Sir Ken Robinson and a Really Great Talk from TED

I wanted to include this TED talk here. It's got a lot of great points in it and Robinson explains a great deal. I really think he has hit the nail on the head. Robinson identifies the importance of tapping into and finding people's talents. Many people go through life not finding or utilizing their talents. Robinson sights the current format of schooling actually hinders many people from succeeding in their talents.

And high among them is education, because education, in a way, dislocates very many people from their natural talents. And human resources are like natural resources; they're often buried deep. You have to go looking for them, they're not just lying around on the surface. You have to create the circumstances where they show themselves.

I take this to mean that we as teachers should be trying to dig down and find out what the talents of our students are. It's not easy to find it and honestly, I've failed with many students but I have succeeded with many as well and seen them do very well. It's a struggle for sure and one that if you work too hard it can certainly drain you. Even small successes should be acknowledged.

In this next section Robinson begins to discuss the need for changes to the education system.

 What we need -- and the word's been used many times during the course of the past few days --is not evolution, but a revolution in education. This has to be transformed into something else.One of the real challenges is to innovate fundamentally in education. Innovation is hard because it means doing something that people don't find very easy, for the most part. It means challenging what we take for granted, things that we think are obvious. The great problem for reform or transformation is the tyranny of common sense; things that people think, "Well, it can't be done any other way because that's the way it's done." 

We've had the same format of education for the last two hundred or so years and nothing has changed really.  This is a serious issue, our society is considerably different than it used to be. School should reflect that change and reflect our society more accurately.

I won't go through the whole talk but he's certainly worth watching, listening to and thinking about. I don't agree with everything that's said but.... There's an awful lot of ideas here in these talks for everyone to think about. I hope that I encourage the talents of my students.

I would love to hear other people's comments about this talk and what they might like to see in education.  

Two Heads are Better than One: The Advantage of Collaboration!

Today I would like to discuss the beginnings of a great collaborative relationship with one of my colleagues, Mrs. Clara Camarda.

We have worked together to create and structure a research project for her grade 6 classes. Collaboration is important and so is structuring the research for students.  It's not good enough to say to students, "Here's your topic! Here's your due date! On your marks get set go." In almost every case releasing the hounds, so to speak will not result in effective research.

Lets begin with collaboration.... The old saying two heads are better than one is absolutely correct.

Research projects can be complicated, time consuming and overwhelming for both a teacher and the students, having a second set of hands to assist with the whole event is very important.

Today at school Mrs. Camarda and I engaged in collaborative teaching with her grade 6 classes. The students are beginning a research project on Canada's aboriginal people's. Students are being asked to learn about their history, culture and the lives of modern First Nations people, here in Canada. Students will present their learning at a potlatch type event later on this month in class. The kids are looking forward to the event.

Over the past few weeks Mrs. Camarada and I have discussed the project thoroughly, planned out a schedule for research in the library and created a structure and set of guidelines for the students. We then discussed what I would cover with the students and how I would guide them at the beginning of the research. Mrs. Camarda created the task checklists and daily work summaries for each group to fill out, along with a list of resources to use. Mrs. Camarda searched and found some resources. I also assisted by finding some of the resources and websites we would supply the students in order to help give them direction. I also pulled a large number of print resources from our shelves that have been reserved solely for here classes use in the library.

On the day when we introduced the project to the students Mrs. Camarda and I took turns explaining different elements of the project and we also worked together to meet with each group and help them to consolidate each person's role within their groups. Kids seemed to be focused and confident.

Students decided on their roles and negotiated with group members to resolve conflicts over who was going to complete which tasks. Rock, paper, scissors was used occasionally to rectify disagreements. :)))

At that point we began our preview of available resources. Students perused the print resources and made quick notes of page numbers and book titles and myself and Mrs. Camarda circulated throughout the room assisting students in using the index and table of contents to help them find  information on their topics.

Then students were introduced to the online resources in the same way and we discussed using Boolean terms to help narrow down their searches. They were given about 20 minutes at the end of the period to begin their research. Here's a link to the digital library we introduced to students today. It's one designed solely for Peel students. Library eResources


During all this activity Mrs. Camarda and I worked to help students we would make comments about each other's suggestions and the discussion with the kids was very much a give and take between the two of us neither of us led the lesson while the other was silent. We had a conversation with the kids. When one of us forgot to mention something the other would jump in.  It worked very well.

I hope that we have provided the students with an example of good collaboration that they will use with their groups and that we have enriched their learning by having two of us available to assist them with their learning.

So I will end here by saying I will definitely post samples of student work when they finish up their projects and I look forward to working with Mrs. Camarda again this year. It was a blast and we're not even finished the project yet.

I've included the assignment pages here.

As a side note here's a link to another project I'm currently collaborating on with 4 other teachers.
The motivation tap