Group items tagged

"Conversation is key . Sawyer succinctly explains this principle: "Conversation leads to flow, and flow leads to creativity." When having students work in groups, consider what will spark rich conversation. The original researcher on flow, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, found that rich conversation precedes and ignites flow more than any other activity.1 Tasks that require (or force) interaction lead to richer collaborative conceptualization. Set a clear but open-ended goal . Groups produce the richest ideas when they have a goal that will focus their interaction but also has fluid enough boundaries to allow for creativity. This is a challenge we often overlook. As teachers, we often have an idea of what a group's final product should look like (or sound like, or…). If we put students into groups to produce a predetermined outcome, we prevent creative thinking from finding an entry point. Try not announcing time limits. As teachers we often use a time limit as a "motivator" that we hope will keep group work focused. In reality, this may be a major detractor from quality group work. Deadlines, according to Sawyer, tend to impede flow and produce lower quality results. Groups produce their best work in low-pressure situations. Without a need to "keep one eye on the clock," the group's focus can be fully given to the task. Do not appoint a group "leader." In research studies, supervisors, or group leaders, tend to subvert flow unless they participate as an equal, listening and allowing the group's thoughts and decisions to guide the interaction. Keep it small. Groups with the minimum number of members that are needed to accomplish a task are more efficient and effective. Consider weaving together individual and group work. For additive tasks-tasks in whicha group is expectedtoproduce a list, adding one idea to another-research suggests that better results develop

Creativity, innovation, and deepened understanding can result from interdisciplinary thinking. Despite these potential benefits, schools rarely cultivate the "mental dexterity" required for thinking in the seams

Why I Like Prezi In my life, I have given a *lot* of presentations. In high school, they were presentations on group projects. In university, they were presentations on research projects. At Google, they're presentations on how to use our APIs. When I first started giving presentations, I used Powerpoint, like everyone else. But I kept thinking there must be a better way, and I experimented with other options - flash interfaces, interactive Javascript apps. Then I discovered Prezi, and it has become my presentation tool of choice. Prezi is an online tool for creating presentations - but it's not just a Powerpoint clone, like the Zoho or Google offering. When you first create a Prezi, you're greeted with a blank canvas and a small toolbox. You can write text, insert images, and draw arrows. You can draw frames (visible or hidden) around bits of content, and then you can define a path from one frame to the next frame. That path is your presentation. It's like being able to draw your thoughts on a whiteboard, and then instructing a camera where to go and what to zoom into. It's a simple idea, but I love it. Here's why: It forces me to "shape" my presentation. A slide deck is always linear in form, with no obvious structure of ideas inside of it. Each of my Prezis has a structure, and each structure is different. The structure is visual, but it supports a conceptual structure. One structure might be 3 main ideas, with rows of ideas for each one. Another might be 1 main idea, with a circular branching of subideas. Having a structure helps me to have more of a point to my presentations, and to realize the core ideas of them. It makes it easy to go from brainstorming stage to presentation stage, all in the same tool. I can write a bunch of thoughts, insert some images, and easily move them around, cluster them, re-order them, etc. I can figure out the structure of my presentation by looking at what I have laid out, and seeing how they fit together. Some people do this

Visual supports for auditory information UDL

visual communication and synthesis tools. Critical thinking development ideas. Nice site for teachers designing quality instruction. RSA Animate's site.

word clouds with style. Create shapes with word clouds

To Gerald Carey - As an English teacher, word clouds are a great tool. Taking text from literature or even from your own students' writing and placing it in a word cloud builder allows students to find theme words because the words used the most often are bigger than the others. I've used my students' quickwrite entries about a chosen piece of text and shown them that they are all thinking through the literature the same way. It's pretty eye opening for an English class!

Tagxedo turns words -- famous speeches, news articles, slogans and themes, even your love letters -- into a visually stunning word cloud, words individually sized appropriately to highlight the frequencies of occurrence within the body of text.

How one teacher uses data visualizations to get students thinking!

Teachers need to allow their students more room to creatively use visual design, and at the same time, teach students to be aware. Forcing students to follow exact formatting requirements is counterproductive.

This is a "field-book of tools and processes to help readers in all fields develop as researchers, writers, and agents of change." For more details and how to purchase: http://bit.ly/TYS2012. (Printing and distribution in Australia and Europe begins end of March.) Comments on the influence of this book's approach "I was able to get engaged in a project that I was able to actually use in work, which was extremely satisfying. The whole process encouraged me, and I felt very empowered as a change agent, which could be an exhilarating feeling." a healthcare professional and story-teller "I really had not been used to thinking about my own thinking, so learning to do that also helped me to slow down and start to look away from the career path that I had been taking for granted." a biologist-turned-web designer "I found that the experience helped me to accept feedback from other professionals. I am more comfortable with listening to why my own ideas might not work or need further evaluation. This even happens to the point where I find reasons now to seek out this kind of feedback." a teacher "I had viewed research as a process of collecting information into a sort of database and reviewing it effectively. I have now revised my notions to include a more broad understanding of interconnectedness between people and ideas. An important part of research is to keep relationships going." an adult educator "One of the most useful ideas was the use of dialogue, which helps to slow down the procedures used by the company. There's a tension between management's need to make quick decisions and desire to have real dialogue around proposed changes-changes to the internal company operational procedures as well as to evaluating the quality of what the company is doing with its publications." a teacher, currently working in publishing "I was asked to pay attention to what I actually could do instead of what I could not. This enabled me to (1) step back and let go of a huge technic

For students creating presentation or visual data. Helps reinforce digital literacy and apply high-order thinking by creating the visual data rather than merely evaluating it. 

Reading comprehension strategies. Nothing new here, but think about technology integration... esp visualizing. Pull in images into a class blog to group visualize a chapter.

Worth thinking!

Fascinating view on learning styles that goes against much of what is being suggested to instructors and students.  Suggests variety rather than different learning styles is what makes multi-modal teaching successful.  Curious to see if there is more out there on this viewpoint.

I've never really bought into the one student-one style approach, especially when I hear junk like "I'm a visual learner, so I really don't write many of my essays" or "I'm not assigning writing to him; he processes kinesthetically." To me, MI has always been a prompt to include different things across a unit.

Exploratree is a free web resource where you can access a library of ready-made interactive thinking guides, print them, edit them or make your own. You can share them and work on them in groups too.

An oldie but a goodie. Plenty of graphic organisers here - and modifiable.

Exploratree is a free graphic organizer creation tool. Exloratree users can use pre-made graphic organizer templates which Exploratree refers to as "thinking guides" or create their own templates. The Exploratree thinking guides can be used online or downloaded and printed for offline use.

Shared by Wes Fryer addresses gaming, colaboration, crowd wisdom, social interaction, etc

Do learning styles exist - Hugh Lafferty and Keith Burley - Sheffield Hallam University

Good thesis on whether learning styles exist and the implications of suggesting that they don't.

Origami, the ancient art of paper folding, has applications in the modern-day classroom for teaching geometry, thinking skills, fractions, problem solving, and fun science.

"Inspired and performed by students at three Catholic primary and secondary schools in the Diocese of Wollongong, this innovative video production uses their voice and experience to focus on the impact of bullying and provides practical strategies for youth to deal with this important issue. It is an engaging visual stimulus which challenges students to think positively, respond compassionately and act with courage when they are confronted with future incidents of bullying."