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And it works better and faster than other methods to calm frazzled nerves such as listening to music, going for a walk or settling down with a cup of tea, research found.

Psychologists believe this is because the human mind has to concentrate on reading and the distraction of being taken into a literary world eases the tensions in muscles and the heart.

The research was carried out on a group of volunteers by consultancy Mindlab International at the University of Sussex.

Their stress levels and heart rate were increased through a range of tests and exercises before they were then tested with a variety of traditional methods of relaxation.

Reading worked best, reducing stress levels by 68 per cent, said cognitive neuropsychologist Dr David Lewis.

Subjects only needed to read, silently, for six minutes to slow down the heart rate and ease tension in the muscles, he found. In fact it got subjects to stress levels lower than before they started.

Listening to music reduced the levels by 61 per cent, have a cup of tea of coffee lowered them by 54 per cent and taking a walk by 42 per cent.

Playing video games brought them down by 21 per cent from their highest level but still left the volunteers with heart rates above their starting point.

Dr Lewis, who conducted the test, said: "Losing yourself in a book is the ultimate relaxation.

"This is particularly poignant in uncertain economic times when we are all craving a certain amount of escapism.

"It really doesn't matter what book you read, by losing yourself in a thoroughly engrossing book you can escape from the worries and stresses of the everyday world and spend a while exploring the domain of the author's imagination.

"This is more than merely a distraction but an active engaging of the imagination as the words on the printed page stimulate your creativity and cause you to enter what is essentially an altered state of consciousness."

The research was commissioned by Galaxy choocalate to launch a campaign to give away one million books over the next six months.

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And it works better and faster than other methods to calm frazzled nerves such as listening to music, going for a walk or settling down with a cup of tea, research found. Psychologists believe this is because the human mind has to concentrate on reading and the distraction of being taken into a literary world eases the tensions in muscles and the heart.

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Neil Gaiman: Why Our Futures Depend on Libraries, Reading and Daydreaming

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Neil Gaiman: Why Our Futures Depend on Libraries, Reading and Daydreaming

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It's important for people to tell you what side they are on and why, and whether they might be biased. A declaration of members' interests, of a sort. So, I am going to be talking to you about reading. I'm going to tell you that libraries are important. I'm going to suggest that reading fiction, that reading for pleasure, is one of the most important things one can do. I'm going to make an impassioned plea for people to understand what libraries and librarians are, and to preserve both of these things.

And I am biased, obviously and enormously: I'm an author, often an author of fiction. I write for children and for adults. For about 30 years I have been earning my living through my words, mostly by making things up and writing them down. It is obviously in my interest for people to read, for them to read fiction, for libraries and librarians to exist and help foster a love of reading and places in which reading can occur.

So I'm biased as a writer. But I am much, much more biased as a reader. And I am even more biased as a British citizen.

And I'm here giving this talk tonight, under the auspices of the Reading Agency: a charity whose mission is to give everyone an equal chance in life by helping people become confident and enthusiastic readers. Which supports literacy programs, and libraries and individuals and nakedly and wantonly encourages the act of reading. Because, they tell us, everything changes when we read.

And it's that change, and that act of reading that I'm here to talk about tonight. I want to talk about what reading does. What it's good for.

I was once in New York, and I listened to a talk about the building of private prisons - a huge growth industry in America. The prison industry needs to plan its future growth - how many cells are they going to need? How many prisoners are there going to be, 15 years from now? And they found they could predict it very easily, using a pretty simple algorithm, based on asking what percentage of 10 and 11-year-olds couldn't read. And certainly couldn't read for pleasure.

It's not one to one: you can't say that a literate society has no criminality. But there are very real correlations.

And I think some of those correlations, the simplest, come from something very simple. Literate people read fiction.

Fiction has two uses. Firstly, it's a gateway drug to reading. The drive to know what happens next, to want to turn the page, the need to keep going, even if it's hard, because someone's in trouble and you have to know how it's all going to end ... that's a very real drive. And it forces you to learn new words, to think new thoughts, to keep going. To discover that reading per se is pleasurable. Once you learn that, you're on the road to reading everything. And reading is key. There were noises made briefly, a few years ago, about the idea that we were living in a post-literate world, in which the ability to make sense out of written words was somehow redundant, but those days are gone: words are more important than they ever were: we navigate the world with words, and as the world slips onto the web, we need to follow, to communicate and to comprehend what we are reading. People who cannot understand each other cannot exchange ideas, cannot communicate, and translation programs only go so far.

The simplest way to make sure that we raise literate children is to teach them to read, and to show them that reading is a pleasurable activity. And that means, at its simplest, finding books that they enjoy, giving them access to those books, and letting them read them.

I don't think there is such a thing as a bad book for children. Every now and again it becomes fashionable among some adults to point at a subset of children's books, a genre, perhaps, or an author, and to declare them bad books, books that children should be stopped from reading. I've seen it happen over and over; Enid Blyton was declared a bad author, so was RL Stine, so were dozens of others. Comics have been decried as fostering illiteracy.

No such thing as a bad writer... Enid Blyton's Famous Five. Photograph: Greg Balfour Evans/Alamy

It's tosh. It's snobbery and it's foolishness. There are no bad authors for children, that children like and want to read and seek out, because every child is different. They can find the stories they need to, and they bring themselves to stories. A hackneyed, worn-out idea isn't hackneyed and worn out to them. This is the first time the child has encountered it. Do not discourage children from reading because you feel they are reading the wrong thing. Fiction you do not like is a route to other books you may prefer. And not everyone has the same taste as you.

Well-meaning adults can easily destroy a child's love of reading: stop them reading what they enjoy, or give them worthy-but-dull books that you like, the 21st-century equivalents of Victorian "improving" literature. You'll wind up with a generation convinced that reading is uncool and worse, unpleasant.

We need our children to get onto the reading ladder: anything that they enjoy reading will move them up, rung by rung, into literacy. (Also, do not do what this author did when his 11-year-old daughter was into RL Stine, which is to go and get a copy of Stephen King's Carrie, saying if you liked those you'll love this! Holly read nothing but safe stories of settlers on prairies for the rest of her teenage years, and still glares at me when Stephen King's name is mentioned.)

And the second thing fiction does is to build empathy. When you watch TV or see a film, you are looking at things happening to other people. Prose fiction is something you build up from 26 letters and a handful of punctuation marks, and you, and you alone, using your imagination, create a world and people it and look out through other eyes. You get to feel things, visit places and worlds you would never otherwise know. You learn that everyone else out there is a me, as well. You're being someone else, and when you return to your own world, you're going to be slightly changed.

Empathy is a tool for building people into groups, for allowing us to function as more than self-obsessed individuals.

You're also finding out something as you read vitally important for making your way in the world. And it's this:

The world doesn't have to be like this. Things can be different.

I was in China in 2007, at the first party-approved science fiction and fantasy convention in Chinese history. And at one point I took a top official aside and asked him Why? SF had been disapproved of for a long time. What had changed?

It's simple, he told me. The Chinese were brilliant at making things if other people brought them the plans. But they did not innovate and they did not invent. They did not imagine. So they sent a delegation to the US, to Apple, to Microsoft, to Google, and they asked the people there who were inventing the future about themselves. And they found that all of them had read science fiction when they were boys or girls.

Fiction can show you a different world. It can take you somewhere you've never been. Once you've visited other worlds, like those who ate fairy fruit, you can never be entirely content with the world that you grew up in. Discontent is a good thing: discontented people can modify and improve their worlds, leave them better, leave them different.

And while we're on the subject, I'd like to say a few words about escapism. I hear the term bandied about as if it's a bad thing. As if "escapist" fiction is a cheap opiate used by the muddled and the foolish and the deluded, and the only fiction that is worthy, for adults or for children, is mimetic fiction, mirroring the worst of the world the reader finds herself in.

If you were trapped in an impossible situation, in an unpleasant place, with people who meant you ill, and someone offered you a temporary escape, why wouldn't you take it? And escapist fiction is just that: fiction that opens a door, shows the sunlight outside, gives you a place to go where you are in control, are with people you want to be with(and books are real places, make no mistake about that); and more importantly, during your escape, books can also give you knowledge about the world and your predicament, give you weapons, give you armour: real things you can take back into your prison. Skills and knowledge and tools you can use to escape for real.

As JRR Tolkien reminded us, the only people who inveigh against escape are jailers.

Tolkien's illustration of Bilbo's home, Bag End. Photograph: HarperCollins

Another way to destroy a child's love of reading, of course, is to make sure there are no books of any kind around. And to give them nowhere to read those books. I was lucky. I had an excellent local library growing up. I had the kind of parents who could be persuaded to drop me off in the library on their way to work in summer holidays, and the kind of librarians who did not mind a small, unaccompanied boy heading back into the children's library every morning and working his way through the card catalogue, looking for books with ghosts or magic or rockets in them, looking for vampires or detectives or witches or wonders. And when I had finished reading the children's' library I began on the adult books.

They were good librarians. They liked books and they liked the books being read. They taught me how to order books from other libraries on inter-library loans. They had no snobbery about anything I read. They just seemed to like that there was this wide-eyed little boy who loved to read, and would talk to me about the books I was reading, they would find me other books in a series, they would help. They treated me as another reader - nothing less or more - which meant they treated me with respect. I was not used to being treated with respect as an eight-year-old.

But libraries are about freedom. Freedom to read, freedom of ideas, freedom of communication. They are about education (which is not a process that finishes the day we leave school or university), about entertainment, about making safe spaces, and about access to information.

I worry that here in the 21st century people misunderstand what libraries are and the purpose of them. If you perceive a library as a shelf of books, it may seem antiquated or outdated in a world in which most, but not all, books in print exist digitally. But that is to miss the point fundamentally.

I think it has to do with nature of information. Information has value, and the right information has enormous value. For all of human history, we have lived in a time of information scarcity, and having the needed information was always important, and always worth something: when to plant crops, where to find things, maps and histories and stories - they were always good for a meal and company. Information was a valuable thing, and those who had it or could obtain it could charge for that service.

In the last few years, we've moved from an information-scarce economy to one driven by an information glut. According to Eric Schmidt of Google, every two days now the human race creates as much information as we did from the dawn of civilisation until 2003. That's about five exobytes of data a day, for those of you keeping score. The challenge becomes, not finding that scarce plant growing in the desert, but finding a specific plant growing in a jungle. We are going to need help navigating that information to find the thing we actually need.

Photograph: Alamy

Libraries are places that people go to for information. Books are only the tip of the information iceberg: they are there, and libraries can provide you freely and legally with books. More children are borrowing books from libraries than ever before - books of all kinds: paper and digital and audio. But libraries are also, for example, places that people, who may not have computers, who may not have internet connections, can go online without paying anything: hugely important when the way you find out about jobs, apply for jobs or apply for benefits is increasingly migrating exclusively online. Librarians can help these people navigate that world.

I do not believe that all books will or should migrate onto screens: as Douglas Adams once pointed out to me, more than 20 years before the Kindle turned up, a physical book is like a shark. Sharks are old: there were sharks in the ocean before the dinosaurs. And the reason there are still sharks around is that sharks are better at being sharks than anything else is. Physical books are tough, hard to destroy, bath-resistant, solar-operated, feel good in your hand: they are good at being books, and there will always be a place for them. They belong in libraries, just as libraries have already become places you can go to get access to ebooks, and audiobooks and DVDs and web content.

A library is a place that is a repository of information and gives every citizen equal access to it. That includes health information. And mental health information. It's a community space. It's a place of safety, a haven from the world. It's a place with librarians in it. What the libraries of the future will be like is something we should be imagining now.

Literacy is more important than ever it was, in this world of text and email, a world of written information. We need to read and write, we need global citizens who can read comfortably, comprehend what they are reading, understand nuance, and make themselves understood.

Libraries really are the gates to the future. So it is unfortunate that, round the world, we observe local authorities seizing the opportunity to close libraries as an easy way to save money, without realising that they are stealing from the future to pay for today. They are closing the gates that should be open.

According to a recent study by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, England is the "only country where the oldest age group has higher proficiency in both literacy and numeracy than the youngest group, after other factors, such as gender, socio-economic backgrounds and type of occupations are taken into account".

Or to put it another way, our children and our grandchildren are less literate and less numerate than we are. They are less able to navigate the world, to understand it to solve problems. They can be more easily lied to and misled, will be less able to change the world in which they find themselves, be less employable. All of these things. And as a country, England will fall behind other developed nations because it will lack a skilled workforce.

Books are the way that we communicate with the dead. The way that we learn lessons from those who are no longer with us, that humanity has built on itself, progressed, made knowledge incremental rather than something that has to be relearned, over and over. There are tales that are older than most countries, tales that have long outlasted the cultures and the buildings in which they were first told.

I think we have responsibilities to the future. Responsibilities and obligations to children, to the adults those children will become, to the world they will find themselves inhabiting. All of us - as readers, as writers, as citizens - have obligations. I thought I'd try and spell out some of these obligations here.

I believe we have an obligation to read for pleasure, in private and in public places. If we read for pleasure, if others see us reading, then we learn, we exercise our imaginations. We show others that reading is a good thing.

We have an obligation to support libraries. To use libraries, to encourage others to use libraries, to protest the closure of libraries. If you do not value libraries then you do not value information or culture or wisdom. You are silencing the voices of the past and you are damaging the future.

We have an obligation to read aloud to our children. To read them things they enjoy. To read to them stories we are already tired of. To do the voices, to make it interesting, and not to stop reading to them just because they learn to read to themselves. Use reading-aloud time as bonding time, as time when no phones are being checked, when the distractions of the world are put aside.

We have an obligation to use the language. To push ourselves: to find out what words mean and how to deploy them, to communicate clearly, to say what we mean. We must not to attempt to freeze language, or to pretend it is a dead thing that must be revered, but we should use it as a living thing, that flows, that borrows words, that allows meanings and pronunciations to change with time.

We writers - and especially writers for children, but all writers - have an obligation to our readers: it's the obligation to write true things, especially important when we are creating tales of people who do not exist in places that never were - to understand that truth is not in what happens but what it tells us about who we are. Fiction is the lie that tells the truth, after all. We have an obligation not to bore our readers, but to make them need to turn the pages. One of the best cures for a reluctant reader, after all, is a tale they cannot stop themselves from reading. And while we must tell our readers true things and give them weapons and give them armour and pass on whatever wisdom we have gleaned from our short stay on this green world, we have an obligation not to preach, not to lecture, not to force predigested morals and messages down our readers' throats like adult birds feeding their babies pre-masticated maggots; and we have an obligation never, ever, under any circumstances, to write anything for children that we would not want to read ourselves.

We have an obligation to understand and to acknowledge that as writers for children we are doing important work, because if we mess it up and write dull books that turn children away from reading and from books, we 've lessened our own future and diminished theirs.

We all - adults and children, writers and readers - have an obligation to daydream. We have an obligation to imagine. It is easy to pretend that nobody can change anything, that we are in a world in which society is huge and the individual is less than nothing: an atom in a wall, a grain of rice in a rice field. But the truth is, individuals change their world over and over, individuals make the future, and they do it by imagining that things can be different.

Look around you: I mean it. Pause, for a moment and look around the room that you are in. I'm going to point out something so obvious that it tends to be forgotten. It's this: that everything you can see, including the walls, was, at some point, imagined. Someone decided it was easier to sit on a chair than on the ground and imagined the chair. Someone had to imagine a way that I could talk to you in London right now without us all getting rained on.This room and the things in it, and all the other things in this building, this city, exist because, over and over and over, people imagined things.

We have an obligation to make things beautiful. Not to leave the world uglier than we found it, not to empty the oceans, not to leave our problems for the next generation. We have an obligation to clean up after ourselves, and not leave our children with a world we've shortsightedly messed up, shortchanged, and crippled.

We have an obligation to tell our politicians what we want, to vote against politicians of whatever party who do not understand the value of reading in creating worthwhile citizens, who do not want to act to preserve and protect knowledge and encourage literacy. This is not a matter of party politics. This is a matter of common humanity.

Albert Einstein was asked once how we could make our children intelligent. His reply was both simple and wise. "If you want your children to be intelligent," he said, "read them fairy tales. If you want them to be more intelligent, read them more fairy tales." He understood the value of reading, and of imagining. I hope we can give our children a world in which they will read, and be read to, and imagine, and understand.

This is an edited version of Neil Gaiman's lecture for the Reading Agency, delivered on Monday October 14 at the Barbican in London. The Reading Agency's annual lecture series was initiated in 2012 as a platform for leading writers and thinkers to share original, challenging ideas about reading and libraries.

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Neil Gaiman: Why our future depends on libraries, reading and daydreaming

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A lecture explaining why using our imaginations, and providing for others to use theirs, is an obligation for all citizens

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Reading Between the Lines: The Benefits of Reading for Pleasure

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Reading Between the Lines: The Benefits of Reading for Pleasure

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How Reading Volume Affects Both Reading Fluency and Reading Achievement

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How Reading Volume Affects Both Reading Fluency and Reading Achievement

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Take a seat in Nancie’s reading workshop. You’ll see how she organizes her classroom, hear her teaching language, and be part of her conferences

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Book Speed Dating
Blind Date with a Book
Book Trailers
Student Book reviews

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A great book talk can make anyone want to read any book, but sometimes you need an alternative. If you haven't read your new books yet, you only have a couple copies of a book to lend, or - like me - you're just not very comfortable with giving book talks, here are a few programs you can do with your classes to build excitement about reading.

Book Speed Dating

Based on the popular speed-dating model, book speed dating lets students spend a few minutes with each book before they decide whether to check it out. For our program, I designate about five tables to be my speed-dating tables and then put eight to ten books on each table. You could have each table represent a different genre, choose read-a-likes for popular books, or just grab a hodge-podge of different titles and mix them all up.

We play five rounds (one for each table set up), and I give students four minutes for each round.

Minute 1: The students need to find a table and take a quick look at all the books on the table.

Minute 2: Students can pick up the books they're most interested in and read the back covers, the dust jackets and anything else on the outside.

Minutes 3 and 4: Students pick one book and start reading at page one.

Once they've chosen a book to start reading, they must stick with that book until the round is over. If they decide they like the book, they carry it with them for the next round. They can always switch it out if they find something they like better at the next table. When the next round starts, they find a new table and start the process over.

I love book speed dating because it allows students to explore more book options than I would be able to talk about in the same time period. I can also curate the books so that I have a mix of old, new and great-but-somewhat-forgotten books. I can also add to my tables throughout the day as earlier classes check out books, a task that is not as easy when I've only prepared a limited number of book talks.

There are many ways to host a successful book speed dating program. Check out these variations from Mrs. Reader Pants, Mighty Little Librarian, Teach ELA with Joy and Mr. Sharp to find the one that best fits your library.

Blind Date with a Book

Book speed dating focuses a lot on initial impressions, so a great cover can be key, but with Blind Date with a Book, you can teach students to look past the bad or outdated cover art. Cover the books with brown paper or put them inside brown paper bags. Write the title on the outside, or be sneaky by just writing some descriptors or a memorable quote. Students choose based on the content, not the cover.

Book Trailers

I'm one of those people who actually enjoys the previews at the beginning of a movie, so it makes sense that I would love book trailers too. The same things that make movie trailers so entertaining - the mix of music, video and voiceover - make book trailers a great way to get students engaged in books.

Many publishers produce book trailers for their new releases that you can find on YouTube, and many include short Q&As with the author as well. You could even use a maker space or online cartoon creator like PowToon to have students create their own book trailers.

Student Book Reviews

Peer reviews of books are a great way to promote the books in your library. Have students write reviews of the books they've really enjoyed, and post them on your website. Keep a display of student book recommendations near your circulation desk, have older students come recommend books to younger students, or have students do their own book talks for their peers! Regardless of how students get involved, our libraries are always more successful when they do!

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A great book talk can make anyone want to read any book, but sometimes you need an alternative. If you haven't read your new books yet, you only have a couple copies of a book to lend, or - like me - you're just not very comfortable with giving book talks, here are a few programs you can do with your classes to build excitement about reading.

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Flynn

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Studies show that the quality of your classroom environment is a significant determinant of student learning. Classrooms that are painted with color, lighted with full-spectrum lighting, and devoid of visual noise result in improved academic performance and decreased disruptive, off-task behavior.

The following infographic was created by USC Rossier Online, the online master of arts in teaching degree offered through the Rossier School of Education at University of Southern California, to help teachers, parents and school administrators understand the power of brain-friendly learning environments

The Science of Classroom Design [Full Size Here]

Embed this graphic on your site:

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The Science of Classroom Design [Infographic]

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Studies show that the quality of your classroom environment is a significant determinant of student learning. Classrooms that are painted with color, lighted with full-spectrum lighting, and devoid of visual noise result in improved academic performance and decreased disruptive, off-task behavior.

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From Rebekah's sheets

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Get access to files anywhere through secure cloud storage and file backup for your photos, videos, files and more with Google Drive.

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Maths inquiry - websites used Matt Barker

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Maths inquiry - websites used Matt Barker

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Youcubed

Dynamo maths - Assessment and maths program for learners with maths difficulties

Maths Explained - maths program for learners with maths difficulties - created by Dr. Steve Chinn

ALEKS math - computer program that generates appropriately levelled maths work

Visible learning for Mathematics - reproducibles and video clips to accompany the book

Visualpatterns.org - collection of different patterns to support the creation of algebraic formulas

Maths300 - inquiry-based maths problems

The power of Ten-Frame Tiles - online article originally posted on www.nctm.org in February 2005

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YouCubed-Jo Boaler

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https://docs.google.com/document/d/1s9uhBGCSxh7aSaWMhUu1-V_JnM6YQ-NW5SivCW97HXA/edit

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https://docs.google.com/document/d/1otGZ8W6QA67m7OII_cLp0oEZFexw5FFe3K2l4dSliQg/edit

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Flynn

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Online early childhood magazine from NZ.

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A range of readings from Gini Rojas workshops. Happy to share specifics if interested. David S

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https://docs.google.com/document/d/1s9uhBGCSxh7aSaWMhUu1-V_JnM6YQ-NW5SivCW97HXA/edit

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Research Paper:Thoughts on Foreign Language Activity Classes
in Japanese Elementary Schools

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https://docs.google.com/document/d/1s9uhBGCSxh7aSaWMhUu1-V_JnM6YQ-NW5SivCW97HXA/edit

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Bibliography

Boaler J, Chen L, Williams C, Cordero M (2016) Seeing as Understanding: The Importance of Visual Mathematics for our Brain and Learning. J Appl Computat Math 5:325. doi: 10.4172/2168-9679.1000325

Emerson, Jane, and Babtie Patricia. The Dyscalculia Assessment. Continuum, 2010.

Hattie, John. Visible Learning for Mathematics, Grades K-12: What Works Best to Optimize Student Learning. , 2017.

Losq, C (2005) Number Concepts and Special Needs Students: The Power of Ten-Frame Tiles

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National College for Teaching and Leadership

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Having difficult conversations with parents

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Dr Fiona Davidson shares her top tips on how to prepare for and conduct difficult conversations with parents effectively. Some conversations, by their very nature can be challenging, but by planning ahead and following a few best practice principles, they needn't be a cause for anxiety.

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in our staff library (Flynn)

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As Pedagogy Changes, Learning Spaces and Classroom Design Rethinking
Jacquie P

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Classroom Design

As Pedagogy Changes, Learning Spaces Are Transforming Too

The American architect Louis Sullivan coined the phrase "form follows function," and this is true of classrooms as well.

As a student, Anthony Johnson hated school. He hated sitting still at one of several cramped desks aligned in precise rows, listening to his teachers talk for hours. It's why he dropped out of school before ultimately earning a GED, going on to college and becoming a teacher himself.

"My own experience in school was awful," he said, "and I decided that my classroom wasn't going to look like that."

In Johnson's classroom at H.D. Isenberg Elementary School in Salisbury, NC, students can choose from a variety of seating options. There are tables for students to collaborate in groups of four, as well as bar-style seating on taller stools and even a few couches where they can sit comfortably while they work or read independently. The school provided the tables, and Johnson supplied the rest of the furniture himself.

To teach his students about citizenship, Johnson operates his classroom like a community. "I call it the Johnsonville Learning Community," he said.

His fourth- and fifth-grade students can earn currency by coming to class each day and successfully completing assignments, and they also hold various classroom jobs. "The students who keep the classroom clean are part of our janitorial service," he explained. "The student who brings things to the office is our delivery service." Students use part of their currency to pay "rent" each month, and that entitles them to sit where they want.

Johnson's school system is a 1-to-1 district, and every student is given an iPad to take home. Much of his instruction is project-based, with students working in small groups on tasks using curriculum from sources such as Defined STEM. In one recent project, his students used 3D modeling software on their iPads to create a multi-touch book about the human body systems.

Design Matters

Johnson's classroom is an example of how changes in both the design of the learning space and the teaching that takes place there have combined to making learning much more engaging and effective for students.

A growing body of research suggests that the design of a learning space can have a significant effect on student success. For instance, a study by researchers at the University of Salford in England found that classroom design can have a 25 percent impact, either positive or negative, on student achievement over the course of an academic year - with factors such as color, complexity, flexibility, lighting and student choice having the most influence.

At the 2017 International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) conference in San Antonio, a number of sessions focused on redesigning classrooms to make them more engaging and inviting.

April DeGennaro, a K-5 gifted education teacher in Fayette County, GA, co-chairs the professional development committee for ISTE's Learning Spaces Network. During the ISTE conference, she discussed how her school system is shifting from traditional industrial-style classrooms with desks arranged in rows to more flexible learning spaces that encourage the development of 21st-century skills.

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As Pedagogy Changes, Learning Spaces Are Transforming Too -- THE Journal

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Classroom Design The American architect Louis Sullivan coined the phrase "form follows function," and this is true of classrooms as well. As a student, Anthony Johnson hated school. He hated sitting still at one of several cramped desks aligned in precise rows, listening to his teachers talk for hours.

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Excellent webcast (with some not so excellent coughing) where an F&P representative talks with a School Library Journal editor (i think) about how F&P levels should be one tool used amongst many in developing readers and how levels should never be shared with students and parents. https://www.slj.com/2018/01/webcasts/guiding-readers-interest-not-level/

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By on

Presented by: Fountas & Pinnell Literacy™ & School Library Journal
Event Date & Time: Wednesday, January 31st 2018, 4:00 PM - 5:00 PM ET / 1:00 PM - 2:00 PM PT

Reading is a highly complex activity. Readers must build strategies and create behaviors as they move to increasingly difficult texts. How can schools support this process and teach self-sufficiency as readers progress?

Join literacy leaders Irene Fountas and Gay Su Pinnell, creators of the F&P Text Level Gradient™, for an important conversation about leveling, libraries, reading comprehension, and what they say to districts mandating leveled collections.

Panelists

Irene Fountas - Professor in the School of Education at Lesley University

Gay Su Pinnell - Professor in the School of Teaching and Learning at Ohio State University

Moderator

Kiera Parrott - Reviews Director, Library Journal & School Library Journal

Follow us on Twitter! @SLJournal #SLJFPLiteracy

Need help getting registered? Send us an email describing your problem.

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By on Presented by: Fountas & Pinnell Literacy™ & School Library Journal Event Date & Time: Wednesday, January 31st 2018, 4:00 PM - 5:00 PM ET / 1:00 PM - 2:00 PM PT Reading is a highly complex activity. Readers must build strategies and create behaviors as they move to increasingly difficult texts.

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Search Engine for problem based learning tasks

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Search Engine for problem based learning tasks

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http://robertkaplinsky.com/prbl-search-engine/

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Our own Leadership Expectations are a great start for us to think about leadership and what is important to us here at YIS.

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Leadership Expectations       We live well by challenging ourselves, caring for others and valuing our international community. We learn with passion and creativity, broadening our horizons and growing together. We lead by taking action and empowering each other to build a caring community ...

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Working with brainframes with the Grade 5 students and teacher team this year

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Joseph and Niki: Japanese Customs and Manner

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Joseph and Niki: Japanese Customs and Manner

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http://sakurakotoschool.com/school.html

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By Steve Haberlin

An interesting article about students creating Ted Talks and this gives some insight into meaningful assessments.

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90% Target Language in the Classroom Strategies

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90% Target Language in the Classroom Strategies

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Misako

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90% Target Language in the Classroom Strategies - Google Search

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Plus: Going for. How to Stay in the. Target Language. By Douglass Crouse. 22. The Language Educator □ October 2012 ... target language." Reaching and exceeding the 90% mark is a goal any language teacher can meet, she says, and a vital part of bringing students to ....

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1. Bringing Reggio Emilia Home: An innovative approach to Early Childhood

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1. Bringing Reggio Emilia Home: An innovative approach to Early Childhood

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Bold Moves for Schools: How We Create Remarkable Learning Environments

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Bold Moves for Schools: How We Create Remarkable Learning Environments

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How Leadership influences Student Learning

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How Leadership influences Student Learning

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by Kenneth Leithwood

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Digital resources from CBK's Complete Guide to Service Learning (Sarah U)

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Digital resources from CBK's Complete Guide to Service Learning (Sarah U)

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Available here: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1kaJXMkC26f8KDmv7EVtdF50AmebZwbX-?usp=sharing

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Frank
Core routines

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Barry, Peter. Beginning Theory: An introduction to literary and cultural theory. Manchester University Press, 2017.

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Barry, Peter. Beginning Theory: An introduction to literary and cultural theory. Manchester University Press, 2017.

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Playing at Agency
Jacquie P

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From the "Sometimes Your Read Something That Makes You Want to Scream 'THIS!' Department" I give you Sean Michael Morris:

"This is the right of agency. It does not give us power over another, but it gives us mastery over ourselves. And an education that does not encourage or facilitate this agency is not an education."

Read and repeat. Without "Mastery over ourselves..." it's "...not an education."

"Agency" is one of those growing buzzwords now in education, which means that its true meaning is soon to be neutered in practice. Especially because "agency" is at the heart of everything related to serious, re-imagin-y school change. It is, I've come to believe, the only real measure of whether a school is truly about learning...or not.

Because it is so foundational to the work, you can already see "agency" being watered down. Students are being given "agency" over how to learn what's in the curriculum (a la "competency-based education.) Or students given the choice the technologies they use to master (as in pass the test) the content in a course (a la "blended" or "flipped" learning). More often than not, "Genius Hour" is our feel good attempt to check the agency box. (If we really meant it, we'd have "Curriculum Hour" instead.) And don't get me started on "personalized." (Seriously...don't.)

And make note of that word "given" which to me is what makes all the difference. In most conversations, we are to "give" kids agency over their learning. No, we don't. We do not "give" agency to students. Similarly, we do not "empower" students to have choice as power is not ours to give. Instead, we create conditions under which "agency" can flourish, under which our students can create their own power and become powerful in their own right. Conditions under which students have "mastery" over themselves and their learning, not just the content. Conditions built on what we believe about how kids learn.

For all the talk of "transformation" in schools, none of it matters if we don't start here. Forget buying technology if you plan to distribute it to students without allowing them to fully own it in a learning sense. Forget curriculum if we don't see it as something as navigated by the learner on their own terms. (Remember that there is a huge difference between "having to learn" and "wanting to learn," and that only one of those really leads to learning.) And forget, as well, assessments that aren't driven by the learner in a quest to learn more deeply. Otherwise, it's just a meaningless, contrived metric that says nothing about real learning beyond memorization.

As Morris says, however, "agency" doesn't mean that adults in classrooms don't have a role to play.

"In other words, agency doesn't so much exert itself upon others as it does float within the intersection of freedom and authority. Enacting one's agency is always a balancing act between doing what is within your understanding of your own power and working with the boundaries of others' understandings of theirs. It is a cooperative, chemical interaction. Freedom delimited by others' freedoms delimited by yours. In a classroom, this means that authority remains present. Sometimes, the authority of the teacher; but in the best situation, the shared authority of the group of learners (and the teacher)."

I love that phrase "the intersection of freedom and authority." But he's not talking about "authority" in the typical school sense. The traditional power relationships in schools suggest that the adults are the authority, both when it comes to curriculum and to behavior. Traditionally, students are bereft of agency in any real sense, because the efficiency model of education can't deal with it. (The idea of kids with real agency over their learning makes our heads hurt.) But a teacher's will should be limited by the freedoms of learners. It's not our job to impose an education on kids. It's our job to allow them to create their own with our guidance.

But here's the thing, as Morris suggests. We're in deep trouble as a society if we continue to either deny or play at the edges of creating classrooms where students are the agents of their own learning. Kids who are trained to wait to be told what to learn, when to learn it, how to learn it, and how to be assessed on that learning will grow into adults who are of the same cloth, waiting for someone to tell them what to believe and how to act and what to think and know without the critical lens that only freedom can nourish. In large measure in the U.S., we're already there.

So, don't say "agency" unless you really mean it, unless you truly intend to create classrooms where kids "have mastery over themselves" and the freedom to employ that mastery with other learners.

Image credit: Annie Spratt

Also published on Medium.

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From the "Sometimes Your Read Something That Makes You Want to Scream 'THIS!' Department" I give you Sean Michael Morris: "This is the right of agency. It does not give us power over another, but it gives us mastery over ourselves. And an education that does not encourage or facilitate this agency is not an ...

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https://tapintoteenminds.com/real-world-tasks/grade10/page/3/

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Using Archetypes to connect learning with physical and digital spaces

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Using Archetypes to connect learning with physical and digital spaces

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Flynn

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Connections is a quarterly school library magazine published by SCIS. Read current and previous issues to keep up to date with the latest in school library trends and information.

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The Reading Strategies Book by Jennifer Serravallo

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The Reading Strategies Book by Jennifer Serravallo

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Ron Ritchhart Creating Cultures of Thinking resources

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Ron Ritchhart Creating Cultures of Thinking resources

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As part of our exhibition 2018 we are using a number of Brain Frames to develop personal inquiries that will enable students to select and develop their areas of interest

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As part of our exhibition 2018 we are using a number of Brain Frames to develop personal inquiries that will enable students to select and develop their areas of interest

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exhibition padlet (Inquiry Stages - Categorising)

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漢字がスラスラ覚えられる本

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漢字がスラスラ覚えられる本

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Naoko Hirasawa

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Johns Hopkins Psychological First Aid Online Course 

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Johns Hopkins Psychological First Aid Online Course 

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About this course: Learn to provide psychological first aid to people in an emergency by employing the RAPID model: Reflective listening, Assessment of needs, Prioritization, Intervention, and Disposition.

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Learn to provide psychological first aid to people in an emergency by employing the RAPID model: Reflective listening, Assessment of needs, Prioritization, Intervention, and Disposition.

Utilizing the RAPID model (Reflective listening, Assessment of needs, Prioritization, Intervention, and Disposition), this specialized course provides perspectives on injuries and trauma that are beyond those physical in nature. The RAPID model is readily applicable to public health settings, the workplace, the military, faith-based organizations, mass disaster venues, and even the demands of more commonplace critical events, e.g., dealing with the psychological aftermath of accidents, robberies, suicide, homicide, or community violence. In addition, the RAPID model has been found effective in promoting personal and community resilience. Participants will increase their abilities to: - Discuss key concepts related to PFA - Listen reflectively - Differentiate benign, non-incapacitating psychological/ behavioral crisis reactions from more severe, potentially incapacitating, crisis reactions - Prioritize (triage) psychological/ behavioral crisis reactions - Mitigate acute distress and dysfunction, as appropriate - Recognize when to facilitate access to further mental health support - Practice self-care Developed in collaboration with Johns Hopkins Open Education Lab.

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Offered by Johns Hopkins University. Learn to provide psychological first aid to people in an emergency by employing the RAPID model: ... Enroll for free.

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Dancing in the Light: Essential Elements of an Inquiry Classroom 

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Dancing in the Light: Essential Elements of an Inquiry Classroom 

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Daniel Goleman's work on Leadership types and roles that best fit

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Daniel Goleman's work on Leadership types and roles that best fit

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Peter Noonan

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Zoe Donna Jaccquie Mc

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The Johns Hopkins Guide to Psychological First Aid

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Counseling, Student Support, and Well-being at YIS 

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Counseling, Student Support, and Well-being at YIS 

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Methods of Delivery of Student Support: counseling sessions, seminars, tutors, retreats, small groups, large groups, parent sessions,  etc. etc.

Resources and Models for Guiding Our Thinking

Social Emotional Learning standards

CASEL

ISCA Standards

ATLs

Positive Psychology

Assessing Wellness in Schools (AWE)

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by Tina Jennings, Guest Author

With Parent/Teacher Conferences coming up, some of you may be preparing for difficult conversations. Students may be struggling academically or behaviorally and it is your job to report it to their families. Here are seven tips that I hope support and prepare you for this challenging task. Read on to learn how to be your best during these difficult parent conversations.

Accentuate the Positive

A part of our job as educators can mean delivering honest and, at times, difficult information to parents about their child's performance. Remember that the way we deliver our message is just as important as what the message is.

Most of us have heard of the compliment sandwich. When needing to deliver tricky news, always have complimentary language be the slices of bread that surround it. Before the meeting, brainstorm a few qualities about the student that you admire and start with those first. Then deliver the difficult news. At the end, reframe it with a potential plan for moving forward. This sets the tone as a positive one and will make parents more receptive to your message.

Keep it Professional

No matter how flustered a child has made you, don't make it personal. Focus less on your relationship with the child and instead focus on the child's duty to be part of the school community.

For example, if the discussion is about a child's behavior, have a copy of the school wide behavior policy on hand and refer to it when necessary. Where I teach, we have a citizenship handbook that is signed at the beginning of the year by every parent and student. When you can reference that the child made an agreement at the beginning of the year to follow the rules of the school, it keeps the focus on the child's responsibility to the school.

The same goes for academics. Use the Common Core standards and at-grade-level work exemplars to justify comparisons.

Evidence is Key!

Don't forget about data. Whether your concern about the child is academic or behavioral, be sure to have supporting evidence to show parents during a meeting.

If the concern is one of academics use other student work that is at grade-level and then examples of the individual student's work to draw a comparison.Just be sure that the at-grade level exemplars are anonymous.

If the concern is regarding behavior, be sure you have data that dates back at least four weeks. This type of data may include a behavior chart you've been using, a tally mark record for certain desired and undesired behaviors, anecdotal notes, or printed out emails that have been sent. Having evidence is undeniable; furthermore, it legitimizes your concern.

But perhaps most importantly to this point, is to make sure you've been sharing this data in an ongoing manner, well before the meeting is scheduled. The key takeaway here is to communicate, and communicate often as issues come up.

Have a Few Tips in Your Back Pocket (But Don't Always Use Them)

It's important to remember that you can't assume a parent sees their child's academics or behavior through the same lens as you. That's why it's great to have a few suggestions, but only offer them up if they are specifically asked for. Some parents may be offended if you give too much advice. Instead of making direct statements, try questions as leading statements instead. You might say: "Did you know that [Child's Name] hits kids about three times per day? Do you see that happening at home?" You are still stating the facts, but allowing them to be a part of the dialogue.

When your message is delivered this way, parents may be more open to receiving your suggestions. In this case, have a few tips up your sleeve that parents can use at home. For academics, I might give the parents a few copies of the reading resources I use. For behavior, we may work together to find ways that a behavior chart in class could work at home.

A Few More Tips

Before: Always schedule a meeting. Often times, parents want to speak with you on the fly, diving deep about how their child is doing right after you've had a whole day of work. It is completely within your right to take a moment and say, "I'd love to discuss this with you in a meeting" and then suggest some times when you are available. Setting boundaries is vital for your own health, and the parent is better off, too. With a meeting set, you will be more prepared and focused to talk just about their child.

During: Sometimes, despite your best efforts, a conversation with a parent can still go haywire. If you feel the parent is getting aggressive, passing blame, accusing you, etc., just stop the meeting right in its tracks.

Practice these strategies for ending a meeting professionally:

"I don't think this conversation is heading in a productive direction. Let's resume this meeting at a different date. I'll email you a few times I am available."

Use body language to convey that the meeting is over. If you like to shake hands, offer your hand as a way to part. Or stand up and start walking to the door to escort them out.

Sometimes we all just need a fresh start and a chance to start again.

After: When a meeting is over, follow up with a short summarizing email within 24 hours; this is a good way to document that the meeting occurred. If a plan of action for the student was created, follow up within a week with an email or phone conversation to share how the plan is going. Remember: communicate and communicate often!

In Conclusion

Difficult conversations with parents and family members can be well...difficult. But, it's always good to reconnect with your intention for having the difficult conversation in the first place. Our end goal as teachers is to support the academic and social growth of our young students so they can go on to build happy lives. When we can branch out from this place, we can look past our own discomfort and connect with this greater purpose. Good luck!

Find more teaching resources at education.com.
Tina Jennings, M.A. is a second grade teacher at Roosevelt Elementary School in Santa Monica, CA. She received her undergraduate degree in 2006 from The State University of New York at Purchase with a major in art history. In 2010, Tina began her teaching career at Aspire Public Schools, a charter school system working in low-income communities. She was a founding teacher at Aspire Firestone Academy while simultaneously earning her Master's Degree in Curriculum and Instruction from the University of the Pacific. Since then she has taught second grade and loves working in a close-knit community so near to her home. In addition to teaching, Tina is a freelance writer.

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7 Tips for Difficult Parent Conversations - Education.com's Teacher Voice

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by Tina Jennings, Guest Author With Parent/Teacher Conferences coming up, some of you may be preparing for difficult conversations. Students may be struggling academically or behaviorally and it is your job to report it to their families. Here are seven tips that I hope support and prepare you for this challenging task.

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Lynn Erickson's books on concept-based curriculum and inquiry

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Lynn Erickson's books on concept-based curriculum and inquiry

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Andrew - Used to structure articulated curriculum for key & related concepts, knowledge and skills.

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NEW EDITION Erickson, H.L, Lanning, L.A, and French, R. 2017 2nd ed. Concept-based Curriculum & Instruction for the Thinking Classroom Corwin Press Pub.

This updated edition introduces the newest thought leadership in Concept-Based Curriculum and Instruction. Educators will learn how to

Use the Structure of Knowledge and Process when designing disciplinary units

Engage students in inquiry through inductive teaching

Identify conceptual lenses and craft quality generalizations

Explore deeper levels of learning and become a Master Concept-Based Teacher

Transitioning to Concept-based Curriculum and Instruction: How to Bring Content and Process Together, H. Lynn Erickson and Lois A. Lanning, c. 2014 Corwin Press Publisher

Stirring the Head Heart and Soul: Redefining Curriculum Instruction and Concept-Based Learning c. 2008 Corwin Press Pub

Facilitator's Guide to Stirring the Head, Heart, and Soul, Third Edition, Redefining Curriculum, Instruction, and Concept-Based Learning, Corwin Press Pub.

" in Conceptual Designs for Curriculum and Higher-Order Instruction " On Excellence in Teaching , Anthology, Robert Marzano, editor.Bloomington, Indiana: Solution Tree Press. Erickson, H.L. (2010)

Tools for Teaching Conceptual Understanding, Secondary: Designing Lessons and Assessments for Deep Learning. By: Julie Stern, Krista Ferraro, and Juliet Mohnkern

This guide is part of the Concept-Based series by Corwin Press and provides instructional strategies for use in the secondary classroom. Teachers will learn how to introduce secondary students to conceptual thinking and design lessons across disciplines for conceptual understanding. Discover how to help students uncover conceptual relationships and transfer them to new situations. The book includes:

Strategies for introducing conceptual learning to students

Four lesson frameworks to help students uncover conceptual relationships

How to assess conceptual understanding

How to differentiate Concept-Based Instruction

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NEW EDITION Erickson, H.L, Lanning, L.A, and French, R. 2017 2nd ed. Concept-based Curriculum & Instruction for the Thinking Classroom Corwin Press Pub. This updated edition introduces the newest thought leadership in Concept-Based Curriculum and Instruction.

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Naoko Hirasawa

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Empowering ELLs
by Tan Huynh

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Teacher Collaboration Archives | ELL Strategies | TanKHuynh

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ELL blog articles encouraging teacher collaboration between English language educators and content teachers. Featuring science collaborations and more.

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Khan Academy videos (video link shows one, which will automatically lead to others that follow up)
Math games
How to Learn Math: For Students
Video links and notes from Angela
Video: Beautiful Maths by Jo Boaler
Articles on Inquiry Mathematics:Authentic Mathematics Inquiry Intriguing Investigations
Math Class Doesn’t Work

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Naoko Hirasawa

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Structured Word Inquiry - Josie & Graham

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with Please contact A Spell on the Island: Words from the Sand, Sea and Sky.
Lyn Anderson and Ann Whiting.
Lyn Anderson inquiry.beyondtheword@gmail.com for further information or to register your name. A workshop flyer and registration site will be available soon. Spaces are limited for this course. all year levels; Curriculum and Literacy Leaders; Principals; Learning Support

Please contact MAY 25th-26th, 2018
Public Workshops in Brisbane
Caught in the Spell of Words
English Orthography: from Understanding to the Classroom
A two day workshop with Lyn Anderson and Ann Whiting.
Lyn Anderson inquiry.beyondtheword@gmail.com for further information or to register your name. A workshop flyer and registration site will be available soon.

VENUE: Applicable for: all year levels; Curriculum and Literacy Leaders; Principals; Learning Support
St Dympna's Catholic Primary School, Aspley,Brisbane MAY 3rd & 4th, 2018
Catholic Education Melbourne Workshops
Words in Context: An Orthographic Inquiry in the Early Years

DAY TWO & THREE
of a series of three workshops.

Please contact Applicable for: Early Years educators, Prep-Grade 2; Literacy Leaders, Principals
CEM for further information and registration.
VENUE: Catholic Leadership Centre, Melbourne

APRIL 27th & 28th, 2018
Public Workshops in Melbourne
Understanding Orthography: Morphology, Etymology and Orthographic Phonology
A two day workshop with Pete Bowers, Lyn Anderson and Ann Whiting.

This workshop is for educators who already have a working knowledge and understanding of the matrix and the word sum; etymology and orthographic phonology.

We are limiting the number of spaces to ensure the richest possible experience for all.

Click on this LINK to take you to the flyer and to register for the workshop.
Please contact Lyn Anderson inquiry.beyondtheword@gmail.com for further information or questions.
all year levels; Curriculum and Literacy Leaders; Principals; Learning Support Applicable for:

VENUE:Wesley College, Elsternwick Campus, Melbourne
APRIL 19th & 20th, 2018
Catholic Education Melbourne Workshops

Words in Context: An Orthographic Inquiry in the Early Years MARCH 14TH & 15th, 2018
with Lyn Anderson
Words in Context: An Orthographic Inquiry in the Early Years.
with Lyn Anderson
of a series of three workshops.

Applicable for: Early Years educator, Prep-Grade 2; Literacy Leaders, Principals

VENUE: Catholic Leadership Centre, Melbourne
Please contact CEM for further information and registration.
DAY TWO & THREE of a series of three workshops.

Applicable for: Early Years educators, Prep-Grade 2; Literacy Leaders, Principals

VENUE: Catholic Leadership Centre, Melbourne
Please contact CEM for further information and registration.

Catholic Education Melbourne Workshops

Lyn Anderson & Ann Whiting, orthography educators and consultants, are excited to announce 3 days of orthographic inquiry:

'FROM PENITENTIARY TO PENINSULA-Caught in the Spell of Words'.

Fly to Tasmania to be 'Caught in the Spell of Words.' For further information and costs please click on this

BRISBANE 18th & 19th September,
Orthography workshops
with Lyn Anderson & Ann Whiting

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with Please contact A Spell on the Island: Words from the Sand, Sea and Sky. Lyn Anderson and Ann Whiting. Lyn Anderson inquiry.beyondtheword@gmail.com for further information or to register your name. A workshop flyer and registration site will be available soon. Spaces are limited for this course.

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By Jo Boaler

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Mindset Mathematics: Visualizing and Investigating Big Ideas, Grade 4

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Engage students in mathematics using growth mindset techniques The most challenging parts of teaching mathematics are engaging students and helping them understand the connections between mathematics concepts. In this volume, you'll find a collection of low floor, high ceiling tasks that will hel...

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Yokohama International School - Approaches to Learning Criteria  ATL Highly Developed Effective Capable Improving Needs Improvement   Communication Skills Consistently and willingly volunteers ideas and participates in discussions  Consistently asks for help when necessary  Co...

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Resource for comprehension is  (Srishti)

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Resource for comprehension is  (Srishti)

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Visualising Verbalising by Lindamood-Bell

Also using the Expanding Expressions Toolkit (EET) tool for writing.

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Masato