Traditional courses run for 15-16 week period and require 45 hours of direct contact. A rule of thumb, your homework should at least double that contact time. Additionally, online courses are convenient, not easy. You are saving time and hopefully BTUs by staying home and tapping those keys. However, it is always easier to hear folks and answer them directly as opposed to reading and then writing responses. Online learning requires a little patience and some tenacity. More importantly for those of you who are trying to juggle work and school with family, a few firm directives to family that you need allocated time by yourself on the computer, as it is important for family and housemates to give you some time and space for learning. It is also imperative that you maintain your computer and have high speed connections as slower dial up connections can be killers and take all the fun out on online adventures.

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A. Around the screen and interactive components - Discussions on Sousa's work and beyond -- postings and peer interactions.  

 

Online discussions format and directions It would be very lonely out there in cyberspace reading all this great new stuff and had no one to discuss it with. Part of the intent of these exercises will be used to develop a compiled Ah-ha listing -- entitled Things we want others to know about teaching, learning and the brain. Depending on the class size for using the Sousa textbook I will divide you all up into triads or quartets. Sousa's book is chocked full of really great info, activities, and ideas, plus it is presented in a way that is easy to digest so Id like you all to read the individual chapters carefully.

 

Designated discussion areas - What to do?  

1. In your group spaces (POD) each of you are asked to submit comments on the 3 most important new things you found out in the respective chapter. Please identify the factoids, concepts, ideas, or techniques and then offer brief insights and/or justifications as to why you chose those 3 things. These need not be long.  

2. From your individual lists, each group will decide on the 3 things you want to bring to the General Forum Area as your designated materials to be eventually shared with other teachers or broader audiences.

 

3. The collectively the whole class will look at these, offering brief comments to groups or individuals in the general forum discussion area. There may be redundancies in designated concepts, but this is good because that means we have developed some consensus.

 

4. From this collective array of 9 final items for each chapter, the collective will pick 3 we want to add to our growing list for inclusion in Things we want others to know about teaching, learning and the brain.

 

5.  Here is the tricky part after we have decided on the 3 most important chapter items, then each group takes one item and analyses it, developing ideas on how this idea might change teaching or learning, and or offers ways to use this new information. In essence you will be using the one assigned concept to help ideate. This will help others see how the concept can be applied or how it might change existing perceptions about education. In some cases Sousa does much of this leg work for you, you can build on those or certainly get ideas from other online or hard copy resources. If you go outside the text, or build directly on Sousa's offerings, remember to cite the original source.

 

The ultimate purpose of this part of the exercise is how can we use this information to bridge into actual practice or into life? What might it mean for the face and shape of education? What do parents or students need to know about this idea? How might it help parents, teachers, employers or others to know this information? Your job in your group is to offer an array of ideas on using the information to improve learning, help others understand the processes of learning, or to help kids learn or retain information better.

 

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B. Brainquests: - A webquest is a series of questions and/or activities that can be posted on-line and/or in hard copy. A quest usually requires students to find answers, resources, or information from on-line resources. It is rather like a scavenger hunt. See brainquest.  

 

C. Personal Investigations another book. Part of the intent of this class is to help you acquire expertise that you can share, so I am asking you to find another book that speaks to you related to brain-based education. There are a number of recommendations off my website under recourses. Both Corwin Press and ASCD also have extensive offerings in the area (see their websites.) You are then to prepare a presentation as to how you intend to share and utilize the additional information from this book. Thus, it will be very important that you find something you like. The following are only suggestions, you may have other ideas. Please formulate ideas so that you can complete a prepared presentation for sharing the last day of class.

 

Project Requirements:

Presentations of substance. Possible variations and suggestions:  

1. Prepare pamphlet for peers, your administration, students or parents on an interesting brain facts or possible academic alterations developed from your readings and research,  particularly with projections or examples of its effects on changing schooling processes. 

2. Develop a public presentation on an aspect of this course for colleagues, parents, or a workshop, of for a public service experience for a local organization. 

3. Explore, in a paper or presentation, a theoretical or philosophical issue of brain-based education.  

4. Develop a revised curriculum policy based on brain-based education offering a justification for the new direction in instruction.  

5. Your book may have had to do with information that is very specific -- such as gender issues, reading, sleep, neurobiotics, nutrition and the brain, Brain Gym, chronobiology, specific learning disabilities, etc with respect to recent findings in neuroscience and brain-based practices. Develop a paper or presentation on how the information has helped you to understand the topic or improve teaching and learning with respect to the population you investigated. 

6. Create a webquest for the group based on your readings. If you do this please let me know ahead of time so I can make arrangements for a computer lab, or perhaps it is for your class or your students' parents or for peers.  

Please use a book you have not read before!