The Unexpected Learning Moment


Book Description

In the first quarter of 2020, families, individuals, small businesses, and corporations of every size watched as their worlds turned upside down with the emergence of what would soon be called Covid-19. Values-driven corporate leaders knew that the choices they made had to align with the principles and culture promises they had extended to their stakeholders when times were relatively predictable and stable. Now they were faced with the question, "How do we ride this turbulence while staying true to who we are at the core and what we have promised?" It has been a moment-by-moment learning process, at a tune when few decisions presented themselves as obvious choices. There is a tremendous amount of lasting value and wisdom to be mined from these times of uncertainty, and, in many cases, real fear. In The Unexpected Learning Moment, WD-40 Company CEO and Chairman Garry Ridge presents 13 essays that track in real-time the evolution of his culture and engagement thinking during this time when the company's values served as the principles guardrails for his thinking and strategic planning. Here's what you'll discover in The Unexpected Learning Moment: Lessons in Leading a Thriving Culture Through Lockdown 2020: - How a CEO - world-renowned for creating and leading a robust, empowered culture of loyal "tribe" members-takes on the new life-threatening challenges to his company and his people on a global scale. - What it means to be driven by long-established values while making difficult decisions. - How not to be a soul-sucking CEO, no matter what is going on in the world. - The four pillars of a fearless tribe. - The importance of ranking values in the proper order to drive decisions. - How to use virtual tools to keep the emotional bonding of belonging authentic. - The power of gratitude, in even the hardest of times.




Designing the Learning Moment


Book Description

A quick reference to the basic steps in creating good e-learning courses.




Surrendering to the Call


Book Description

This quick and easy-to-read book of humorous vignettes, taken from the author's daily life, provides readers with profound yet practical strategies to personally explore everyday occurrences. Readers are coached to step into their own authenticity, while embracing ambiguity and a sense of the unknown. Building on the book entitled, Rushing to Yoga, this book delves into a deeper level of self-exploration and personal insight. It is a must-read for anyone who is questioning their own sense of purpose.




Teachable Moments


Book Description

How do we understand what curriculum 'is' and 'does' for both learners and teachers? Using actual field-based vignettes, this book introduces teachable moment-oriented, emergent-oriented, and negotiation-oriented curricula practices, and explores how, while the three curricula notions are distinctively different from one another, they are simultaneously interconnected. Teachable Moments is a valuable resource for teachers at all levels. In addition, this is a book for senior undergraduate- and graduate-level early childhood curriculum courses, as well as graduate students and faculty who are interested in studying contemporary postmodern curricula discourses.




Problem Solving with Young Children


Book Description

Whether it’s building a rocket, learning to take turns, or forgetting a teaching material at home, both children and adults learn more from our mistakes than from our successes. Help children find solutions and learn to problem solve using teachable moments. Young children encounter problems, mistakes, and accidents that challenge them daily. Helping children conquer everyday frustrations fosters the creativity, critical thinking, and resilience that enables children to thrive in a formidable world. The ultimate guide to thinking on your feet, Problem Solving with Young Children will coach early childhood teachers, child care providers, and parents to develop a range of strategies to help young children become creative problem solvers, including: Questions to ask Ways to listen Strategies for brainstorming and trying solutions Suggestions for using the scientific method or design thinking to test ideas Methods for reflecting on what worked and what still needs improvement Featuring anecdotes and advice, and incorporating research on how children learn, emergent curriculum methods, problem-based learning, developmentally appropriate practices, and responsive pedagogies, this book will help you lead children through meaningful problem-solving processes and prepare tomorrow’s critical thinkers.




Killing ideas softly?


Book Description

Creativity is a hot topic in education. As such, there is no shortage of insights or suggestions for how teachers might incorporate creativity into their curriculum. Wading through these suggestions can, however, be quite daunting. This is because many of these suggestions imply that teachers need to somehow radically change their approach to teaching, adopt a new curriculum, or add-on to their existing curriculum. Consequently, many teachers feel that such changes are not feasible and may even come at the cost of supporting students’ academic learning. This book provides an alternative. Teachers need not adopt a new curriculum, radically change what they are already doing, or attempt to add more to their already overflowing plate of curricular responsibilities. Rather, teaching for and with creativity is often more about doing what one is already doing, only slightly better. The aim of this book is to help teachers understand how they can make slight changes to their own teaching, which can substantially support the development of students’ creative potential and result in a more creative approach to teaching. The insights and practical suggestions presented in this book represent some of the newest and most promising work being done in the field of creativity studies. This book is unique in that it presents teachers with concrete ideas for how to simultaneously support creativity and learning. A particularly novel feature of this book is that it offers a blend of theoretical insights and vivid classroom examples to illustrate the kinds of opportunities and challenges that teachers face when they attempt to teach for and with creativity. As such, this book will provide teachers, scholars, researchers, and anyone interested in classroom creativity with new directions for future research and educational practice.




Theatre and Learning


Book Description

As early as Plato, theorists acknowledged the power of theatre as a way of teaching young minds. Similarly, starting with Plato, philosophers occasionally adopted an anti-theatrical stance, worried by the “dangers” theatre posed to society. The relationships between learning and theatre have never been seen as straightforward, obvious, or without contradictions. This volume investigates the complexity of the intersection of theatre and learning, addressing both the theoretical and practical aspects of it. In three sections—Reflecting, Risking, and Re-imagining—theatre researchers, education scholars, theatre practitioners consider the tensions, frictions and failures that make learning through theatre, in theatre and about theatre interesting, engaging, and challenging. Loosely based on the proceedings from the 20th Festival of Original Theatre (F.O.O.T.), which took place in February 2012 at the University of Toronto, this book contains academic articles and interviews, as well as position, reflection and provocation papers from both established researchers in the field of Applied Theatre, such as Professor Helen Nicholson and Professor Kathleen Gallagher, as well as experienced and emergent scholars in Education, Theatre, Dance and Performance Studies. It also introduces the unorthodox work of the pre-eminent Swedish director and inventor of Babydrama, Suzanne Osten, to the academic audience. Theatre and Learning will be interesting to a wide range of audiences, such as theatre artists and students, theatre researchers and educators, and will be particularly useful for those teaching Theatre Theory and Practice, including Applied Theatre, in higher education.




Small Teaching


Book Description

Employ cognitive theory in the classroom every day Research into how we learn has opened the door for utilizing cognitive theory to facilitate better student learning. But that's easier said than done. Many books about cognitive theory introduce radical but impractical theories, failing to make the connection to the classroom. In Small Teaching, James Lang presents a strategy for improving student learning with a series of modest but powerful changes that make a big difference—many of which can be put into practice in a single class period. These strategies are designed to bridge the chasm between primary research and the classroom environment in a way that can be implemented by any faculty in any discipline, and even integrated into pre-existing teaching techniques. Learn, for example: How does one become good at retrieving knowledge from memory? How does making predictions now help us learn in the future? How do instructors instill fixed or growth mindsets in their students? Each chapter introduces a basic concept in cognitive theory, explains when and how it should be employed, and provides firm examples of how the intervention has been or could be used in a variety of disciplines. Small teaching techniques include brief classroom or online learning activities, one-time interventions, and small modifications in course design or communication with students.




Teachable Moments and the Science of Education


Book Description

This book develops a general theory of autonomous teaching by examining a mysterious educational idea: the teachable moment. By formulating an understanding of the teachable moment as predicated upon ‘educational energy,’ this book takes up John Dewey’s view of teaching to articulate a law-like, scientifically oriented pedagogical theory. By offering a testable hypothesis about effective teaching through an innovative reading of Dewey’s law, this book also provides insights into changes in school practice and schooling policy consonant with an understanding of teaching as a science.




College Success


Book Description