Monday night’s live chat had a lot of interesting questions and answers.. Including lots of links, which we wanted to share with those who weren’t able to make it. Here are some of the good bits.
Mrs_Vale (Kim): I find the idea of bring your own device to class very enticing and have been allowing m BTEC year 11s to use Google on their phones despite this being against school practice. i would like some inks to read and put in front of the senior team.
SusannaMarie: @Kim, theres quite a bit of research about the value of collecting your own data and hands on learning for improving student’s motivation and their test scores.
SusannaMarie: It’s important that students are given some guidance, for instance teaching them how to judge which websites are reputable. If you ask the question again in the main ASK area I will search out some links for you
caroline-conway: Please can you give me some useful strategies to explain to the teachers, parents and teenagers (boys) with SEN who I work with how to improve their working memory?
SusannaMarie: @caroline, a simple way to help memory can be to chunk information as then you can think of more things in sections
Chris J: @ Caroline – this is something we’re working on in our research at the moment, so I can’t say anything too definite. However, we have some resources related to this on line here: http://www.bristol.ac.uk/expsych/public-engagement/working-memory/
Chris J: and this web page in particular might be relevant to your question: http://www.bristol.ac.uk/expsych/public-engagement/working-memory/strategies/
Alice: Hi @Caroline-Conway , we’ve explored improving working memory in children with a variety of SEN, and we’ve had some useful outcomes based around embedding WM activities into curriculum. @Chris J’s resources look excellent, I’m going to look at those properly later on
Chris J: @ Caroline. Another great place to look for information on working memory training is Sue Gathercole’s webpages: http://calm.mrc-cbu.cam.ac.uk/useful-resources/
caroline-conway: Chris, thank you so much I’ll have a look at the links.Has anyone researched the slow processing in adolescents
Chris J: @caroline – as it happens, that’s exactly one of the things we’re looking at. One of my students (doing a Masters with me) is a SENCO interested in exactly this question. Send me an e-mail later and I’ll link you up with them. We have one paper on this
caroline-conway: Chris – it sounds as though we’re looking at similar areas! Will do, and thank you once again.
drcov: Hi all. I am a Reception teacher with a background in Neuroendocrinology. My question is… I see many of my 4 year olds when they begin to write naturally starting from right to left and I spend a long time training them to write from left to right. Is there any evidence to suggest that our brains are naturally wired for right to left writing which is used in many other languages?
Mrs_Vale: @drcov, that is a very interesting observation. It would be interesting to track soe of the left to right writers and some of the right to left writers and see their eventual progress.
SusannaMarie: @Drcov, that’s an interesting question, i’m afraid I don’t know the answer, hopefully someone here might!
Chris J: @drcov – in terms of your question about L-R vs. R-L readers, I suspect our brains aren’t set up to do this one way or the other (though I don’t really know about this). What I do know is that we end up with an internal number line (which runs L-R in our
drcov: Thank you @Chris.
SusannaMarie: @chris J @drcov, now you mention the number thing I remember some research about the left to right thing in blind people, I will see if I can find a link
Chris J: Here’s how reading Hebrew (which is R-L, right?) modifies the internal number line: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/5337147_Reading_space_into_numbers_a_cross-linguistic_comparison_of_the_SNARC_effect
SusannaMarie: @chris @drcov, here it is, congenitally blind people visualise a number pad differently…. http://www.bath.ac.uk/research/news/2014/03/28/mental-number-line/
drcov: Thanks @chris @SusannaMarie.
drcov: @SusannaMarie that link seems to point towards my theory somewhat.
sjays: We are currently rewriting schemes of work for the new courses starting in September. We are embedding retrieval practice and hoping to build in repeating lessons within the schemes to allow for spaced learning. Are there any other tips you would suggest either to aid spaced learning or strategies you would employ to improve students learning that we could build in?
SusannaMarie: @Sjays, From my background I would encourage activities that let the students put things into practice, something that reflects the real world and let them use their skills for something that’s different to the traditional worksheet
specialsymbol: @sjays – here is something on spaced learning: /learning-zone/2015/04/20/i-have-been-interested-in-spacing-he-learning-of-my-students-over-their-2-year-gcse-a-level-course-what-do-you/#comment-152
SusannaMarie: @sjays having them do a memorable activity, eg a debate, write a song about the topic, might also help as it will form different types of memories which will help them in the exams as they may be able to access the info from a different ‘route’
sjays: thanks @susanna-Marie. tha’t’s given me some great ideas to reintroduce articles from current research / papers into science lessons to let them see it in practice. love the song idea – all to often I leave this for the lower years but am sure the older ones would benefit from it too.
SusannaMarie: @Sjays, i’m sure you could find some scientists/resea rchers via @mod-Shane to visit your school too
Mrs_Vale: @susie my year 10s who are not “natural physcists” love songs which help them learn.
SusannaMarie: @Mrs_vale, me too, that and mnemonics always helped me!
Mrs_Vale: As teachers should we be identifying learning styles then checking that we train our students to learn in all ways, therefore giving them the skills to learn from all opportunities?
SusannaMarie: @mrsVale yes I think it’s important to give students the skills to learn as much as teaching the content