ATTENTION IS OVER . . . well, sorta

15 of us met this week to discuss the ATTENTION CHAPTER. We shared out our learning to each other and then as a group. I think one of the biggest pieces for me was what one of our fourth grade teachers said: "It's made me more aware."

Awareness. It's made me more aware of the time intervals, linking interest, and providing the gist are other keys from this chapter. Another gem that came out of this chapter was the use of novel things to keep students interested. For example, one of our fifth grade teachers had her students write spelling words in shaving cream. That's not necessarily a new idea, but by mixing up, she felt that students paid better attention.

One of the difficult questions I posed was: "How do we quantify this data?" So if we had a control group and an experimental group, what would be the parameters around ATTENTION? No one had an answer for that one. We'll wait and see.

We're off now to Chapter 5 and short term memory. Love this chapter. We meet again in two weeks.

BRAIN . . . RULES!

First Readers Meeting: ATTENTION

On February 11th we met to discuss the first chapter we were geared up to read on ATTENTION. Folks shared with each other and then as a group what the "BIG IDEAS" were. Discussion was rich and authentic.

For the next two weeks were going to attempt to apply these BIG IDEAS by:
a) remembering the 10 minute rule and trying to use effective ECS. (This is not easy to do!)
b) start your lessons with overall context and tie in it with previous learning before getting to details.

In two weeks we come back and discuss how it went.