Problem-solving is what you do when ….

Problem solving is what you do when you don’t know what to do. – Alinda.

That’s just one of the things we learned yesterday at the new teachers orientation in Kenyon. Each teacher had five minutes to present a lesson to the group. These were videotaped and the playback classes used as a starting point for the discussion of learning, teaching and the mission of the school.

And great lessons they were too. I learned about:

the life cycle of the monarch butterfly
multi-track digital recording
statistical presentation of classroom generated data
how to calculate the milk and the chocolate – turning an everyday problem into algebra
density and why do rocks sink and feathers float
drawing from concept versus drawing from observation
etymology and the true meaning of a word and
how to speak French

We have some wonderful new teachers at PDS and I hope that they soon feel right at home. We have a lot to learn from all of them. Here are a few more pics of the day.