Thoughts of a Cyber Hero: Edventure Builder. 7 Tenets of Creative Thinking. In school, we learn about geniuses and their ideas, but how did they get those ideas? What are the mental processes, attitudes, work habits, behaviors, and beliefs that enable creative geniuses to view the same things as the rest of us, yet see something different? The following are seven principles that I've learned during my lifetime of work in the field of creative thinking -- things that I wish I'd been taught as a student. 1. You Are Creative Artists are not special, but each of us is a special kind of artist who enters the world as a creative and spontaneous thinker. 2. You must show passion and the determination to immerse yourself in the process of developing new and different ideas. 3. When producing ideas, you replenish neurotransmitters linked to genes that are being turned on and off in response to challenges. 4.
Your brain is a dynamic system that evolves patterns of activity, rather than simply processing them like a computer. 5. 6. 7. Teacher development. Great Teachers Don't Teach. In a conversation on LinkedIn, one person asked, "What are the characteristics of an effective teacher? " I read quite a few excellent remarks that describe what such a teacher does to be effective. I couldn't help thinking about some of my best teachers.
I had an amazing psychology professor in college. He was on fire every class period and his enthusiasm was contagious. But the things I remember most are the psychological experiments in which we participated. I remember every detail and the supporting theories because I experienced it. My psychology professor was an effective teacher because he provided experiences that created long-term memories. "I appreciate all of the comments that have been made so far. My experience is that good teachers care about students. All of this is good but great teachers engineer learning experiences that maneuver the students into the driver's seat and then the teachers get out of the way. In The Classroom Taking Action. 30 Ideas for Teaching Writing. Summary: Few sources available today offer writing teachers such succinct, practice-based help—which is one reason why 30 Ideas for Teaching Writing was the winner of the Association of Education Publishers 2005 Distinguished Achievement Award for Instructional Materials.
The National Writing Project's 30 Ideas for Teaching Writing offers successful strategies contributed by experienced Writing Project teachers. Since NWP does not promote a single approach to teaching writing, readers will benefit from a variety of eclectic, classroom-tested techniques. These ideas originated as full-length articles in NWP publications (a link to the full article accompanies each idea below). Table of Contents: 30 Ideas for Teaching Writing 1. Debbie Rotkow, a co-director of the Coastal Georgia Writing Project, makes use of the real-life circumstances of her first grade students to help them compose writing that, in Frank Smith's words, is "natural and purposeful. " ROTKOW, DEBBIE. 2003. Back to top 2. 3. 4. Five-Minute Film Festival: 8 Interactive Video Tools for Engaging Learners.
It's no secret that I am a passionate advocate for using video in the classroom. When used well, videos can help students make connections to people and ideas beyond their usual frame of reference. That's why I've been really excited to see a wave of new (and mostly free or low-cost!) Tech tools recently that enable teachers to take favorite clips and make them more valuable for educational use. Whether you use videos to flip your classroom or you just appreciate the power of video to engage kids, maybe one of the tools in my playlist below will help you go deeper in 2014. Video Playlist: Tools to Enhance Videos for Learning You may notice my playlist below looks a little different this time; I'm embedding using a great tool called Huzzaz, reviewed below.
More Resources on Using Video in the Classroom Reviews and Guides for Interactive Video Tools Sources and Ideas for Using Videos in the Classroom. 101213_WW_Writingyourwaytothetop.pdf. Write or Die 2. 40 Things to Do with a Text | Teacher Training Unplugged. This article was written by Dominic Braham and Anthony Gaughan and originally appeared in English Teaching Matters, the English Language Teachers’ Associations journal. Before we get started…Wait a moment.Before you go ahead and read this article, grab a pen, a piece of paper and a clock or watch.Give yourself 5 minutes and write down all the possible things you could get students to do with a business English-suited text.
Don’t edit your thoughts according to what you usually do or what you think would “work”: just let the ideas flow…OK, pens down, time’s up. How many ideas do you have on your list? Most of the following list of ideas for text exploitation was brainstormed in not much more than five minutes while we were planning sessions to form part of our Certificate in Teaching English for Business (CertTEB) course in Berlin.
The ideas are presented in the order they came to us, so there is a kind of logic to the list but it certainly isn’t in order of effectiveness. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5.
FlashmobELT. Believe it or not! A speaking activity I've used with adult learners to practise making questions in the past simple but I guess it could be adapted for any tenses really. 1. Students sit in small groups of four or five. 2. Teacher gives each group a set of question cards. I use "Have you ever...? " 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. Like I said, this works better with older students as they've had more life experiences so it's difficult to tell if they are telling the truth or not. A page of questions ready to print can be found on my blog but it really doesn't take a lot to write your own if the ones I use are unsuitable for your group.
Enjoy. :) Aidan @leedsacademy www.teacherfacilitatorlearnerfriend.wordpress.com. My Life In 20 Lines - a simple storytelling activity - TheTeacherJames.