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Saturday, February 21, 2009

Revamped lesson plans?

I got an email recently from Frank, who writes Intellteacher's Blog, about a project he is working on with Dr. Win Wenger. A quick Google search on the good doctor brings up pages about Project Renaissance, Brain Boosters, and Creative Thinking. The guy is seen as a pioneer in the field.

So anyway, as part of this project, Frank is offering to help teachers apply an Accelerated Learning aspect to their existing lesson plans. He asks, "What are you having difficulty with in the classroom?" Is it grouping? Is it presenting to the class, is it reaching kids of various abilities?

If you are interested in participating, send Frank a copy of your lesson plan (intellteacher@yahoo.com), and he will -- under Dr. Wenger's supervision -- add on the Accelerated Learning - Creative Problem Solving (AL-CPS) aspects. He also says that he may choose some of the revamped lesson plans to use in the case study part of a new book, and the contributing teacher will get a shout-out.

To see a small sampling of Frank's work, visit his blog, or check out his guest post right here on Learn Me Good.


In completely unrelated news, today is my 36th birthday, so I am headed off to have some of my mom's world famous lasagna!!

And don't forget to take part in the Learn Me Good February Sweepstakes! Get entries by leaving a comment, signing the guest book, becoming a FoLMeG, or best of all, posting a link to www.learnmegood.com somewhere on the web!!

5 comments:

HappyChyck said...

Happy Birthday, Mr. Teacher! I hope you have a great day!

Jason Oller said...

Happy Birthday!! Almost at "The Big 40"! Tried to give you a myspace comment earlier-Did it work?

Amerloc said...

36. Hmmm.If I put a little time into it, I can remember which school I was teaching at when I was that young: I was just a few miles from where HappyChyck teaches now.

Just remember - the only way you can get to be as old as I am is to polish off your 30's, wade through your 40's, aggressively invade your 50's, and enjoy every moment.

Or at least laugh at the moments you don't enjoy (which you seem to have under control).

Happy birthday. Take tomorrow off :)

Priest said...

Happy Birthday, Young Man. IME, Life really begins in the mid-30s as things tend to make sense in terms of recurring patterns if nothing else.

Thanks for the IntellTeacher piece as well. I'm working the NLP part of it into the project you mentioned. Further, emerging from my M.A. in Education track I'm current with regard to trends, problems, and what constitutes "best practices" from an institutional perspective.

With the above in mind, it seems that the didactic model is still very much active although now woven into the mix rather than being the exclusive delivery platform. The
"Teacher lectures and students sit quietly taking notes." approach is still in evidence, albeit, running under different banners and I extend this perceived defect to quiet at desk worksheets.

Small Group work continues to get serious play and this too is typically found in truncated form. Dr. Wenger's "Buzz Group" model is far more fully developed and effective with an entire school in NY converting to it with reported great success.

Last week I had the privilege of sitting down with Dr. Margaret Pastor, Principal, Stedwick Elementary School, Montgomery Village Public Schools. Incredible Human Being in the finest sense of the word. Dr. Pastor is one of those rare forward thinkers who is still very much in the daily routine of "being there, doing that" and is presently planning on attending the 17th annual conference held by Dr. Wenger this year. I look forward to her comments during the post event round table discussions.

On a related note, I will be teaching the Ba Duan Jin Nei Gung system during the affair. The 8 Pieces of Silk Brocade is a wonderful moving meditation that has a very nice effect on emotional - mental states as well as being a good way to keep muscle tone and flexibility. Should be a blast. I don't know if anyone on this Blog is in or near Maryland, however, if they are the festival is definitely worth attending. There will be multiple presentations on Accelerated Learning and Creative Problem Solving (AL & CPS) techniques with a great deal of "hands on" instruction.

Shifting gears: I "think" you and I should get together and publish a book on NLP, AL & CPS from the perspective of and usefulness to in the classroom teachers. It would really add to the literature and be of benefit to all teachers willing to give these methods an honest try. Thoughts? Hey, Blog Readers, put some pressure on the guy, cool? I want to see the chant of "Go For It!" posted up loud and bold :)

Melissa B. said...

Happy Belated B-day! Hope that lasagna was rockin'! BTW, please add your 5 cents' worth over at Sx3 today, OK?