This week in class (3/2/2010) our group met to discuss our book of choice, A Whole New Mind by Daniel Pink. All members of the group were at different levels of familiarity with the text: some had read it completely, others were waiting for the additional reading time available during spring break, and some fell in between. We agreed that everyone was to finish reading the text by the class immediately following spring break.
In our discussion we spent time discussion some of the major themes, especially those brought up in the chapter entitled "Abundance, Asia, and Automation." This chapter, the second in the book, was tentatively discussed as being the assigned reading for the rest of the class, along with the couple of pages after chapter three that summarized Pink's six major themes for the rest of the book. The particulars of the assigned reading will be decided after spring break.
Activities and options for our in-class presentation were also discussed. Mee showed us part of a youtube clip titled "Shift Happens" that uses statistics to demonstrate especially the "automation" and "asia" portions of Pink's second chapter. Meredith also pointed out several examples in the portfolio sections of the text that would be interesting to demo as anticipatory sets. Our group's next steps involve trying to determine the ways and exactly how much Pink's arguments relate to educational practice, picking a selection to copy for the class, and gathering activities to meaningfully present the content to the rest of the class.
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Bravo Emily, this is awesome. I was looking around on the web and found some things.
ReplyDeleteDaniel Pink has some you tube videos- sharing possibility
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=syo6ecgclR0
Helps sum up the book
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WiRBLLVTsko&feature=channel
I thought this video had a good point. People don’t get too much credit these days for their loyalty to one company. More and more we are hearing about people getting laid off from a job they spent 30 years doing. :(
Also, I found some quotes I liked from educator-geared websites:
http://www.theclassroompost.com/2009/05/teaching-and-whole-new-mind.html
"Without a renewed emphasis on higher-order thinking skills, creativity, and imagination, we will have taught kids how to pass a test without preparing them to adapt and thrive in a rapidly changing workplace and world."
http://www.educationworld.com/a_tech/columnists/johnson/johnson006.shtml
This website has a post from a technology teacher and he provides examples of how teachers can use technology to incorporate the 6 senses.
I would also like to add in my new effort to challenge books instead of believing 100% in them, that there are people who do not agree with the book. Some individuals believe he is using the poor economy to his advantage. Others say that medically what he is saying is false when it comes to the brain.
With that, some questions to think about:
how much should educators adapt their teaching to this theory since our economy is always changing?
How do we teach the students about the 6 senses while still completing the mission of keeping scores up on standardized tests?
There is also talk about how the whole field of education needs to be rethought/ reorganized to allow for more design, play, etc...
Just my discoveries for now :)
-Meredith
I do not expect for many of you to read this before class but in interest to get my ideas out there for us to share. Some are just page numbers with ideas others are just ideas. Looking forward to figuring this out soon.
ReplyDeleteI thought an interesting activity would be to hand out a quiz testing the class on possibly how well their understanding or incorporation of the main principles in Whole new mind….but here is a twist none of the a-b-c choices are correct…this from the example on pg 58.
Perhaps they could take pleasure in designing something like a toaster and write those words that best describe why they find it aesthetically pleasing and see if they can’t find a way to incorporate or identify those qualities in there pedagogy. Pg 80
Pg 66 speaks of meaning.
“Beauty has taken a back seat to bureaucracy” pg 82
Loss of experts? Pg 102
Pg 104 and money….
In regard to story we should be able to tie that in to last weeks readings and the authenticity of voice. I also wonder how often teachers and in what ways do we interrupt our students ability to tell their story.
How does our story influence our students?
“Perspective is far more important than IQ” pg 136
Could we do something with pictures of schools, students or teachers and try to recreate the example on pg 140? And see what hidden metaphors exist?
How important is play?
We could open with jokes about schools…pg 199.
About meaning and school pg …? 219.
I just rewatched the Youtube video. I think it would be an impactful start to the presentation. With that, we can go into some sort of discussion about "what does this have to do with education? what can teachers/schools do to make sure their students are successful" It's really important for us to connect this to education and schools and what it all means.
ReplyDeleteMaybe we can come up with 4 or 5 discussion questions for groups to discuss. Then come together as a whole class towards the end.
Trista-
ReplyDeleteI like your ideas of jokes. It would relate to the "play" aspect :)
And I really liked your comment about how teachers interpret their students' stories...
I also think that we could do something with design- but with something related to school. Maybe they can draw a picutre of somehting that is really annoying about schools and how they would change it (pencil sharpner, etc). This could be the last activity on a discussion sheet, I think it would be interesting.
Nice comments Trista!