Aussie school tries to liberate teen brains - thestar.com - The Diigo Meta page

• 20 Dec 09
  

  Graeme Bennett
• 

  Sherri Librarian

  There are no textbooks at the Australian Science and Mathematics School. No classrooms, no bells, no uniforms - unlike the other public high schools in South Australia - or even a dress code.

  brain research

• 

  Jennifer Dittrich

  brain

• 24 Nov 09
  

  Leslie Doukas

  school teens brain biology learning

  • Each student has a metre-high glossy orange storage locker on wheels but no permanent desk
  • Each student has a metre-high glossy orange storage locker on wheels but no permanent desk.
  • 8 more annotations...
  • • Each student has a metre-high glossy orange storage locker on wheels but no permanent desk.
    • During the teen years (and even into the 30s), this part of the brain is laying down white matter in the form of myelin.
    • The more myelin, the more efficiently the brain cells work.
    • The biological urge to master a topic they care about is intense
    • As well, the very structure of their growing brains demands that they launch themselves on a passionate quest for meaning and identity
    • exploring what Davies calls the "rich fertile question," which sometimes has no obvious answer at all.
    • Once they've come back to explain what they know in seminars and classroom chats, they apply the new knowledge to solve real problems.

    • Davies recommends a brain shift among grownups: showing faith in the teens' powerful, growing neural networks and in their biological imperative to move their world forward.

      "If we move from that, then all sorts of magic can happen."

• 23 Nov 09
  

  Gary Brown

  learning social Interaction

  • This highly unusual school for Grades 10 to 12 was built six years ago to plug into what neuroscience says the adolescent brain needs in order to learn. It's what teaching teenagers could look like if the teens' biology were taken seriously.
  • What we've done is capture the power of adolescent social interaction and transferred it into the classroom," says Jim Davies, the school's principal.
  • 7 more annotations...
  • • During the teen years (and even into the 30s), this part of the brain is laying down white matter in the form of myelin. Myelin is a fatty sheath that insulates nerve fibres so they can communicate more quickly. The more myelin, the more efficiently the brain cells work.

    • The traditional school struggles to box in the vast adolescent energy and bend it to function on adult terms for adult goals. In traditional high schools, kids are getting factory schooling and their big brains are being treated as storage reservoirs rather than dizzyingly creative machines.

      It's the opposite of what the teen brain is geared for.

      As a result, high school is where many students who have made it through the earlier years simply disengage. Others feel as if they suspend their real lives to trudge dutifully to school to learn material for reasons they can't discern. And for still others, high school is about the marks, not the knowledge.

    • The general model is for perhaps 90 kids to go off with four or five teachers to talk about the big questions of the day and then split up into small, self-directed groups to conduct their own inquiry.

      The curriculum is interdisciplinary, broken up into three 100-minute modules a day, with 40 minutes a day with a teacher/mentor who coaches the same dozen or so students across all three years, often discussing how the individual students learn.

    • t can be jarring for students at first, says Davies, chuckling. "The kid's had nine years of very traditional teaching and learning, as in: Do the even-numbered questions on this sheet."
    • The watchwords for students here are "voice and choice," Davies says. There's been no physical violence at the school in its six years. Instead, the school is an ardent community of learning where kids and teachers are proudly working together to figure things out.
    • So, in geometry, ask them to figure out how to build a well for clean water in Africa.
    • Davies recommends a brain shift among grownups: showing faith in the teens' powerful, growing neural networks and in their biological imperative to move their world forward.
• 11 Nov 09
  

  Dawne Wilkins

  Teenage high school brain research biology

• 08 Nov 09
  

  Alicia Rey

  Unusual Australian school demonstrates what teaching teenagers could look like if their biology were taken seriously.

  education school brain

• 

  Jason Yeoman

  school brain tries education aussie

• 07 Nov 09
  

  Carmen Tschofen

  school alternative brain teens

• 

  Sol Hanna

  The teen brain develops the ability to think in abstract terms and figure out how systems work. The brain develops the ability to set complex goals and follow them. Teens must learn both broadly and deeply. The biological urge to master a topic they care about is intense.
  
  As well, the very structure of their growing brains demands that they launch themselves on a passionate quest for meaning and identity – in their own lives, in their social setting and in the world at large. Social interaction is key. (Think of the teen interest in instant messaging, Facebook and other ways of staying in touch.) "

  education adolescence

• 06 Nov 09
  

  Peg Maddocks

  stem reform 21stcenturyskills

  • "rich fertile question,"
  • "voice and choice,
  • 1 more annotations...
  • • There's been no physical violence at the school in its six years. Instead, the school is an ardent community of learning where kids and teachers are proudly working together to figure things out.
• 

  michael chalk

  Now here's an encouraging article.. South Australian school attempts to cater for the teenage brain, by paying attention to the way people learn. Nice one. Fingers crossed that someone with influence is reading this. Sounds like what they're doing at Coburg High School. 

  article education school innovation change brain

• 

  Robyn Jay

  school adelaide education

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