As I tend to associate the month of September with education, this month’s newsletter profiles some world renowned teachers.
I could name quite a few teachers who have motivated and encouraged me and I know those of us that work in education really hope we bring a spark of inspiration to our students.
If you are studying this month, you may be interested in the advice of Benedict Carey, who wrote the book “How We Learn”. Read on for Benedict’s tips on maximising your learning potential.
Have a good month!
Sinead
The following educators have gone above and beyond their day to day role. They are the three most recent winners of the Global Teacher Prize.
The winner in 2021 was Keishia Thorpe an English teacher in Maryland, United States. The vast majority of students at Keishia’s school are from low income families and she teaches students who do not speak English as their first language. Keishia came to America from Jamaica so had her own experience of being an immigrant in the US. Her contribution to her students includes redesigning the curriculum to make it more relatable, founding a sports organisation to help students gain Track & Field scholarships and she also dedicates time to helping students apply for other college scholarships. In the academic year 2018-2019, her students won scholarships worth almost $7 million at 11 different colleges.
Ranjitsinh Disale, a primary school teacher in Maharashtra, India was the winner in 2020. He has been particularly influential in using technology in education and in promoting education for girls. In the 10 years that he has been at his school, female participation in education has increased from 2% to 100%. Girls that were previously getting married at the age of 12 or 13 are now continuing with schooling. Ranjitsinh initiated using QR codes with textbooks to make education more accessible for all learners. This hybrid approach also helped during Covid related lockdowns. His innovations have been rolled out across India and he is an advisor in Education at the World Bank.
2019’s winner was a Maths and Science teacher from Nakuru County in Kenya. Peter Tabichi is also a Franciscan Brother who donates 80% of his salary to support students. His school is located in a rural area which faces droughts and floods, as well as poor infrastructure and facilities. Peter has improved opportunities for his students by creating a Peace Club and a talent nurturing club. His involvement in the science club has meant 60% of his students are now qualifying for national competitions. Enrolment and progression to university have all increased significantly via Peter’s influence.
To Do or Not To Do – Is that the question?
If you are facing into a new academic year or a new course at work, you may be interested in the wisdom from “How We Learn?” by Benedict Carey. Benedict is a New York Times journalist who wrote this book in 2014. The book is an engaging look at the biology of the brain and the science of learning.
Specifically, Benedict challenges the notion that hard work and constant study are the only routes to academic success.
He offers the following (based on the science he has researched) as worthwhile approaches to learning.
- Vary your study location and time – different study environments aid retention and memory.
- Space out your study time – it is better to study for an hour a day over three days than have one three hour study session on one day.
- Practice doing tests –also called retrieval practice as the brain goes to the extra effort of remembering information to answer a question. This extra effort does more to retain information than simply going back over study notes or marking a passage with a highlighter pen.
- Distraction or taking a break can be a good strategy to make a breakthrough in problem solving.
- Interleaving – this is a study method that involves mixing related topics or question types rather than being 100% focussed on just one piece of material. Benedict argues that this approach may also help us be more prepared when something unexpected occurs. Perhaps because it gives us experience with switching and adapting.
- The next piece of advice sounds like something all teachers say – “start projects early, don’t leave things to the last minute”. Benedict gives us the science behind why this is a good idea. He uses the words “interruption” and “percolation” to explain the strategy. Benedict argues that once we make a start, we activate interest and then we become aware of other pieces of information, conversations etc. that might relate to our topic – we become tuned in and start to absorb and analyse our topic. Psychologist, Bluma Zeigarnik, conducted a study in the 1920s which concluded that we find it easier to remember incomplete tasks rather than those we’ve finished. So if we can start early and interrupt ourselves, our goal remains at the forefront of our minds and we allow the information we research to percolate in our brains. The overall result being, we complete our task with greater motivation and we create a higher quality project than if rushing through the whole thing the day before the deadline.
- If you haven’t already guessed it, the final learning tip is…sleep! I like this quote from Benedict, “I think of sleep as learning with my eyes closed.”
“Education is the kindling of a flame, not the filling of a vessel.” Socrates
“The beautiful thing about learning is that nobody can take it away from you”. B.B. King
“Anyone who stops learning is old, whether at twenty or eighty”.Henry Ford
Sinead Huskisson 