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Pre-Conference Menu Singapore, site of the 2004 IASCE conference, is world-renowned for its delicious multi-cultural food. And, the menu of sessions at the one-day, 21 June pre-conference event preceding the IASCE conference promises an appetizing menu of delights for the mind. Indeed, the chefs at the Conference Organizing Committee have outdone themselves in terms of the variety and quality of the offering. The sessions are in two strands: Early Childhood and General Education. Here’s what’s on tap. See the conference website - http://www.arts.nie.edu.sg/iasce - for bios of the session leaders. Strand A: Early Childhood Education Morning Keynote sessions include: Keynote One: Little Kids Can Cooperate Recent brain research has led to increasing awareness of the importance of early childhood education in setting children on the path toward success in learning and in life. One area in which children’s capabilities have been underestimated in the past is the area of perspective taking and cooperation. This session will outline the capabilities of young children to collaborate and the ways in which cooperative activities can be structured to make them appropriate for young children. Participants will engage in interactive activities to apply these understandings to promote young children’s oral language and interpersonal learning.
Dr Bette Chambers Keynote Two: Using the ARTS for Cooperative Learning in Early Childhood Education The ARTs come naturally to preschoolers. Children learn best when all their senses are put to use. The ARTs have a way of doing that. Using data from studies of the role of theatre in Child Development (setting the stage for learning), the speaker will focus on specific experiences that can be provided to children. The possible outcomes demonstrate use of the ARTs in cooperative learning, particularly in the socio-emotional aspects, such as role taking, anticipating others’ needs, empathising and enjoying while learning.
Dr.
Meera Oke WORKSHOPS
Cooperation in Curiosity Corner There will be a sharing of ideas from Curiosity Corner, the comprehensive preschool reform program from the Success for All Foundation. Curiosity Corner includes:
Participants will take part in peer interaction to create engaging interactive activities that they can use with their students.
Encouraging Cooperative Learning
in Early Childhood Education Preschoolers, in a way, are apprentices and, although egocentric, also learn by participating in activities done with peers and others around them. In this workshop, participants will be taken through a process enabling them to experience performing arts activities that encourage cooperative learning. The activities include use of drama and other arts, which are multi-sensorial. Participants will also discuss the organizing of such learning experiences. The facilitator will share information from the Indian situation and help participants to relate and plan, keeping their own individual work contexts in mind.
Kids & Maths: Developing
Mathematical Literacy through Group Activities Participants will engage in a range of learning activities for pre-schoolers that harness group and play processes to develop mathematical literacy. The learning activities include the use of concrete materials, children’s literature, and games, as well as interdisciplinary tasks to help children develop concepts, solve problems, and develop good habits of mind. Participants will concurrently acquire an understanding the different facets of mathematical literacy.
"I Move, I Feel, I Learn:" A
Multi-sensory Physical Play Experience Much of the learning during the early years is through play and movement. Current neuroscience research confirms that movement and physical play contribute significantly to the cognitive, psychomotor, affective, and physical development of children. Participants will learn some basics of early brain development and will engage in a range of multi-sensory activities which integrate fundamental motor skills, language, math concepts, adventure, and music. (Participants should dress in PE attire.)
Using Group-based Learning to
Develop Social Competence in Preschool Children Participants will be introduced to a variety of group learning activities which afford children the opportunity to develop a positive self-concept, appropriate pro-social behaviour, and crucial interpersonal skills to help them effectively interact with peers and adults. Model lesson plans which include a wide range of developmentally appropriate activities will be presented for participants to discuss and modify according to their own social settings. Tools for evaluating and assessing children’s ability to work in collaborative group settings will also be examined and discussed.
My Friend Taught Me to Read: A
Cooperative Learning Strategy for Preschool Young children are capable of successfully and happily learning language in a collaborative manner. Children learn not only vertically, from teachers and other adults, but also horizontally. Indeed, children benefit from interacting with peers as part of a discovery process in which all children are responsible for helping their team members learn. Workshop participants will discuss the philosophy underlying this approach to early childhood literacy. Participants will then have opportunities to experience activities used in implementing the approach.
Strand B: General Education
Group Investigation: Linking
Project Work and Cooperative Learning The goals of the workshop are to create a mini-“inquiring community” to explore the essential features of Group Investigation and its application. In a Group Investigation project, students ask questions, seek answers to their questions, and interpret information in light of their knowledge, ideas, experiences, and abilities. Group Investigation is the most extensively researched of the task specialization cooperative learning methods. In this workshop, teachers will learn how to guide students through the stages of Group Investigation and how to integrate other cooperative learning methods and structures in the project.
Managing Conflict for Cooperative
Groups and Learning Conflict is the most misunderstood aspect of cooperative work and learning. Conflict not only pervades cooperation, it can very much contribute to relationships and learning. Recent research in Asia confirms previous North American findings that a cooperative approach to discussing differences, opposing views, and other conflicts stimulates the exploration and integration of opposing ideas to create quality solutions. Participants will discuss and debate the role of conflict in cooperation and how Asian values might promote constructive conflict. They will also practice cooperative conflict skills and discuss how they can help others develop these skills.
Collaborative and Problem-based
Learning Problem-based learning (PBL) has been infused into school curricula to enhance lifewide skills such as multidisciplinary inquiry, problem-solving, self-directed learning, collaboration, meta-cognition, and learning how to learn. Whilst PBL appears to be a promising methodology, successful implementation entails effective design of the PBL environment and facilitation of collaborative learning. This workshop will provide practical insights on the why, what, and how of collaboration in PBL curricula. Participants will learn cognitive and emotional coaching skills, facilitation skills, and mediation skills for collaborative learning in PBL. The e-learning aspect of PBL collaboration will also be covered.
The ABCs of Complex Instruction
(CI): An Introductory Look at the Strategies and Components That Make Up
This Cooperative Learning Model In Complex Instruction, developed at Stanford University, groups of students do challenging tasks that involve a variety of abilities in addition to language and computational abilities. Workshop participants will be introduced to the use of Complex Instruction strategies and materials. Activities will include interactive exercises to build competence in cooperative learning process skills, cooperative engagement in CI content that has participants experience what students actually do in the classroom, and attention to features in the CI model that make it a powerful mediator in the relationship between status, expectations for competence and the self-fulfilling prophecy.
Cooperative Learning Structures,
Enhanced Student Outcomes, and Brain Science Participants experience and process a range of cooperative learning structures and evaluate evidence that enhanced student outcomes are explained via theory and empirical findings from brain science. Participants view active brain imaging plates demonstrating enhanced activation during cooperative learning, and examine empirical evidence indicating different cooperative learning structures activate specific and different brain regions. Five principles of brain-friendly instruction are derived and structures to implement those principles are presented. Among the cooperative learning structures experienced and processed are Listen Right! Logic Line-Ups, Find My Rule and Boss Secretary.
Collaborative Approaches to
Professional Learning and Reflection Participants will understand the importance of working collaboratively to improve student learning. They will participate in several reflective models, such as collegial coaching, study groups, lesson study and professional dialogue groups, to develop their skills. A menu of collegial reflective practices and ways to establish organizational structures to support them will also be developed. Participants will then plan how they can transfer these ideas, practices and skills to their own contexts.
Celebratory Learning and
Differentiated Instruction: What are they? How do I do them?
We will explore the elements for optimum "Celebratory Learning" and "Differentiated Learning" environments for teachers. Celebratory Learning and Differentiated Learning combine positive interdependence, individual accountability, equal participation, play, humor, connections to previous learning, and theme-and need-based learning in a brain compatible environment. Participants will leave with many strategies to incorporate into their work. This session emphasizes the changing role of staff developers. We will move you beyond the realm of a one expert-based delivery system. On this journey, learners will be involved in their own learning, and we will celebrate the expert in all of us.
Fish Banks and Beyond: A
simulation exploring resource management, and cooperation and competition Fish Banks is a computer-assisted participatory simulation game developed by a team including Dennis Meadows, co-author of Limits to Growth and Beyond the Limits. The participants (from 11+ to adults) explore the behaviour of a dynamic complex system that includes environmental, economical and sociological structures of which the participants themselves become a part. The game provides insight not only into the management of renewable resources - whatever they may be - but also into participants' co-operative and competitive behaviours. There is one computer operated by the facilitator, up to six teams of players and a common sea, which is represented by a joint game board. Cooperative Learning Is Not Just for During Class: Strategies for out-of-classtime academic cooperation
Facilitated by George Jacobs Most people think of cooperative learning as students learning together during class sessions. However, student-student learning can also take place beyond normal class time. Such out-of-classtime academic cooperation (OCAC) can be organized by the school or university, by individual teachers or instructors, or by students on their own. Forms of OCAC include cross-age tutoring, study groups, extended library hours, and online collaboration. Purposes include exam preparation, assignment completion, and enrichment. The workshop leaders provide a rationale for OCAC and describe forms that it can take. Then, participants work together to plan how to apply the concept to their own educational contexts.
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