Why Blog?

I love to share things I come across with colleagues, parents and friends and others interested in matters to do with education. I am particularly interested in inquiry learning, gifted education, fostering independence and growing emotional literacy in our children. You may find posts interesting, you may not. You may agree, you may not but the important thing is you ponder about how it sits with you and your learning journey.

Have a great day!

Monday, 23 March 2015

Guy Claxton and the Idea of Building Learning Power

Guy Claxton is an English educator, researcher and scientist who has made his life work investigating and spreading the word about learning power.

His website is well worth investigating and can be accessed through this link.

The basic premise of this is that teachers will work on building students power to learn and creative capabilities. The brain is always growing and intelligence can be developed through experience.

" When teachers focus on building learning power in their classrooms, the impact on learners can be startling. I've seen this happen in schools across the UK when teachers have begun to think creatively about the ways in which they can help young people become better learners."
Guy Claxton, 2007




The Power of Yet

A 10 minute TED talk that is a great summary of Carol Dweck's talk in Christchurch held recently. Full of pointers that educators can implement in their classrooms and practice tomorrow.


Mindsets and Talking to Children

This is the article that Carol Dweck referred to at her recent talk held in Christchurch recently. It is interesting as it mentions her thoughts about gifted and talented education and also ideas about parenting. It was originally posted in New York magazine in August 2007.


Tuesday, 24 February 2015

Formative Assessment

We know that one of the best ways to improve student outcomes is to provide quality feedback. It is also essential we give students the tools to clarify their understanding.

Love this link to a post on one of my favourite education sites, Edutopia.


This page provides a download to a list to keep in your planning folder as a reference to pop in reflection and revision ideas when planning your week.


Thursday, 5 February 2015

Jan Rivera - Support for Educators and Parents of Gifted Children


Thanks to Judy McArthur for sharing this blog. It is a great place to visit for informed and easy to read posts about aspects of gifted education. I particularly enjoyed the summaries of the over-excitabilities and the articles on the six types of gifted learners. I have subscribed to her mailing list and look forward to new posts as they are shared.

Wednesday, 4 February 2015

Edutopia


This website is a fantastic source of inspiring readings and thought provoking articles. Well worth taking some time to browse or following their twitter feeds.

This is what took me there today.

What does it mean to be a great teacher? Of course credentials, knowledge, critical thinking and all other faculties of intelligence are important. However, a great teacher should be much more than credentials, experience and intelligence.


Reading and Quotes; Two of My Favourite Things



This page contains great quotes from the works of Roald Dahl.

Love them!