In a follow-up to the last episode and based on several comments I received I thought I would chat about the Left Brain versus Right Brain myth. Well sorry to tell you but it is a myth. It is based on very old research that was just plain wrong. We all use both sides of our brains and there is no evidence that analytical people use their left brain and artistic people use their right brain more.

I also talk about why I think this has fed into ability or IQ testing and why ability is the wrong way to think about intelligence. That we all have the potential to be anything we want to be (within reasonable parameters) and labelling students does everyone a disservice.     

Learning styles continue to be popular in many schools and with many teachers even though research shows that they do not exist. Many researchers have shown that separating students and teaching them according to their learning style does not improve learning outcomes.

I chat with Emeritus Professor Jere Confrey who is an expert in Mathematics Education.

We discuss a range of topics including:

• The current situation in schools with COVID
• Why learning trajectories should be viewed like climbing a wall not a ladder
• Tracking/streaming in schools versus flexible learning
• Why students need to believe they can learn
• We teach maths the wrong way around: division should come before multiplication
• Different ways of thinking and how that can transfer and generalise
• The next generation will need to be flexible, confident thinkers

To view Dr Confrey’s Math Mapper program go to: sudds.co 

Dr Confrey can be contacted at: [email protected]  

There is a lot of discussion around what the future of education will be and how we future proof our students for the new tomorrow. But what does it mean to future proof our students and what will the future look like? A lot of people seem to be assuming that robots and automation will take many of the current jobs and that most students if they continue on the current course will end up jobless. I don’t buy this view and in fact, the data and facts don’t support this view either. Hear what the data tells us is most likely to happen and what students will actually need to be productive members of society in the future. And then go and buy a coffee at your favourite café and relax (you will need to listen to the podcast to understand this last suggestion).

I had the pleasure of chatting with Dr Sam Ginsberg for the Connected Teachers Academy podcast. Sam has had over 50 years of experience as a teacher and a psychologist in both private and public schools in Australia. He has worked with abandoned children in India, at-risk Australian Aboriginal youth, deaf and blind students, and flew into Afghanistan during the war to work in schools (just to name a few of his incredible experiences). We chatted for well over two hours and he has such a huge amount of knowledge and insight that I have split the podcast into two parts.

In part 2, we focus on his work in a school in Afghanistan.

I had the pleasure of chatting with Dr Sam Ginsberg for the Connected Teachers Academy podcast. Sam has had over 50 years experience as a teacher and a psychologist in both private and public schools in Australia. He has worked with abandoned children in India, at-risk Australian Aboriginal youth, deaf and blind students, and flew into Afghanistan during the war to work in schools (just to name a few of his incredible experiences). We chatted for well over two hours and he has such a huge amount of knowledge and insight that I have split the podcast into two parts.

Sam is a great friend and mentor who has had a huge impact on my thinking around education and teaching. You can listen to part 1 now.

The second myth of education I wanted to debug is the idea that the current school system was either set up to mimic a factory and/or to create factory workers. Although it makes for a fun story this idea does not fit with the history of schools. Our current system, with a teacher teaching a group of students, dates back hundreds (perhaps thousands) of years prior to the industrial age.

I chat with Dr Shelley James who is an expert on light and its impact on health and wellbeing.

We discuss questions including:

How the colour temperature of light can impact learning.

The problem with flicker and its effect on reading.

The importance of natural light and having access to the full spectrum.

Shelley has upcoming webinars that you can register for at her website:

https://www.ageoflightinnovations.com/

I discuss the idea that the 21st Century Learner is not only better able to cope with modern technology but that they need modern technology to learn optimally. This idea is a myth and I explain what we know from the research. 21st Century Learners are negatively impacted when using modern technology to learn. 

I chat with Professor Harold Bekkering who is an expert in Educational and Social Neuroscience at the Donders Institute in the Netherlands.

We discuss questions including:

Current issues with testing and potential alternatives.

How Harold is designing his new course and the issues he is facing.

The potential of artificial intelligence for dyslexia.

The role of the teacher in the modern classroom.

Students developing who they are as individuals within a digital world.