Advice from David Perkins to make learning Whole

David Perkin's book 'Make Learning Whole' concludes each chapter with very practical advice to create positive integrated learning environments.Advice from David Perkins 'Making learning Whole'One: 'Play the whole game' not fragmented bits.The problem Perkins says is there is too much problem solving ( teachers problems ) and not enough problem finding - or figuring out often 'messy' open ended investigations. 'Playing the whole game' is the solution resulting in some sort of inquiry or performance. It is not just about content but getting better at things, it requires thinking with what you know to go further, it is about finding explanations and justifications.It involves curiosity, discovery, creativity, and camaraderie. It is not just...

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Posted in: Big Picture,Creative Schools,Creative teaching,Creative teaching Educationalists,inquiry learning,teaching and learning

Education is about playing the whole game .

David Perkins is professor of Education at Harvard University Graduate School of Education. A highly respected authority in his field he is well known for his research and insight into the deep understanding of teaching and learning. His latest highly creative and easy to read book ( published 2009) summarizes years of observations, reflections and research. He 'makes visible' what creative and insightful teachers do. He also provides a framework of seven practical principles for all teachers to transform their teaching. A must read for 2009.'Making Learning Whole', written by David Perkins, is hot off the press - published in 2009. All schools ought to acquire a copy because it will certainty help them focus their teaching and ensure all...

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Posted in: Creative teaching,Creative teaching Educationalists,project based learning,teaching and learning

Making learning Visible - John Hattie

Auckland University Professor John Hattie has recently authored a study, based on research into 83 million students, studying effective teachers around the world and has come up with some reassuring results for creative teachers. It's all about trusting relationships and 'oodles of feedback'. Note - it is not about national testing, our government's highly unoriginal plan.A link For more undated thinking about Hattie It seems hard to avoid the brief press releases of Auckland University Professor John Hattie's research in our newspapers. It is a shame that the papers haven't done more in depth research of their own into Hattie's findings.Most teachers by now will know the main findings of Hattie's research from his previous papers and creative...

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Posted in: Assessment,Big Picture,Creative teaching Educationalists,teaching and learning

Developing talent in young people?

Benjamin Bloom is well known to teachers for his taxonomy of questioning. In the late 80s Bloom wrote a book called 'Developing Talent in Young People'. Bloom was interested in what contributed to the greatness of talented individuals and what role did schools play in their successI have aways been curious about the early life of talented individuals so I was interested to access a copy of an article written on the subject by Benjamin Bloom published in 1985. I have aways wondered what creative individuals like NZ filmmaker Peter Jackson would've been like at school and what kind of school would such creative individuals invent if they were given the challenge? One film maker George Lucas has done this.In the future schools will need to focus...

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Educating for Creativity

If you have never heard Sir Ken Robinson's short video check him out on google. Or visit his site Or visit previous blogs.I cam across an interview with creativity expert Sir Ken Robinson and couldn't resist listening to it as his 'voice' represents what education could be if it could escape from its 19th century straight jacket. His writings and presentations are all about the need to move us from an academic educational system, created to 'serve' the now defunct industrial revolution, to an interdisciplinary structure more suited to today's globally networked knowledge workers.Considering the challenges we face it would seem a sensible idea. Sir Ken big concern is that education ought to be all about developing the whole child's individual...

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Posted in: Big Picture,Creative teaching,Creative teaching Educationalists,Personalized Learning,Rants and Raves,Talent Development

On Knowing - Jerome Bruner

My tattered and much read copy of Jerome Bruner's stimulating book of essays, compiled in 1965, gives expression to the 'creative cunning of the left hand' and outlines the conditions to develop creativity - the 'art' of knowing and discovering. Every time I read it my understanding deepens - this deepening of consciousness through education is the theme of the book. Some essays are still beyond me.The themes Jerome Bruner covers in his book concern the process of knowing, how knowing is shaped and how it in turn gives form to language science, literature and art. The symbolism of the left hand is that of the dreamer - the right that of the practical doer.The areas of hunches and intuition, Bruner writes, has been all too often overwhelmed...

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Posted in: Big Picture,change,Creative teaching,Creative teaching Educationalists,inquiry learning,project based learning,Rants and Raves,Talent Development,teaching and learning

2009 a turning point?

Recently, on National Radio, listeners were asked to provide one word to sum up 2008. My word would be 'awakening' - the beginning of the realisation that things have changed and we need to ask new questions and to think differently about everything. We know the world is not flat - now we are beginning to appreciate that everything is connected. 'Last year's words belong to last years language and next year's words await another voice.And to make an end is to make a beginning'. T. S. Elliot.An anonymous Chinese saying goes, 'We are like a big fish that has been pulled from water and is flopping wildly to find its way back in.In such a condition the fish never asks where the next flip or flop will bring it.It senses only that its present position...

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Posted in: Big Picture,change,Rants and Raves