Hmm,

Thursday 27th.

The morning session focus was very hard to stay awake in.
It was about traditional teaching versus "metacognitive" teaching.

Tis' a pain in the backside kind of topic, and well, quite frankly it's not new to us, because the stuff has been at us for ages already.

The whole, teaching besides just the teacher talking thing is so yesterday, because all of our classes tell us about using problem based learning, proactive approaches, student engagement in activities and so forth.

Bah.

The tute group was more fun though, because we learnt all this stuff that was interesting, but nothing to do at all with education =).

Like how Vivian is a synthesese (spelling?)
She's one of those people who "see" colours with sounds, and when she reads words, the letters/words have "colours" on them. It's really cool stuff.
Then we learnt about cognition studies of babies and what you can do to trip them out.

Like, if you get a red ball, and you put it into a box with the baby watching, if the box is lifted and the baby is watching, it looks, gets bored, and looks away.
But, if you put the red ball in, make the ball dissapear inside the box (trapdoor or something), then remove the box, the baby looks at it and goes "what the!?" (well, it doesn't really say that, but the expression and interest level indicates it).
Then, if you put one red ball in the box, but when you lift the box, and there is two balls, the baby will also go "woah dude! What's going on??"

It indicates that babies have recognition of things, but if discrepant events occur (as related with Tony's lecture on Tuesday), then it makes them sit up and be more interested in it.

And we also learnt a poem on how to remember the Kings and Queens of England from William the Conqeror until the 1900 era.

Willy Willy Harry Ste,
Harry Dick John Harry 3,
1 2 3 Neds Richard 2,
Harry 4 5 6 then who?
Edward 4 5 Dick the Bad,
Harry Harry Ned the Lad,
Mary Bessie Jim the Vain,
Charlie twice and Jim again,
Bill and Mary, Anna gloria,
then 4 Georges, Bill Victoria.

Willy = William
Ste = Stephen
Dick = Richard
Ned = Edward
Bessie = Elizabeth
Jim = James
Bill = William
Anna gloria = Anne

very interesting stuff.

Then there was the one for star intensities

Be
A
Fine
Girl
Kiss
Me

(or something like that for BFAGKM).....

The classic for treble clef

Every
Boy
Deserves
Fruit

and
FACE.

Your first aid proceedures

DR ABC

We also discussed memory, and memory storage mechanisms such as visualisation and story relating.