| Topic: |
Religions > Atheism |
| User: |
"maff" |
| Date: |
27 Feb 2005 05:29:30 AM |
| Object: |
OT: Education |
In this school, the classroom revolution is now a reality - all 360
degrees of it
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,6903,1426369,00.html
Teachers circle the room in an experiment that could change the shape
of education. And the pupils love it. Vanessa Thorpe and Anushka
Asthana report
Sunday February 27, 2005
The Observer
Inside a dingy-looking prefab hut near the Toxteth area of Liverpool,
an experiment is determining the shape of things to come; or at least
the shape of the world as British schoolchildren will know it.
A new teaching system, revolutionary in more than one sense, has been
developed and tested in secret. Known as the 360 degree flexible
classroom, it challenges the techniques used by teachers down the ages.
Education
http://news.google.com/news?q=Education&num=100&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=gn
http://www.google.com/search?q=Education&num=100&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&tab=nw&sa=N
http://www.google.com/search?q=Education&num=100&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&output=search&cat=gwd/Top
http://groups.google.com/groups?as_q=Education&safe=images&ie=UTF-8&as_scoring=d&lr=&num=100&hl=en
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| User: "stoney" |
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| Title: Re: OT: Education |
02 Mar 2005 11:12:51 AM |
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On 27 Feb 2005 03:29:30 -0800, "maff" <maff91@yahoo.com> wrote:
In this school, the classroom revolution is now a reality - all 360
degrees of it
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,6903,1426369,00.html
Teachers circle the room in an experiment that could change the shape
of education. And the pupils love it. Vanessa Thorpe and Anushka
Asthana report
Sunday February 27, 2005
The Observer
Inside a dingy-looking prefab hut near the Toxteth area of Liverpool,
an experiment is determining the shape of things to come; or at least
the shape of the world as British schoolchildren will know it.
A new teaching system, revolutionary in more than one sense, has been
developed and tested in secret. Known as the 360 degree flexible
classroom, it challenges the techniques used by teachers down the ages.
Although the year eight boys of St Margaret's High School in Aigburth
look conventional enough as they file into class in their ties and
blazers, they are effectively entering a Tardis full of futuristic
gadgetry.
When their afternoon maths lesson begins, far from having to keep
themselves awake by flicking elastic bands at each other, they are
careering around the room on wheels.
Instead of simply standing at the front, their teacher, Tim Wadsworth,
circles them on a curved 'racetrack', occasionally taking up a
position on a podium in the centre of the room. No longer can
reluctant students skulk at the back of the class or plant themselves
on the periphery of the teacher's field of vision.
To the outsider the scene looks chaotic, but for the designers of this
prototype and the children who have studied in it for seven weeks now,
the classroom is a hit.
Twelve-year-old pupil Daniel Pinder, who has maths and German lessons
in the new round room, explained the benefits of the pilot project.
'We do much more group work now - it is better because of the shape of
the room. If the teachers ask us to get into groups of four we just
take the brakes off our chairs and move,' he said. His classmates sit
at their own Q-Pods, special table and chair units on wheels.
During a typical lesson last week the boys sat in sets of four,
hunched over large white boards, discussing work and gripping thick
marker pens. As Wadsworth circled his pupils, one boy chucked a board
cleaner at a friend, while another drew round the shape of his hand,
but most were clearly engrossed in their tasks. It may have been a
maths class but it could easily have been an art class, to judge by
the level of physical activity.
The white writing boards fit back on to the walls of the classroom so
the class's work can be discussed. To see this, the boys swivel round
on their seats, before swivelling back into a semi-circle around the
teacher to examine a diagram.
The wall boards can also become screens for computer projections,
while the temperature and light in the room are electronically
controlled. Mirrors mounted at three points serve as eyes in the back
of the teacher's head.
Thirteen-year-old Anthony Robson is impressed. 'In a normal classroom
they cram everything on one board and you can't see it. The only bad
thing about this classroom is its location - if the teacher is late we
have to stand in the rain,' he said.
The flexible classroom is one of 10 Design Council learning campaign
projects set up in schools around Britain. Constructed last year, it
has been in regular teaching use all this term. Now the Design Council
hopes the project will influence the way every school is built, ahead
of a huge national education investment programme.
The government is to spend £5.2 billion on refurbishing and building
schools in the first major investment for three decades. On top of
this sum, each year over £1bn is spent on furniture, decoration and
maintenance. The Design Council team believe this money should be
spent with imagination, rather than just copying the old fashioned
classroom blueprint.
'When schools are given money they think, "Great, we can have a new
computer lab," but they do not really think about the environment,'
said Toby Greany of the Design Council. 'This classroom works so well
because the racetrack around the room means there is no back of the
class. There have been some teething problems but this is only a
protoptype.'
Consigning the teacher to a desk at the front is thought to stop him
or her thinking freely, while the cheaper chairs commonly used in
schools can cause back pain over the 15,000 hours spent sitting down
in an average school life. The round classroom also eradicates the
so-called 'attention zone', a triangle immediately in front of the
teacher which inevitably receives 90 per cent of his or her attention.
David Dennison, headmaster of St Margaret's, said he had been unhappy
with traditional classroom design for some time. 'I felt it didn't
suit modern teaching,' he said. 'That doesn't mean we don't use modern
skills here, but it involves moving a lot of furniture. So we were
completely sold on the idea of classroom that would operate in many
ways at one time - for role play and for projecting on to a number of
surfaces.'
Thirteen-year-old pupil Phillip Harper agreed. 'It is much better than
other classrooms, the chairs are better, you can spin around and see
the teacher.
'It is also much more fun. We get the boards down all the time and
work together - before we would work more on our own in maths. This
has made maths much more fun than it used to be,' he said.
The Department for Education and Skills has supported the scheme and
watched with curiosity. Mike Gibbons of the department's innovations
unit, which also supported the Joined Up Design For Schools project
now on display at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, has been
impressed.
'What you need is as much flexibility as possible when building
schools,' he said. 'What you don't want to do is to trap yourself into
one design. The 360 degree classroom is wonderful. It offers maximum
flexibility.'
© Guardian Newspapers Limited 2005
--
Contempt of Congress meter reading-offscale.
Hello, theocracy with a fundamentalist US Supreme
Court who will ensure church and state are joined
at the hip like clergy and altar boys.
America 1776-Jan 2001 RIP
Religion is the original war crime.
-Michelle Malkin (Feb 26, 2005)
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| User: "Al Klein" |
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| Title: Re: OT: Education |
02 Mar 2005 08:49:52 PM |
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On Wed, 02 Mar 2005 09:12:51 -0800, stoney <stoney@the.net> said in
alt.atheism:
A new teaching system, revolutionary in more than one sense, has been
developed and tested in secret. Known as the 360 degree flexible
classroom, it challenges the techniques used by teachers down the ages.
My daughter's 3rd grade teacher did something very similar ... in
1984.
--
rukbat at verizon dot net
"We should do unto others as we would want them to do unto us. If I were an unborn
fetus I would want others to use force to protect me, therefore using force against
abortionists is *justifiable homocide*."
- "Pro-Life" doctor killer and corpse Paul Hill
(random sig, produced by SigChanger)
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