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| I think we all need a bit of humor these days.. |
Items:
1. December Meetings
December 4 - Learning Communities
December 11 - Shared Staff
December 18 - TA Meeting (Middle school staff meeting - Kendra's room)
2. Accounting for everyone..
Please account for all students during the school day. Please make sure attendance is taken and if you need to have a break during a long learning block, that an adult accompanies the student group.
3. Take a moment to view the updates regarding the recent situation. B. Nease will continue to update our school community when more information is available.
4. I will start to place the EA agenda's on the blog for easier access to the document. Here is the link to 12/4 agenda: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1J9qE5DOH5hcmiLNZc4AhNlHLym7QvHZnP0ufbVyuOgU/edit?ts=5c0150e4
5. December 12 - Senator Leahy speaks to HUMS -Thanks Sarah and Nic for setting this up! What a great opportunity. Also - thanks for Jackie for setting up the Alumni movie for students on the same day!
5. An interesting article about Maker's Space:
A Neurological Argument for Makerspaces and Hands-On Learning
In this article in School Library Journal, consultant Conn McQuinn presents six “brain facts” that educators might use to support makerspaces in libraries and classrooms, or any type of engaging hands-on activity:
•The brain thinks hands are the most important part of the body. The amount of cerebral real estate devoted to the sensory and motor functions of the hands is enormous (see this diagram https://bit.ly/2PAbVXS), which is why students find working with their hands so engaging.
•Learning causes physical changes in the brain. Billions of neurons communicate through chemical and electrical signals, and when students learn something new, new connections are added to the networks, says McQuinn: “Every new fact, idea, experience, and skill is a physical rewiring of the brain.” The more new networks are used, the stronger and faster the signals become and the easier they are to trigger; the less they are used, the weaker they become, and eventually they’re pruned. In other words, use them or lose them.
•Unstructured play, experimentation, and tinkering develop executive function skills. When children engage in these activities, they grow their brains’ ability to make decisions, experiment, and evaluate results. “If we over-structure children’s lives (and school experiences),” says McQuinn, “we shouldn’t be surprised that when we finally give them the opportunity to self-direct, they don’t know how.”
•When students focus on an activity for a while, attention skills develop. “In this distracted world,” says McQuinn, “we invest attention in short, tiny snippets on a variety of surface messages such as tweets, texts, and Facebook posts. That is what we are wiring our brains to do, and we may be degrading our ability to pay attention over an extended period of time.”
•It’s neurologically impossible to learn well when we don’t care. Learning and memory are wired through the limbic system – the emotional part of the brain – which is why students learn best when they are doing something they enjoy, as is often the case with hands-on activities. “Giving students the chance to explore provides the chance to practice and strengthen curiosity,” says McQuinn, “which can lead to better, deeper learning.”
•Stress and fear impede learning. Subjected to these emotions, the brain literally acts without thinking, and the loss of executive function impedes higher-order thinking and memory formation. Students who have a fixed mindset about a particular subject get stressed when they make mistakes or encounter new challenges, which impedes learning. Students with a growth mindset have a different reaction: curiosity, mild concern, asking themselves, “How can I make this better?” That’s why it’s good to put students in situations where they must use their hands and executive skills to figure out new challenges.
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