One of the things I love about being online is that you can mix and match ideas from people all over the world with your own to develop learning programmes.
I have always been enamoured with @sherrattsam bubble catcher I first saw when I visited him Bangkok. When I met up with him again in Ho Chi Minh City I realised haven’t used them as much as I would like to and I’m trying to get back into the habit with the class particularly as learning logs have really taken off.
One of the problems I’ve identified is that the children are still very text dependent, often copying down large chunks of text from the internet without much thought. I also thought they needed to work on their presentation skills.
As we are entering a unit which is highly research dependent I decided to introduce the children to sketchnoting. Over the course of the next few weeks I will introduce the children to the various sections of @braddo sketchnoting primer that was part of the ADE institute in San Diego last year. This morning the kids looked at how layout can be used to improve the quality of their thinking and made connections to their study of narratives.
As the kids were practicing taking notes from a video it occurred to me that this process would help them unpack their ‘big idea Friday’ reflections more before they started righting. The plan for their reflections would already be there.
A couple of takeaways
- Connections matter. Sam I met through @whatedsaid and have kept in touch with via twitter and through the twitter tour. Brad is an Apple Distinguished Educator. Neither of them have met and in fact practice on opposite sides of the pacific yet I am using ideas from both to inform my teaching practice.
- The kids are better at this than me. Seriously. Most of them doodle and are now seeing a purpose for their doodling. We are learning together.
- Great practice spreads. One of the English Language support learners was is in the room helping one of my students and came up afterwards immediately asking for Brad’s video. She could see how sketchnoting could be a way for language learners to convey complex ideas and not get tripped up on words. The best bit? She then shared that with the English support teachers.
- The learning keeps on going. A conversation then happened on twitter about the days event between myself and @itsallaboutart and @ndbekah about the day which led to another connection with an ADE in Switzerland and blog post.
Teaching the Teacher 