Forget the advice you normally give students as it appears that the tidy space and focus on one topic at a time is not effective!
Forget What You Know About Good Study Habits
Apparently varying the topics and where you study helps. Also the article suggests that testing should be called something else because it "...cognitive scientists see testing itself — or practice tests and quizzes — as a powerful tool of learning, rather than merely assessment. The process of retrieving an idea is not like pulling a book from a shelf; it seems to fundamentally alter the way the information is subsequently stored, making it far more accessible in the future. "
“Maybe we need to call it something else, but this is one of the most powerful learning tools we have.”
Think I will have to share this with staff?
Tuesday, 7 September 2010
To every page, turn, turn, turn
This was the clever title for an article in THES which I was alerted to by the wonderful CILIP weekly news bulletin, which I find ever so useful
But back to the article, which is about the value of reading and his love for it
""Hold on to your books," I say. "They will help you through. Let them be your best friend, and they will remain a solace in your life as they continue to be in mine."
He has his 4am books which he turns to in times of stress!
How do we turn students to this from their worlds of online surfing and channel hopping?
We have a number of students who come into the library each lunchtime and sit in front of pcs and really do nothing but flit from screen to screen. Not quite sure how you would turn them on to reading.
Reading the article gives me a great feeling because I can relate to his passion for reading but not sure if the article would turn his or my students on to reading.
But back to the article, which is about the value of reading and his love for it
""Hold on to your books," I say. "They will help you through. Let them be your best friend, and they will remain a solace in your life as they continue to be in mine."
He has his 4am books which he turns to in times of stress!
How do we turn students to this from their worlds of online surfing and channel hopping?
We have a number of students who come into the library each lunchtime and sit in front of pcs and really do nothing but flit from screen to screen. Not quite sure how you would turn them on to reading.
Reading the article gives me a great feeling because I can relate to his passion for reading but not sure if the article would turn his or my students on to reading.
Saturday, 4 September 2010
Publicity in Daily Mail
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1308885/School-libraries-fall-victim-cash-cuts.html
Why when so much is appearing in the press do the cuts continue.
Reading is what makes us uniquely human, without it would would not have the knowledge of our past.
Reading unlike film and TV gives us time to think and reflect
One of our targets for the year at our school library is to try to ingnite more of a passion for reading.
We are have lots of stuff planned and hope it will work
We seem to have a little window of opportunity at the moment with all this press coverage to show the world what we can do to change children's lives and to show everyone how shortsighted it would be to stop employing librarians
Why when so much is appearing in the press do the cuts continue.
Reading is what makes us uniquely human, without it would would not have the knowledge of our past.
Reading unlike film and TV gives us time to think and reflect
One of our targets for the year at our school library is to try to ingnite more of a passion for reading.
We are have lots of stuff planned and hope it will work
We seem to have a little window of opportunity at the moment with all this press coverage to show the world what we can do to change children's lives and to show everyone how shortsighted it would be to stop employing librarians
Friday, 3 September 2010
Nurturing good readers
I was asked my the SLA to write an article on what school librarians do and what we were looking for as judges of the school librarian of the year award. The article was published in Book Brunch today!
Ingrid Hopson, SLA School Librarian of the Year 2007 and a member of the judging panel for this year's award, explains why schools need librarians and what the judges were looking for when they selected this year’s Honour List (BookBrunch story)
You ask: what do school librarians do?
I answer: we help our pupils become better learners.
Libraries exist not as collections of resources but as places that foster creativity and independent thought. We cannot know what the world will be like for our pupils when they reach adulthood, but we can prepare them for their future.
Read more...
I do not really like doing this sort of stuff as I am always worried what people will think of it!
Not sure if anyone I know will even see it as you have to register to read the articles
Ingrid Hopson, SLA School Librarian of the Year 2007 and a member of the judging panel for this year's award, explains why schools need librarians and what the judges were looking for when they selected this year’s Honour List (BookBrunch story)
You ask: what do school librarians do?
I answer: we help our pupils become better learners.
Libraries exist not as collections of resources but as places that foster creativity and independent thought. We cannot know what the world will be like for our pupils when they reach adulthood, but we can prepare them for their future.
Read more...
I do not really like doing this sort of stuff as I am always worried what people will think of it!
Not sure if anyone I know will even see it as you have to register to read the articles
Tuesday, 17 August 2010
What issues should I focus on this coming year?
The great thing about schools is that you have the opportunity to start over. Not only do we get the chance to change and adapt what we do but we also get the chance to try it out on a whole new set of students who do not have any preconceived ideas about you or your library.
So what will I focus on this year?
My thoughts are beginning to crystallise as the summer holidays progress and lots of little things all start to pull together. Lots of the non fiction reading that I have been doing is helping this thought process.
I would definitely recommend these four books. Igniting a passion and Readers Advisory complement each other and this whole area of Readers' advisory services is going to be a focus for the year. This will mainly focus on fiction
The second focus I think will be all around the area of notetaking/referencing and citing. I am considering purchasing a subscription to Noodle Tools as I think this might be better than getting all the students to use Evernote and citation tools, not sure though.
And the third focus (everything has to be threes, or so they say)
Still not sure though, maybe as 1 is so big I ought to split it into two bits.
Fortunately there is still time to ponder.
Still need to decide that I am going to do in the Y10 into to USIC lesson and the English Y7 booked up lesson.
So what will I focus on this year?
My thoughts are beginning to crystallise as the summer holidays progress and lots of little things all start to pull together. Lots of the non fiction reading that I have been doing is helping this thought process.
The second focus I think will be all around the area of notetaking/referencing and citing. I am considering purchasing a subscription to Noodle Tools as I think this might be better than getting all the students to use Evernote and citation tools, not sure though.
And the third focus (everything has to be threes, or so they say)
Still not sure though, maybe as 1 is so big I ought to split it into two bits.
Fortunately there is still time to ponder.
Still need to decide that I am going to do in the Y10 into to USIC lesson and the English Y7 booked up lesson.
Libraries supporting literacy
Henning Mankell, plenary speaker, IFLA 2010, World Library and Information Congress, Gothenburg, Sweden.
I was alerted to this by the CILIP announcement of the untimely death of Bob McKee. What a shock as I had only been speaking to him on 20th July at the House of Commons launch of the school libraries survey. He had supported SLG so well in all our efforts and he seemed to be looking forward to his retirement.
So I then went to investigate the conference and listened to two presentations, this one and the Hans Rosling one (which was very annoying as you could not see the ppt he was pointing at, but much of the content seemed similar to other of his talks available on TED)
This Mankell talk was about literacy and the role of libraries. I would suggest you listen
Laugh at least once a day or life would be too miserable
To be able to read and write the question of being literate
What I want more than anything else in my life is an identity card, to get an identity card I need to be literate
Illiteracy is a plague that haunts the world.
The internet is the only thing we can thank the army for
People who read are armed forces words and pens are among the most dangerous things there are
His talk reminded me of a poem, in the past we did a lesson using this poem as a writing frame to discuss identity. Some of the poems the students produced were amazing and gave us such an insight into their lives, far more than if we had just asked them to write about what was important to them. When I read the poem I realise what Mankell means about words being dangerous things but they are precious too and we need to take care how we use them.
Poem by Miroslav Holub A boy's head
(Image)
In it there is a space-ship
and a project
for doing away with piano lessons
And there is
Noah's ark,
which shall be first.
And there is
an entirely new bird
an entirely new hare
an entirely new [bumble-bee.
There is a river
that flows upwards
There is a multiplication table
There is anti-matter
And it just cannot be trimmed.
I believe
that only what cannot be trimmed
is a head
There is much promise
in the circumstance
that so many people have heads.
Miroslav Holub
I was alerted to this by the CILIP announcement of the untimely death of Bob McKee. What a shock as I had only been speaking to him on 20th July at the House of Commons launch of the school libraries survey. He had supported SLG so well in all our efforts and he seemed to be looking forward to his retirement.
So I then went to investigate the conference and listened to two presentations, this one and the Hans Rosling one (which was very annoying as you could not see the ppt he was pointing at, but much of the content seemed similar to other of his talks available on TED)
This Mankell talk was about literacy and the role of libraries. I would suggest you listen
Laugh at least once a day or life would be too miserable
To be able to read and write the question of being literate
What I want more than anything else in my life is an identity card, to get an identity card I need to be literate
Illiteracy is a plague that haunts the world.
The internet is the only thing we can thank the army for
People who read are armed forces words and pens are among the most dangerous things there are
His talk reminded me of a poem, in the past we did a lesson using this poem as a writing frame to discuss identity. Some of the poems the students produced were amazing and gave us such an insight into their lives, far more than if we had just asked them to write about what was important to them. When I read the poem I realise what Mankell means about words being dangerous things but they are precious too and we need to take care how we use them.
Poem by Miroslav Holub A boy's head
(Image)
In it there is a space-ship
and a project
for doing away with piano lessons
And there is
Noah's ark,
which shall be first.
And there is
an entirely new bird
an entirely new hare
an entirely new [bumble-bee.
There is a river
that flows upwards
There is a multiplication table
There is anti-matter
And it just cannot be trimmed.
I believe
that only what cannot be trimmed
is a head
There is much promise
in the circumstance
that so many people have heads.
Miroslav Holub
Sunday, 8 August 2010
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