Adolescence is a time of many transitions for teens and these transitions impact the ways in which they learn and retain information . To ensure that teens and teachers navigate these transitions successfully, it is important for both to understand what is happening to the teen physically, cognitively, and socially; how these transitions should impact instructional practices.
Saturday, July 14, 2012
Monday, July 2, 2012
Why I Do What I Do: The Purpose of Literacy Strategies
For those of you familiar with me and my work, you have no doubt been inundated with my beliefs about WHY literacy strategies are both important and urgent. If you have not had the pleasure of being cornered by me in a hallway at HHS or stuck on an elevator, the following is a restatement of why I do, what I do, and to what end.
The purpose of literacy strategies are:
*to enable students to engage fully and converse fluently with the concept's an author presents in written texts
*to enable students to employ metacognitive strategies which help them to link new concepts to their previous understandings and thereby improve retention, application, and synthesis
*to enable students to develop the skill set necessary to think both critically and divergently.
Are we creating "doers" or "thinkers"?
When students produce artifacts that meet or exceed standards, while demonstrating the cultural and social norms of appropriate behavior, we often breathe a sigh of relief and sleep the sleep of the just. However, if you are like me, your spirit is vexed...Why? Because, we ought to always be about the business of determining whether or not we have created "doers" or "thinkers."
In a 2008 white paper from IBM, the stakeholders at this innovative company discuss how collaboration as well as divergent/critical thinking is changing the way we do business in America and in deed, the world.
Sunday, July 1, 2012
The "Kung Fu" of Teacher Pedagogy
The Chinese term kung fu means “excellence of effort given over considerable time.” How is your kung fu today? Research has shown that it takes approximately 10,000+ hours to become a master in any particular field or vocation, ergo the phrase "excellence of effort over considerable time." As we approach the new school year, what are you doing to demonstrate the excellence of your effort?
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