The 31st Annual Tri-Association Conference of Latin America
Every year, a conference is held that brings together the teachers and administrators of over 50 schools from Central and South America. Hundreds of educators gather to discuss best-practice methods for designing curriculum, running schools, managing classes, assessing students, integrating technology, and everything in between. Fortunately for me, this year the conference was held an hour down the road in Cartagena de Indias, Colombia. Each day we opened with a keynote speaker and then had to choose from a myriad of possibilities for which morning and afternoon session we wanted to attend. So, let's get to it!
Day 1 AM Session: Strengthen Your STEM Thinking
I was pretty excited for this session, being a big science/tech nerd and all. Unfortunately, I was somewhat let down. This session turned out to be sponsored by SimplyTeachTech.com which is an organization that helps you find technology to implement in your school.
Not a bad organization at all, and if you're looking to incorporate more technology, these folks could definitely be helpful. However, the session was basically just a commercial for two products (Mimio clickers - which are about 10 years old at this point) and AdaptiveCurriculum.com (which is actually a really good software suite for 5-E lessons on Math and Science). But, despite having some good resources, what should have taken 20 minutes to show and explain ended up taking over 2 hours.
Not a bad organization at all, and if you're looking to incorporate more technology, these folks could definitely be helpful. However, the session was basically just a commercial for two products (Mimio clickers - which are about 10 years old at this point) and AdaptiveCurriculum.com (which is actually a really good software suite for 5-E lessons on Math and Science). But, despite having some good resources, what should have taken 20 minutes to show and explain ended up taking over 2 hours.
Day 1 PM Session: Study Skills and Metacognition: Understanding the Neurodevelopment of How Children Learn.
And then BAM! Back into action! This session was great. The presenter, Dr. Susan Grant, is a neurobiologist out Baltimore, Maryland (www.drsusanrgrant.com). She talked about all the latest research in neurobiology, the development of the adolescent brain, and how neurobiology affected education. Her main point was that many times, as educators, we ask students to perform tasks that their brains aren't ready to handle. Some of the projects we assign are the equivalent of trying to get a 5 month old to walk, they're biologically impossible.
Neurobiologists used to think that once the brain reached age 6 or so, it was finished forming. However, new research shows that isn't the case, and the brain isn't actually complete until post-puberty (which for males can be into the 20's). The frontal cortex, prefrontal cortex, hippocampus, caudate nucleus, and the amygdala all undergo changes while children go through puberty. During this period of change (as in early childhood), the brain is highly susceptible to influence.
While progressing through this change, the areas of moral behavior, social judgment, impulse control, organization and planning, allocating attention, and setting priorities are heavily under development. And one of the major factors to how these areas will shape up is the student's environment. Unfortunately most teens spend an average of 10 minutes or less each day in one-on-one engagement with an adult. The vast majority of a kid's time is spent with peers and online, engaged with people in the virtual world.
Therefore, a lot of these aforementioned areas aren't developed as quickly as they could be, were the students under the guidance of a proper role model. Not that they don't learn important things from peer interaction, just that a majority of students could use a little more one-on-one practice in some of these developing brain areas. So, because of this delay, a lot of today's students lack the ability to think abstractly, organize, plan, make decisions, have flexibility in problem solving, concentrate, and use foresight, hindsight, and insight.
All of these are obviously incredibly important skills for any human to have and things that should be worked on in the classroom environment. The problem is, many times teachers assume that students already possess these skills and can jump right in on a task that requires them. Instead, teachers must realize that these skills are still under development and students may need some serious instruction in the basics before they can complete an assignment that requires these types of thought.
Anyway, that was the gist of her lecture, but the whole thing was awesome and felt like I was back in a great biology class. If you want the whole presentation, let me know!
Neurobiologists used to think that once the brain reached age 6 or so, it was finished forming. However, new research shows that isn't the case, and the brain isn't actually complete until post-puberty (which for males can be into the 20's). The frontal cortex, prefrontal cortex, hippocampus, caudate nucleus, and the amygdala all undergo changes while children go through puberty. During this period of change (as in early childhood), the brain is highly susceptible to influence.
While progressing through this change, the areas of moral behavior, social judgment, impulse control, organization and planning, allocating attention, and setting priorities are heavily under development. And one of the major factors to how these areas will shape up is the student's environment. Unfortunately most teens spend an average of 10 minutes or less each day in one-on-one engagement with an adult. The vast majority of a kid's time is spent with peers and online, engaged with people in the virtual world.
Therefore, a lot of these aforementioned areas aren't developed as quickly as they could be, were the students under the guidance of a proper role model. Not that they don't learn important things from peer interaction, just that a majority of students could use a little more one-on-one practice in some of these developing brain areas. So, because of this delay, a lot of today's students lack the ability to think abstractly, organize, plan, make decisions, have flexibility in problem solving, concentrate, and use foresight, hindsight, and insight.
All of these are obviously incredibly important skills for any human to have and things that should be worked on in the classroom environment. The problem is, many times teachers assume that students already possess these skills and can jump right in on a task that requires them. Instead, teachers must realize that these skills are still under development and students may need some serious instruction in the basics before they can complete an assignment that requires these types of thought.
Anyway, that was the gist of her lecture, but the whole thing was awesome and felt like I was back in a great biology class. If you want the whole presentation, let me know!
Day 2 AM Session: School Management Software Extreme Makeover: Introducing Game-changing Web-powered Products and Services
Sounds intense right?!?! Wrong. Turned out to be all about a company called RenWeb. Not a bad company. Basically they handle everything from a school's grading, to scheduling, to administrative(ing?) and everything in between. A decent software suite and they manage all your data on a remote server so you don't have to worry about it. However, not exactly what I was looking for.
Day 2 PM Session: Empowering Students in a 21st Century Digital Learning Environment
BAM AGAIN! Great session! Turned out to be sponsored by Apple and it was really well done. Raul Basurto, a systems engineer for Apple and the education coordinator for Pan-America, led the session. Now, I like Apple, but I'd like to think I don't have a giant bias towards them over any other tech company. However, the way Apple has worked towards integrating its tech with education is simply awesome.
Over the 3 hour session, Raul walked us through the new iBooks, iTunes U, iBooks author, and showed off a host of great educational apps. Basically, it boiled down to this: imagine a student having all of her textbooks, assignments, and resources completely organized on a single device (like...an iPad!) All of the textbooks are completely interactive with animations, videos, timelines, assessment options, 3-d models, diagrams, and anything else you could need. Plus, they just look beautiful.
Over the 3 hour session, Raul walked us through the new iBooks, iTunes U, iBooks author, and showed off a host of great educational apps. Basically, it boiled down to this: imagine a student having all of her textbooks, assignments, and resources completely organized on a single device (like...an iPad!) All of the textbooks are completely interactive with animations, videos, timelines, assessment options, 3-d models, diagrams, and anything else you could need. Plus, they just look beautiful.
Now, obviously attempting to integrate technology like this across an entire school or district would be ridiculously (and perhaps prohibitively) expensive. And technology should never be seen as a panacea for student disengagement, a master teacher can still work wonders with a piece of chalk and a board. However, what Apple has done with their software and hardware could go a long ways towards making education more interactive and helping our students become 21st century learners.
Anyway, I thought it was absolutely awesome and if you want to see this stuff in action, check out:
www.apple.com/education.
Anyway, I thought it was absolutely awesome and if you want to see this stuff in action, check out:
www.apple.com/education.
Day 3 FINAL SESSION: The 4 C's and Science: Incorporating 21st Century Learning and Innovation Skills into the K-12 Curriculum
And just as quickly as it had begun, I was down to my last session. Wanting to get back to my science roots, I chose this session as my closer. For those not familiar with the "4 C's" they stand for Critical Thinking, Communication, Collaboration, and Creativity. All incredibly important skills not only in science, but in all fields.
This session was led by a couple out of the University of Florida: Linda and Griff Jones (education.ufl.edu/jones), and overall it was a solid session. They presented a variety of specific lessons that could be utilized in the science classroom and involved the 4 C's.
For those science teachers out there, I'd recommend checking out http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/rxforsurvival/, a partnership between the Gates foundation and PBS which includes a large variety of problem-solving, real-world, lesson plans designed to engage students and get them thinking critically.
I'd also recommend facingthefuture.org which has science-themed, problem-solving lesson plans as well.
For those science teachers out there, I'd recommend checking out http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/rxforsurvival/, a partnership between the Gates foundation and PBS which includes a large variety of problem-solving, real-world, lesson plans designed to engage students and get them thinking critically.
I'd also recommend facingthefuture.org which has science-themed, problem-solving lesson plans as well.
And then it was over! The conference ended, the room at the beachfront hotel was locked up, and my ride was leaving. Overall, one of the best professional activities I've ever been to and it just so happened to be in an awesome city and during my birthday week (and somehow I managed to have not one, but two bands sing me Happy Birthday over the course of the evening). On the off chance you'd want more details on any of these sessions let me know, or you can check out www.tri-association.org for info on the conference!
And if you're interested in two of the best keynote speakers, might I recommend:
Pam Allyn: An advocate for children's rights and literacy. She is the founder of read aloud day and has done work all over the world improving literacy and leaning.
Tim Burns: An educator and psychologist who discussed the nature of the "at-risk" student and how conflict and resiliency can shape a student's life.
And if you're interested in two of the best keynote speakers, might I recommend:
Pam Allyn: An advocate for children's rights and literacy. She is the founder of read aloud day and has done work all over the world improving literacy and leaning.
Tim Burns: An educator and psychologist who discussed the nature of the "at-risk" student and how conflict and resiliency can shape a student's life.