on Twitter @Visible Learning. However, this week I have come across some new articles via Pearson's blog. We are currently committed to Pearson with our Year 7 - 10 Pearson Science textbooks and ebooks.

Click on the image below to read Hattie's post in the 16th June Pearson blog and click the two  links below to read his most current articles.

Politics of Distraction

Politics of Collaborate Expertise

 

You might also remember that some time ago I posted about renowned educationalist, Sir Michael Barber, giving the inaugural Australian Learning Lecture. See below for his thoughts on John Hattie.

 

Sir Michael Barber post on John Hattie





Year 9's in Spineout online magazine

In May, our Year 9's enjoyed  skyping   American author Megan Miranda. Click on the image above to see our write up in the  online magazine called Spineout which promotes reading and creative pursuits of students around Australia

Genrefying our Fiction Collection

This year one of our ISC goals has been to genrefy our fiction collection. It is an enormous project but one that is extremely worthwhile as I can confidently say that not  only will it  increase borrowing , our students will love it  as well and  be able  to find books they want to read more easily and quickly. School libraries that have moved to a genre arrangement have reported greatly increased borrowing and user friendliness.
Traditionally fiction is arranged by the author's surname from A -Z. Using a bookstore model, we will be arranging fiction alphabetically within genre sections. Genres will include aboriginal fiction, fantasy, action/adventure, historical fiction, dystopia, crime/mystery, sports fiction, family saga , romance, classics, humour, war and animal stories.
As readers we all have preferences and arranging books by genre provides a scaffold in the selection process. It will help students understand and articulate what they like to read and why and will give our ISC team the opportunities to discuss genres and further wide reading.

With Term 3 just about over, we are halfway through the genrefying  process and so behind  our hoped schedule to have the project completed by the end of the year.   This is disappointing for me as I would have loved to have seen all the genres set up by the end of year   but it is still great knowing that it is a "work  in progress" and will happen in its entity next year.

Mindfulness Online Course

On the weekend, via Twitter,  I was alerted to a  free six week online mindfulness course from Monash University  called Mindfulness for Well Being and Performance. It is hosted by well known experts Dr Craig Hassad from Monash University and Dr Richard Chambers.
Craig is a General Practitioner and Senior Lecturer in the Faculty of Medicine, Nursing and Health Sciences and has authored nine books including Mindful Learning with Dr Richard Chambers.
Dr Richard Chambers is a clinical psychologist specialising in mindfulness. He was involved in the development of the Smiling Mind smartphone app designed to make mindfulness accessible to more people.
The course starts on the 14th September and runs for six weeks and requires approximately two hours of your time each week
To register, click here

The course offers background information and practical strategies for bringing mindfulness into your personal and professional life.
I have enrolled in this  course and look forward to learning about this important way of living. Hopefully it will help me get a better night's sleep!!

Digital Games and Learning

Mindshift has just put out this excellent guide to digital games and learning. It provides:

• an overview of games in the classroom
• what the research says about gaming
• selection criteria for choosing games suitable for your classroom
• examples of how teachers are using games in their classrooms

Click on the image above to access the guide.

The Science of reading on Screens

 

Click on the image above to read the interesting article about how reading on screen changes how we read. Many researchers are saying that  reading onscreen encourages non linear reading - basically skimming. I must admit I  had to make a conscious effort to read the article deeply  and not skim! It is a basic  summary of research done that  focuses on  reading on screens and includes the attitudes we bring, fatigue and our culture of technology use. It also includes information on the reading brain and how we learn to read and decode.

 

2015 Author in Residence

Last week we were delighted to have author, Michael Gerard Bauer, visiting  us for two days  as the ISC's 2015 "Author in Residence." It was also great to have Michael here to  help us celebrate Book Week. Our Year 7,8 and 9 students responded very positively to Michael who is such an engaging presenter. Our Book Club members also enjoyed having the opportunity to have  lunch with Michael, asking him many questions about his writing and just "hanging out" with him during their lunch break

 

Growth Mindset Videos

The video above is worth watching as it demonstrates how a classroom teacher normalises struggle in her Grade 2 classroom so that students don't feel bad if they don't understand. She says "everyone is going to feel stuck. Everyone is going to feel challenged by it". It is inspiring hearing students commenting on how they are growing their brains.



The above video explains how learning a language can make your brain bigger, improving cognitive function.I found it interesting to hear how languages derived from  Latin are so much more easier to learn than Japanese.Japanese was rated as one of the hardest of langauges to learn.

National Maths Day

Friday the 21st August was National Maths Day and Scootle has put together a collection of their most favourite maths resources. Click on the image below and use your own Scootle details to access.