Learning Never Stops

I was listening to this audio clip yesterday... Podcast - Alfie Kohn: Choosing Excellence Learning Matters Alfie Kohn's views on authentic learning and his opinion on what a great classroom environment should look like is not really a novel idea. It reminds me of a checklist I got during a PD session at school titled,  "What a PYP classroom looks like." In it, most of what Mr Kohn talks about are mentioned. And yet listening to them again refreshed my mind and helped me reassess my teaching practices. At times my students are engrossed in an activity or engaged in an amimated discussion about something. I find myself rubbing my hands with glee and giving myself a pat on the back. But then sometimes not. I was editing a piece of writing the other day, trying to get the children to see how a sentence could be polished and made to sound better. I caught a few kids yawning and had to rethink the way my lesson was going. At times, kids are not...

We are studying all about old artifacts and how archaeologists spend hours analysing and drawing conclusions about the past. It's a unit that requires a lot of planning in order to ensure that the kids make some connections to this unit and find an innate desire to learn more about the past. All they could think about at the beginning was Egypt and the mummies! I cannot emphasise enough the need for a KWL chart for this unit! It has been working really well and the kids have understood the fact that they started this unit with a certain amount of knowledge and as the research has been progressing, they have come up with new understanding... Until i came across a students blog comment which I quote verbatim: " this unit that we are doing doesn't sound interesting. in this unit we have only been learning about old precious things.the only artifact that is good and interesting to me is rayhan's. it made me think a lot. i think the key was used in the old times to op...