25 - 27 AUGUST 2013:
Bialik College, in collaboration with the Harvard School of Education, is delighted to invite you to the 4th Cultures of Thinking Conference. The conference theme is:
Telling Our Stories of Learning: Who are our students becoming as thinkers and learners as a result of their time with us?
* How we can leverage the cultural forces that exist in our classrooms to constantly
create an ever more powerful culture of thinking?
* What are we doing as educators to provide rich opportunities for our students to
develop as thinkers?
* Who are our students becoming as a result of their time
spent in this thoughtful learning environment?
* Who are we, the teachers, becoming as a result of our
time spent in this culture? How has it changed our
role as teachers?
* How can a culture of thinking be created, nurtured and
retained across our classrooms, schools, and nation?
The conference will commence with breakfast and a plenary session on the morning of Sunday 25 August. It will continue until Monday afternoon with plenary sessions with the Harvard educators each day and concurrent presentations and workshops with practising educators throughout the conference.
Registration includes all plenary and concurrent sessions, breakfast Sunday morning, lunch and refreshment breaks on Sunday and Monday and a social function on Sunday evening.
All sessions of the conference will be held at:
Bialik College, 429 Auburn Road,
East Hawthorn, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia.
In a world of information overload, it is vital for students to be able to find information on the Web, as well as to determine its validity and appropriateness. Our information literacy materials demystify the process Web so you can impart the vital skills students need to be safe, successful 21st century learners.
"School librarians bring pedagogical order and harmony to a multi-media clutter of information by crafting challenging learning opportunities, in collaboration with classroom teachers and other learning specialists, to help learners use the virtual world, as well as the traditional information sources, to prepare for living, working and life-long learning in the 21st Century"
"The "Top 25" Websites foster the qualities of innovation, creativity, active participation, and collaboration. They are free, Web-based sites that are user friendly and encourage a community of learners to explore and discover."
"Mind maps or graphic organizers can be invaluable tools for visual thinkers and visual learners. The process of creating a mind map can help students gain an overview perspective on complex, multifaceted concepts. Mind maps can also help students outline an essay or story they're planning to write. The following list contains nine tools that can be used by students to create mind maps independently or collaboratively."
"Common examples of uses include: demonstrations of contextual images; images with clickable parts (an image map) that link to further information e.g. Google maps; video recordings of teaching sessions; to produce media-enhanced feedback; and recordings of special events such as guest lecturers.
A useful guide to the range of uses of digital media to support teaching learning is provided by the JISC-funded Digital Artefacts for Learner Engagement (DiAL-e) Framework. "
"AITSL is initiating a project focused on student engagement in learning.
Learning Frontiers will support practitioners to develop professional practices
which optimise the true engagement of learners. This we believe is a
prerequisite to realise the goals of the Australian Curriculum in our new
context of complex challenges and amazing opportunities."