Abstract/Notes: This article presents descriptions from seven schools of how they are applying research in neuroscience and the cognitive sciences to student learning. Braemar College, Woodend, Victoria implemented Fast ForWord with the knowledge of independently verified results in 2008 to assist students deemed to be at risk academically. Concordia College, Highgate, SA has implemented Brain Week since 2005. It aims to provide Year 8 students with the capacity to understand how their brain works ad to understand what happens to their brain when they learn. The Montessori International College, Buderim, Qld uses the Montessori curriculum to precisely trigger brain functions that are the building blocks of learning and personality. Ravenswood School for Girls Gordon NSW is reviewing its pastoral care program to provide an authentic program which will guide adolescents as they transverse the middle years and promotes student wellbeing, and which has at its base a deep understanding of the changes the adolescent brain is undergoing. St. Michael's Collegiate School, Hobart, Tas is using an executive function mindset to help all students in areas such as planning, organising, prioritising, initiating, sustaining, shifting and self monitoring. This, combined with focused effort, positive self concept, and strategic mindsets, are key to student success across all grades. Scotch Oakburn College, Launceston, Tas is considering brain based maths learning, which in beginning arithmetic takes advantage of the learner's number sense, subitising and counting strategies by making connections to new mathematical operations, so that multiplication tables become tools leading to a deeper understanding of mathematics, rather than an end unto themselves. With the wealth of research evidence growing about the plasticity of the brain, Wilderness School, Medindie, SA designed and implemented in 2011 a 'Thinking and Learning' unit for all Year 9 girls on mindsets.

Language: English

ISSN: 1324-2326

Abstract/Notes: New research has reinforced what Maria Montessori worked out 100 years ago. Finger tracing enhances learning, Sue Osborne writes.

Language: English

ISSN: 1320-9825

Language: English

Published: London, England: George G. Harrap and Co., 1947

Language: English

ISSN: 0065-9444

Language: English

ISSN: 0065-9444

Language: English

ISSN: 0065-9444

Language: English

ISSN: 0065-9444

Language: English

ISSN: 0010-700X

Abstract/Notes: "MORE Abstracts 2003? This work examines the early possibility of written language acquisition and describes a direct experience. In the London course of 1946, Maria Montessori said that the letters of the alphabet should be in children’s bedrooms from very early on and that she would also like to have floating letters in order to use them at children bath time. The composition of words is the precursory act of the super-language we call “reading and writing” and must not necessarily boil down to the mere writing and reading activity itself. Indeed, for Maria Montessori, “it is worth separating this act which can be clearly independent of its higher utilizations”. On the suggestion of a Montessori teacher of unquestionable experience, polished letters were presented to a one-year-old child. The great interest the child showed for this material seems to confirm the “hunger for words” that is typical of this phase, already described by Montessori and then confirmed by Nobel prize-winner John Eccles. The child we observed also showed he could use this material almost immediately to compose words like zio (“uncle”), cane (“dog”), his own name, Raul, and others besides. However, when he tried to compose the word gatto (“cat”), he found himself in insurmountable difficulty and turned to an adult saying, “No, gato no, gatto”, showing he clearly understood the sounds making up the word and thus the letters needed to compose it (gatto). This impossibility was connected to the fact that the polished letters have only one example of each letter. Therefore, a system of mobile alphabet letters was introduced so that the child could continue his fascinating work of word composition which greatly interested him. A study is being made in some child communities, in cooperation with the Montessori Studies Centre, in order to repeat this observation and to finally heed Maria Montessori’s recommendation: “Education must start at birth and the first two years are the most important for all the acquisitions of the psychic embryo”.

Language: English

ISSN: 2281-8375

Abstract/Notes: Reprint from v. 1, no. 1 (Nov 1965): p. 4

Language: English

ISSN: 0010-700X