Notes

==Elliot W. Eisner argues that the distinctive forms of thinking needed to create artistically crafted work are relevant not only to what students do, they are relevant to virtually all aspects of what we do, from the design of curricula, to the practice of teaching, to the features of the environment in which students and teachers live.==

freire ben rush, dewey, eisner, pink, linda darling hammond http://prezi.com/dhdqci1xpkuw/

What are your beliefs about education? What stood out? How do our ideas/practices align with your beliefs? Hey All:

I will be posting my intro shortly. However, I wanted to let you know that I pose the following question in the intro and I thought that it would help guide us with our presentation. The most difficult part of this presentation is making sure that we are focused. There is a lot of information that we could share and discuss, but we cannot. We have limited time so we need narrow the presentation to specific ideas. Here is what I propose: Create your presentation based on the following questions:

How do we focus on process in school, how do we continue to make interdisciplinary connections, and how can we, a learning community, integrate visual studies in all courses?

If you divide your presentation into these three areas, I think that will help with organization and keep us from being too broad.


 * How do we focus on process? (This would include the way you set up your classrooms, essential questions, inquiry classroom, etc.)
 * How do we continue to make ID connections? (collaboration, resources, etc.)
 * Visual Studies (student choice, projects that value visual studies and why this is an important piece,)

If we base our presentations on the above three questions, then we will create a natural connection/transition between our presentations. -1/17, Brown

Outline for Educon(Draft): 10-11:30

I. Who frames our thinking? (10-15 minutes)

We show pictures of Daniel Pink, Linda Darling Hammond (I used her for a framework for small school reform when planning for the school), possible scientist, artist to show connectiveness, Ben Rush (who is this guy...ha!). This activity is similar to the Chris K used with us during the summit. It's engaging and also shows the audience who frames our thinking.

__Notes from our meeting:__ Our vision statement: Integrating the arts within our curriculum. Our school is framed around Inquiry classrooms. Integrating arts... not for aesthetic purposes, the emphasis is on creativity... The arts provide a robust curriculum and a way of thinking

Core values: habits of mind.

We think of arts as a way of thinking...thinking differently...remember that more. Looking at lesson planning as an art!

The world is different and we have to change the way we teach children. Sharing information, literate, etc.

My outline thus far: II. Why are interdisciplinary projects important to our school and school communities? What concepts are important? What have we learned?

I have written some notes already as an intro. I talk briefly about setting up the school but I try to focus on the importance of connecting classrooms. I review Pink's ideas and the importance of the shift and using 21st century tech tools. I emphasize the following:

Unintentional conversations - how the projects evolve.
 * Student-centered work
 * 21st century tools (changing the way people think about the way students learn).
 * Learning Community
 * visual studies
 * inside and outside community as helping everyone learn
 * How can the audience help us with this work...

One of the main activities to help engage the audience could be asking them to reflect, after the presentation from teachers, on a wiki about some of our ideas. This serves multiple purposes. We will be able to keep their suggestions to help us with this work as well as create information that we can share with our parents and students. I think that we need to keep the questions very broad. For example, the audience could pair up or make triads and each reflect on: What stood out to you (approach, methods, way of thinking?) How could this interdisciplinary work be improved or enhanced and how can it be connected to a larger learning community? What resources (tech tools) could be used to add another to dimension to the projects? How can there be more time to plan? What tools does a teacher have to have to do this? THE PURPOSE OF OUR PRESENTATION IS ABOUT EXPANDING OUR LEARNING COMMUNITY. WE NEED FEEDBACK ON THIS IMPORTANT WORK THAT WE ARE DOING.

I hope that this gets the ball rolling.

Engagement of audience: What stood out to you, appraoach, methods, way of thinking...