Archive for August, 2013

“What? Me disorganized?” – Doc Meek

chaos photo: Creative Chaos creativechaos.jpgImage from: Photobucket.com
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Today I am full of gratitude for disorganization! It gives us a chance to learn to create order out of chaos. – Doc Meek
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This is your HowToLearn.com Newsletter from Pat Wyman:
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Today: In her continuing series, our expert Susan Kruger of StudySkills.com has a new article for you about organization and how to make is simpler for your child or student.
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Dear Doc,
Disorganization is one of the top complaints I hear from parents and educators.
Teachers tell many stories about students who fail classes because they lack the organizational skills to keep track of their assignments.

School counselors and psychologists tell about the huge number of students referred to them for suspected learning disabilities, only to discover that a large percentage of these students simply lack organizational skills.

Parents are totally dismayed because they try to keep everything organized, but they aren’t at school to oversee organization, when it seems to matter most.

Why Is This Happening?

There are three main reasons students have trouble staying organized:

  1. They have too much “stuff.”  Most students have 12 to 16 different folders and notebooks to keep track of across a whole lot of transitions: from home, in the car/bus, to school, in the locker, back into the book bag, into class, back to the locker, and then home again.  (Elementary students may only have a half dozen folders, but that’s still five more than they should have!)

  1. Everything looks alike.  When those folders and notebooks are stacked in the locker or book bag, they all look the same!

  1. Any time students are managing papers, they are in a hurry.  Whether they are rushing out of class at the end of an hour, rushing from their locker at the end of the day, or rushing to finish their homework at home, they are always in a hurry.

Read the full article here:

Let’s Relate This to Our Lives as Adults

Imagine having 12 to 16 different email accounts to maintain every day.  Imagine if you were expected to log into each account several times each day, respond to emails and retrieve old/sent emails at the snap of a finger?  It would be overwhelming to transition between them quickly.

This is what students deal with every day, managing so many different school supplies.  They have the added burden of managing these materials across several daily transitions.  Teachers have good intentions when they ask students to maintain a separate folder and notebook for their class; they think that separate supplies will make it easier for students to keep science papers organized in the science folder and math papers organized in the math folder.

However, this traditional system is actually creating the problem.  The sheer volume of folders and notebooks (not to mention textbooks and workbooks) makes it hard for students to find the right ones, especially when they are in a hurry!

As a result, students haphazardly throw papers the first place they can.  Later, they have no idea what they did with their papers.  Papers can be anywhere…
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Pat Wyman, The Center for New Discoveries in Learning, Inc., 4535 W. Sahara Ave., Suite 200, Las Vegas, NV 89102

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Thank you, Pat Wyman and Susan Kruger!

Doc Meek, Saturday, August 31, 2013, at Sherwood Park, Alberta, CANADA

“I am grateful for women everywhere.” – Doc Meek

Today I am full of gratitude for women and mothers and grandmothers everywhere. They make the world work. I am also grateful for Janelle Cox, Elementary Education Guide, for her back-to-school guest newsletter below. 

– Doc Meek, Mon, Aug 26, 2013, Calgary, Alberta, CANADA

Grandmother and GrandchildGrandmother and Grandchild……………………………………….

About
Elementary Education Teaching 101 Lesson Plans Back to School
From Janelle Cox, your Guide to Elementary Education
It’s back to school time! This week learn the 10 most popular back-to-school books, along with the 10 most popular back-to-school resources. Plus: bulletin board ideas! Want more from K6educators? “Like” me on Facebook and Twitter, and check out my boards onPinterest.
10 Popular Back-to-School Books 

Help ease those first day jitters by reading students a few back-to-school books. Here I have selected the top 10 books to read to students during the first few weeks… Read more
Top 10 Most Popular Back-to-School Resources 

Browse our top 10 most popular Back-to-School resources. Here you will learn how to write a student welcome letter, conduct the first day of school, create procedures and routines that… Read more
Creative Bulletin Board Ideas 

Bulletin boards are a fun, attractive way to educate or display students work. Whether your creating a seasonal board, teaching board or birthday board, it’s a fun way to… Read more
Lesson Plans and Activities 

Lesson Plans are the bread and butter of teaching. Here, you can get ideas and inspiration that you can take into the classroom and use as early as tomorrow.

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This newsletter is written by: 
Janelle Cox 
Elementary Education Guide 
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“Doctor, lawyer, pilot.” – Kathy Calvin, UN Girl UP Campaign

“Today I am full of gratitude for those who make it more possible for girls the world over to receive a proper education.”

– Doc Meek, Fri, Aug 23, 2013, Calgary, Alberta, CANADA

Dear DR MEEK,

Girl UpDoctor. Lawyer. Pilot. These were the dreams of young girls I met when I traveled to Liberia with the United Nations Foundation’s Girl Up campaign.These girls are full of potential, but poverty often works against them.  Many families can’t afford the school supplies and uniforms they need to send their daughters to school.  In fact, 40 percent of girls in Liberia 10-14 years of age have never received a formal education.Every girl deserves an education and the chance to follow her dreams.  As students in the U.S. return to class, will you help girls in Liberia do the same? Donate $10 by August 31 to help girls in Liberia get an education.

With support of people like you, Girl Up and the United Nations launched a program in Liberia in 2011 to provide adolescent girls with school supplies, basic literacy and math classes, skills training, and more.

Our goal is to raise $10,000 by August 31 so more girls in Liberia can receive these vital services.  Will you help us by donating $10 today?

Educating girls benefits us all: When a girl is educated, she can earn more, helping lift her family out of poverty, boosting her country’s economic growth, and contributing to a more stable and prosperous world.

It’s simple: Educating a girl can change her life and change our world.  Join me today in helping girls in Liberia get an education and pursue their dreams.

Thank you,

Kathy Calvin
President and CEO, United Nations Foundation
Follow me on Twitter: @Kathy_Calvin

Sign Up | Donate | Take Action | Contact Us1800 Massachusetts Avenue NW, Suite 400, Washington, DC 20036
© United Nations Foundation

“Learning Personality Tests are Important.” – Pat Wyman

Today I am full of gratitude for the differences in student personality.  – Doc Meek, Sat, Aug 17, 2013, Sherwood Park, Alberta, CANADA

There are 8 learning personality types. Find out which ones your kids are and coach them toward greater school success.

Image from: Kidsmet.com

“Parents, teachers and tutors worldwide are raving about our award-winning Playbook for Learning.” – Jen Lilienstein

This is our guest HowToLearn.com Newsletter from Pat Wyman. Thank you, Pat!

Today: Why Learning Personality Tests are Important
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Dear Doc,
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Our Learning Personality expert and author, Jennifer Lilienstein, tells why learning personality tests are important in her most recent article.
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In high school and adulthood, we often look to personality tests for information about who we are or to discover why a loved one or colleague acts a certain way, but there are many reasons why learning personality tests are important in elementary school.
Susan Cain’s book Quiet highlighted just how important the introvert-extrovert dichotomy is, but there are many other personality type facets that are equally important.
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1. Administering learning personality tests at the beginning of the school year can help teachers create richer, stronger relationships more quickly with students because they have a greater insight into who the child is and what interests him most.
And as Piaget, Vygotsky, Dewey, Czikszentmihalyi, Renzulli, Gardner, all the way through brain-based educators like Sousa and Willis have been saying for decades, affective education–or education that creates an emotional response in learners–is the most effective education.
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2. It may not always be obvious to a teacher which children would score as introverts or extroverts on learning personality tests. Knowing this can help a teacher identify which kids naturally think out loud versus the kids that prefer to reflect first before contributing to a discussion.  One of the things I come across most often in my interactions with both parents and teachers is a misunderstanding of what an introvert truly is.
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Parents will say things like “my child is extroverted–she just takes some time to warm up” or teachers will report, “that child is clearly an extrovert–he is by no means a loner at recess or during lunch.” The difference between extrovert and introvert is much more in line with how kids recharge their batteries. Does he draw his energy from groups of people or alone time? If he is the former, he is an extrovert, while if he is the latter, he is an introvert.
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3. Knowing whether your child scores as a judger (slow-and-steady wins the race personality type) or perceiver (energized by deadlines personality type) on learning personality tests can help you play to their strengths from both organizational and time management perspectives and turn homework headaches into study success.
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At a high level, judgers perform better with outboxes and day timers, while perceivers do best with inboxes and at-a-glance calendars. But the differences go even deeper than this and have been studied by social scientists for decades.
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4. Getting a sense of how your class as a whole prefers to learn can help teachers plan or seek out curriculum that will engage and motivate their current class mix. It’s easy–and free–to administer learning personality tests for your whole class in the computer lab in under 30 minutes by using a tool like Kidzmet’s preference profile.
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While there are a variety of ways to stretch students beyond their comfort levels, most of these techniques are based upon meeting learners where they are academically. Using temperament to differentiate instruction can take these insights a step further and provide you with a framework for curriculum upon which you can design more engaging lesson plans… read more here…
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Pat Wyman, The Center for New Discoveries in Learning, Inc., 4535 W. Sahara Ave., Suite 200, Las Vegas, NV 89102

 

“Cooperative and Active Learning.” – Rob Plevin

 HARMIN, Merrill (1995), Inspiring Active Learning 
Image from: Amazon.com
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Today I am full of  gratitude for the high impact that cooperative and active learning have for students. I am also grateful for my cyber colleague, Rob Plevin, and my dear friend Merrill Harmin, who encourage all students to be more active in their own learning processes and in overcoming their own learning difficulties.  – Doc Meek, Sherwood Park, Alberta, CANADA, Fri, Aug 16, 2013 

P.S. Nice to get your great newsletter below, Rob!

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Dear Doc,

Our summer sale bonanza is coming to an end very soon.

We only have one more product to run at discount plus another ‘secret’ product which I may announce very soon (you don’t want to miss that one if we do decide to run it).

For now, the product we have at HALF OFF is…

Cooperative and Active Learning in Lessons

…and it’s on sale for just THREE MORE DAYS – until Monday 19th August.

This is actually one of my favourite resources – I loved putting this together because it contains a lot of the activities that my students enjoyed when I used to teach. In fact, the activities are so good, I now use them in our live courses and workshops.

The activities are suitable for practically any age group and any subject – with minimal adaptation – and you’ll find them PERFECT if you’re looking for ways to…

  • Get students working together cooperatively (Hint: this is one of the EASIEST ways to reduce behaviour problems and improve participation – even bored, switched off students get a huge kick from working like this).
  • Put more ACTIVITY in your lessons – you’ve no-doubt heard that a large proportion of ‘troublesome’ students tend to be kinesthetic learners. If you try and teach these students using didactic, lecture-style methods they will HATE it! The way to make subjects accessible and appealing to these students is to include some activity in the learning tasks – get them on their feet and ‘doing’ stuff. These activities will enable you to make any subject more ‘hands-on’.
  • Make subject content STICK – It’s obvious, when students are truly engaged in the learning process there is much more chance that the information you give them will actually be remembered. The activities in this resource will give you countless ways to INVOLVE all your students in fun, interactive ways they will LOVE.

The pack includes:

  • Cooperative and active learning templates and activities
  • Fun grouping tips
  • Instructions for managing super-enjoyable and successful group work sessions
  • Active teaching strategies
  • Editable print-ready resource templates
  • Novel ideas for getting ALL your students involved
  • And much much more…

Click here to get your copy for HALF OFF (three more days only)

Best wishes,

Rob Plevin

PS remember, our sale is coming to an end very, very soon so this is your last chance to take advantage of the other products on sale here.
Behaviour Needs LTD

First Floor Offices
North Friarages, Frairgate
Penrith, Cumbria
CA11 7XR
Great Britain

“Solve every learning challenge!” – Doc Meek

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teaching photo: Teaching teaching.jpgImage from: Photobucket.com

 

Today I am full of gratitude  just to be alive. 😮 – Doc Meek, Thursday, August 1, 2013, Calgary, Alberta, CANADA. P.S. And I am grateful for Rob Plevin and his good work with classroom teachers in Great Britain and the world over (see his email to me below). – Doc 

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Dear Doc,

How to manage your class without saying a word (it really works!)

Are you frustrated by the feeling that your students simply aren’t listening to you? Does it feel as though your students aren’t taking your instructions seriously?

If so, you’ll enjoy this webinar replay – Talk Less – Teach More (Non-Verbal Classroom Management) – with renowned teacher trainer Pearl Nitsche.

In this exciting training webinar Pearl presents a huge number of practical, powerful communication tips and tools that can be implemented immediately in the classroom – and that allow you to do precisely what you actually became a teacher to do – teach!

If you are fed up of spending too much time giving instructions & constant verbal reminders to your students (only to have them completely ignore you) please make sure to book your FREE place on this webinar where you’ll learn a MUCH EASIER and far MORE EFFECTIVE way of managing your students – by actually talking LESS!

The best thing is… you can access the replay PLUS the transcript PLUS a bonus report AND a certificate of attendance for just $1 !!!
http://www.classroom-expert.com/interview-pearl-nitsche-2/

BTW you’ll really enjoy this – Pearl is a GIFTED trainer.

Best Wishes,
Rob Plevin

Remember: Gold Members get an additional 10% discount on ALL purchases.
If you’re a Gold Member simply enter your discount code at checkout. (Your discount code is in your member area).

Access your member area and products here
http://www.behaviourneeds.com/member/member.php

Not a member yet? Join here:
http://www.behaviourneeds.com/member/
Behaviour Needs LTD

First Floor Offices
North Friarages, Frairgate
Penrith, Cumbria
CA11 7XR
Great Britain