Reflections from NCTE, Part II

The end of the NCTE conference was just as satisfying as the beginning. 

The last session I attended was a presentation by Kylene Beers.  I've heard her speak before and she is an incredible speaker.  She speaks with utter sincerity and caring for her students.  She is also incredibly funny and down to earth. 

The work she is doing right now is with doctors at Yale University who seem to be doing brain research.  She is making the connection with education.  Something that she shared with us is that they are finding that the more a piece of information connects with prior knowledge and conceptions, the more the brain "lights up" indicating that the piece of information is moving into long-term storage.

Fascinating stuff.

She shared some methods for helping students with vocabulary.  Great stuff, much of which is in her book, When Kids Can't Read, What Teachers Can Do.

Comments

[Dana Huff]

I wanted to go this year, but couldn't. I'm glad it was a great learning experience. I'm going to try to go next year. Maybe we'll bump into each other.