Middle Years, Thinking Curriculum, and VELS^

*Using a picture book can be a great springboard. The woman leading the seminar had a book called Photographs in the Mud, from the Aust War Memorial, about the Kokoda Trail – a Japanese and Australian soldier dying together, sharing photos of their loved ones (very sad, very touching – seriously).

*Got some good hand-outs… one interesing idea for thinking about objects is SCUMPS:
Size – what size is the object now, what size could it be?
Colour – what is it now, could be?
Uses – could be used for?
Material – what is it now, was it appropriate then and is it still?
Parts – can anything be changed?
Shape – appropriate then and/or now?

I also liked BAR:
Bigger }
Added } Then vs now
Replaced }

*A unit’s activities can (should?) be divided into:
Tuning in –> Finding out –> Sorting out –> Assessment (self, peer, teacher).

*Thinkers’ Keys are cool too… I’m guessing it might be breaching copyright to talk about all of them, since they come from a book and all, but I especially like the one where you say the answer is “William the Conqueror” – what are the questions? (Who won at Hastings, who Scourged the North, who built the Tower of London… whose son mortgaged his inheritance to go crusading… who was a bastard…).

Seminar 2 was a waste of an hour. Wasn’t made obvious at all that what the seminar was, was a dude basically spruiking for his medieval incursion business.

^VELS=Victorian Essential Learning Standards. Blech, yadda yadda, etc.