Posts Tagged ‘active learning’

My book published (finally!)
Title of my Learning Difficulties book on Amazon.com:
What if you are smarter than you think?: 27 ways to outwit Learning Difficulties
By J. Collins Meek, Learning Specialist author

Ordering Links:
Amazon USA
Amazon Canada

P.S. My Learning Difficulties book might make a good gift for a loved one?

Bonnie Terry Learning’s
Wonderful Weekly Tip

Hi Doc!
This week’s tip is about what causes problems with spelling.

Many children and even adults have problems with spelling.

Spell check can often only get you so far.

Sometimes spell check cannot even tell what word you are trying to spell.

You may have even written a word that is a word but not the word you intended to write.

Poor spelling abilities can lead to a lack of confidence and poor performance at school.

Spelling and reading are interconnected, so one step in improving reading skills is to improve your spelling skills.

This is the reason why we include spelling instruction in our reading and spelling program. We teach spelling through spelling patterns.

So what are the primary areas of auditory and visual processing that affect spelling problems?

Head over to Bonnie Terry’s blog post to learn more.

The medical use of a sequence of words to describe the progression of a brand-new unique human being from conception to birth is useful. Thus we can read or speak of the progression from zygote to embryo to fetus to newborn human being. This use of words is also generally “neutral” and “innocent,” in that it is generally meant to merely be descriptive of the anatomical development of the new human being.

But the misuse of these descriptive words can also be “deceitful” and even “malevolent.”

For example, a well-known medical doctor who was making a lot of money practicing abortion [medically destroying brand-new unique human beings] said [referring to the early development of the brand-new unique human being]:

“A pile of bricks does not a fireplace make.”

This highly-educated medical doctor knew his assertion was/is an abhorrent misuse of words, a blatant lie. Correcting his blatantly dishonest analogy is a must:

“The newly-formed unique human being is [analogically-speaking] a perfectly-formed miniature fireplace and [if not destroyed] will grow into a fully-functioning fireplace which is capable of warming good hearts everywhere.”

It is vitally important here for me [a man] to say this:

“Since I do not have a womb, I cannot in any way judge any woman [who is lied to in this way]. It is impossible for me to feel how onerous is the 9-month-long-task of creating a magnificent new human being for planet earth.”

Furthermore, I cannot in any way judge any woman who is told the truth either.

It is not my calling to render judgment, but to render compassion.

James Collins (“Doc”) Meek, PhD

Dear Reader,

Bonnie Terry is a learning expert you want to know. Head over to her website and be inspired:

LINK:

https://bonnieterrylearning.com/blog/what-motivates-your-child/?utm_source=Newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_content=What+Motivates+Your+Child&utm_campaign=What+Motivates+Your+Child+%28BTL%29

Kind regards,
Doc Meek, Sherwood Park, Alberta, Canada
August 19, 2021

 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 19^th 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

Saturday, October 27, 2012: Today I am grateful for those who jog our minds about how we learn (and teach)! – Doc Meek

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Text below was posted in: TENNESSEE TEACHING AND LEARNING CENTER BLOG on June 13, 2012.

LINK: http://tenntlc.utk.edu/2012/06/13/what-works-in-student-learning-and-what-gets-in-the-way-teaching-the-chronicle-of-higher-education/

Friday, October 19, 2012, at Sherwood Park, Alberta, CANADA

“Today I am grateful for the Moms who asked me to share again some secrets about kids learning to run their own brains, to engage active learning skills. I first published these secrets in a series of 7 articles back in 2010 and I am re-posting them here now.” – Doc Meek

“Today I am grateful for mothers and grandmothers!” – Doc Meek

Cheerful Grandmother with cheerful child 

Image from: http://www.sunriseseniorliving.com/blog/September-2012/Stereotype-Of-Cheerful-Grandmother-Has-Basis-In-Science.aspx

This is the seventh (7th) article in a series of seven (7) articles designed to help us run our own brain, and to help our children and students do the same, more easily and have more fun doing it. If you missed the Introduction or any of the previous six (6) articles, just click on the titles below:

(Intro) Learning to run our brain: 10 minutes daily

(1) Learning to run our own brain: Fear of failure

(2) Learning to run our brain: Vital need for HOPE . . . always

(3) Learning to run our brain: What are qualifications for the daily “brain coach?”

(4a) Learning to run our brain: Simple easy examples of how to proceed

(4b) Learning to run our brain: Remembering names

(5) Learning to run our brain: The eyes don’t see–the brain sees

(6) Learning to run our brain: Tasks of the “back 90″

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Separate the Mother role from the Teacher role

When I worked with families in helping children to overcome learning difficulties, often there would be a battle going on at home which one mother described as “the homework wars.”

I would ask what was being taught. The mother would give me the school subjects being “taught.” I would then say:

Those subjects are not actually what is being taught. What is being taught is to hate learning and maybe even to hate your role in that. Is that what you want?

An emphatic “No” from the mother.

Then maybe we should take a larger perspective here.

School is not life.

Life is life.

And school–though important–is only part of life.

As Dr. Levine often says, “These kids are in general OK. We just need to get them safely into adulthood.” 

When school was taking the child’s whole day–all of it unpleasant or painful–I felt that a better balance should come into play.

The child would go to school all day and then do homework all evening until bedtime. Not good.

No more homework until further notice!

I would ask the mothers to stop trying to be the school teacher, since the child had had enough of school teachers at school, without finding one at home every day until bedtime.

I asked the mothers to do what mothers generally do singularly well: just love them! Learn to have fun with them. So at least a part of the child’s day is pleasant and enjoyable and, in particular, human and humane. 

Sometimes I would write an official letter to the school, requesting: “No more homework until further notice.”

Then the mother and the child could get on with life, while I and an external-to-the-home “brain coach” could help the child overcome his or her learning difficulties.

Grandmothers are great too

Sometimes the mothers were too busy to simply enjoy recreational time with the child and so we would bring grandma into play. If the child had no grandma near, we would borrow one from the neighborhood or even from a nearby “old folks home.”

The Grandmas loved it!

Here’s to Moms and Grandmas!

Doc Meek, Thurs, Oct 19,  2012, at Sherwood Park, Alberta, CANADA

–

“What if you are smarter than you think?”

https://docmeek.com

THE LEARNING CLINIC WORLDWIDE, INC.

CANADA: Dr. Meek (587) 400-4707, Edmonton, AB

TONGA: Mele Taumoepeau, P.O. Box 81, Nuku’alofa

USA: Dr. Meek (801) 738-3763, South Jordan, Utah

For optimum brain health, ensure your heart health:

Sunday, October 23, 1939. Today I was born, and I am so grateful for my mother, who suffered much and long to bring me into the world today.  ~ James Collins Meek III 😮

Sunday, October 23, 2011. Today (my Natal Anniversary!) I am so grateful to be an active learning participant in Paul Scheele’s transformational learning workshop. I wish with all my heart that my wife Jeannette were able to be here with me! ~ Doc Meek

Image from: http://www.amazon.com/Natural-Brilliance-Paul-R-Scheele/dp/0925480541/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1319365080&sr=1-1

Or access Paul Scheele’s latest book, Drop Into Genius, at:

http://dropintogenius.com/

Or watch Paul discuss his book, Drop Into Genius, on YouTube:

Tuesday, September 13, 2011. Today I am so happy and grateful for my good connections with Tongans and the Kingdom of Tonga in the South Pacific Islands. ~ Doc Meek, Neurological Learning Specialist

Beautiful Tongan sunset

Tongan sunset image from:

http://photo_artist.webs.com/apps/photos/photo?photoid=6231056

Watch a gentle Tongan sunset-time video at this link below:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HKbnBHlUM4M

Lucky me! I got to see the Tongan culture and lifestyle first-hand, and for more than two years, thank heaven!

I was appointed as an Adjunct Professor of Education out of BYU-H (Brigham Young University-Hawaii) in 1999,  and sent to the Kingdom of Tonga with my beloved wife Jeannette. Both of us were appointed to participate in the ITEP (International Teacher Education Program) sponsored by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

The teachers and students and the administrators all worked together to raise the student achievement dramatically.

Way to go Tonga educators!

They helped the students get higher marks and they also helped them change attitudes, behaviors, and cooperation with other students and teachers.

The results? Happier students and healthier students (and wealthier students, wealthy of mind). 😮

They took the meaning of active learning beyond expectations.

And they took my “heads-hearts-hands-hope” inclusivity to a new high.

The Tongans taught me more than I taught them.

Tongans are generous of heart and mind, non-judgmental, and they loved and respected me.

And Tongans loved and respected my wife Jeannette even more.

Naturally! She’s better looking than I am! 🙂

And we loved and respected Tongans.

Forever.

Jeannette was a real hit with the students and their parents. She directed a 150-voice Tongan choir, mostly youth, and learned to appreciate the saying, “When Tongans sing, the angels sing with them.”

Tongans can sing 7-part harmony a capella, with ease and grace.

And they can dance too! Sometimes wildly. 😮 Wow!

Jeannette also taught an English class for young adults who had all failed to pass their “big English Test” in high school. Thus their gateway to higher education was closed to them (at least in their minds, and in the minds of their parents).

Permanent “doom.”  No hope.

Until Jeannette showed up and pointed out (dramatically):

“I don’t care how others have graded you. I am going to grade you up!”

She added (as some of the students thought this palangi [Caucasian] teacher might give them all an easy “pass”):

“We are going to study and write that exam again; then we are going to study and write that exam again; and then we are going to study and write that exam again!”

The students were stunned.

The thought of writing that dreaded exam again and again was not part of the cultural norm at that time.

If you flunked, you flunked. That was it. You were an “educational failure for life.”

Jeannette faithfully taught a class of 32 students (who came from far and wide when they heard about her famous English class).

Twenty-eight (28) went on to higher education. And the rest carried their newly-found self-confidence into other great opportunities.

We are forever grateful to the first student in Jeannette’s class: Uini, whose dear father asked Jeannette if she would help his daughter with English.

Thank you Tongans for the greatest two years in any land!

A special salute to the parents and teachers and students and administrators in all the Tongan Islands.

And a dozen “high fives” for Mele Taumoepeau, who was Principal of Liahona High School on Tongatapu during my time in the Kingdom of Tonga.

Mele made the hard work sing! Thank you, Mele!

Kindness, Doc

Doc Meek, Tues, September 13, 2011, Sherwood Park, Alberta, CANADA

P.S. My beloved wife Jeannette is now building her new health and wellness business, which is giving new hope and health and wellness to people with heart disease and diabetes:

http://www.amiraclemolecule.com/themeekteam

Friday, August 26, 2011. Today I am so grateful for those who are inspired to  teach those who don’t learn as easily as others.  Brian John Lim is such a teacher. ~ Doc Meek

Music to empower people with learning

disabilities [Learning Differences]

By PANG HIN YUE, published in The Star Online, Wed, Aug 24, 2011

Former child prodigy Brian John Yim reaches out to the learning disabled and helps autistic teenager Umar Hasfizal realise his potential as a singer with his debut album.

WHEN he was four years old, Brian John Yim’s father left him and his younger brother with their mother and took everything away except an organ. The very object of his sadness became his source of comfort and inspiration. “The organ was the only connection I had with my dad,” says Yim. With no money for piano lessons but an ear for music, he would listen and play the organ as his mother and grandmother sang along.

By the time he turned eight, his mother, Gan Lee Yong, an insurance agent then, had saved enough money for him to take up piano. He was so good that he leapfrogged to fifth grade. Within two years, he completed the final eighth grade. But the child prodigy wanted more – to pursue a course on Electone (electronic organs produced by Yamaha).

But staying in Mentakab, a small town in Pahang, did not help. “There was no organ teacher in Mentakab,” recalls the 28-year-old. Undeterred, he decided to learn it at a Yamaha school in Kuala Lumpur. So for one year, every Sunday, he would faithfully take a two-hour bus ride on his own to KL to attend a 45-minute lesson and then hop on the next available bus to go back home.

By 12, he passed his Electone exam, an achievement few can boast of.

To make sure he did not lose out academically, Yim poured his heart into his studies – just as he did with music – scoring straight-As. When he wasn’t studying, the brilliant boy could be found performing at social functions in his hometown.

Image and text above from: http://thestar.com.my/lifestyle/story.asp?file=/2011/8/24/lifefocus/9325519&sec=lifefocus

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Thank you, Brian John Yim, for inspiring us to help those who need help to be successful learning in their own right! Active teaching and active learning are a winning combination!

Doc Meek, Fri, Aug 26, 2011, Sherwood Park, Alberta, CANADA