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Live Event: The Neuroscience of Learning – How the Brain Works & How it Learns

Dr Mark Williams is a Professor of Cognitive Neuroscience, Author, International Speaker and Facilitator. He is the Director of Rethinking the Brain. Join us on this informative session on how the brain works and how we learn!

Understanding how our brains learn is essential for parents and teachers. 

In the past 20 years, there has been a dramatic increase in our understanding of the human brain, how it develops and learns and how best to teach students. 

It is an extremely exciting time with the advent of modern technology we can now see inside the brains of people while they are thinking, learning and feeling. It has resulted in some amazing new discoveries about how our brain works and how it changes throughout our lives. 

These new findings allow us to understand each other better than ever before. This means that many of the older ideas and strategies around learning and memory have been shown to be incorrect and recent findings paint a very different picture of the human brain and its capacity to learn. 

This is an opportunity to learn about our new understanding of the brain and adapt your teaching practices to incorporate many of these findings into your own teaching strategies. 

We will discuss many of the recent findings and the new concepts and ideas around the neuroscience of learning.

About Mark:
Mark runs programs for schools, parents, businesses, and individuals on the neuroscience of learning, the neuroscience of emotions, and the impact of modern technologies (like smartphones) on our brain. Learning outcomes, resilience, curiosity, tolerance, and emotional intelligence are all declining whilst stress, anxiety, depression, and suicide are rising. Money and technology alone are not the answer to innovative practices in our schools, workplaces, and society. We need a significant shift in our understanding.

Mark is available to work with schools through a rigorous evidence based approach to enhance learning and leadership.

Please reach out to him via his website: https://www.drmarkwilliams.com/

Follow him on Social Media:
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mark-williams-4b401354/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TheDrMarkWilliams/

Live Lesson: Designing a Poster to Change the World

During this lesson, we will work creatively to design a poster to help save the world. 

We will watch several videos together and then using the inspiration from these, we will design a poster that will help other people understand the importance of taking care of the planet. 

Once the poster is ready, we will place it in the street, in a library or in a shop window to help other people understand that there is no planet B! You will need paper, pencils and colours and your creativity for this lesson!

Painting Pillars for Change

A dedicated group of students at the RISSE Xperiential School in Maharastra, a state in North Western India, are taking local change to the next level!

After attending a live lesson on Designing a Poster to Change the World presented by Upschool’s Gavin McCormack – they were inspired to go one step further.

“We had a brainstorming session with the students, as to what they would like to do to make an impact and take this poster making session further”. RISSE Principal Meghaa Ahuja said.

The students came up with different ideas, and they decided on the painting of the pillars, “because it would stay forever”.

“Their messages will be visible to parents, other students, teachers and visitors to our school for years to come”, Principal Ahuja explained.

RISSE Xperiential School truly understands the importance of empowering children and allowing them to explore all of their ideas, even if they may be from left field!

Upschool teacher Gavin McCormack was elated with the students action taking.

“I’m feeling blessed to do this kind of work, it makes me so happy”, was his response to learning of the project.

“Small actions like this will have a big impact tomorrow”, he said.

We asked Mrs Ahuja what is next?

“We are so happy to raise students who will make this world a better place”, Mrs Ahuja said.

“They feel proud that their art work is leaving an impression on the minds of children from other grades, parents and visitors”

“Other students are finding a wall in their community to paint. They don’t want to stop and are using painting as a means to spread awareness and make a difference”.

“They feel empowered and confident that their actions can make an impact”.

Well done, RISSE Xperiential School, you truly are a team of Change Makers!

Becoming More Eco-Friendly

Modelling the behaviour we wish to view in our children is one of the key components of guiding our children towards being more ethically and morally sound human beings in the future

And whilst it may be very difficult for us to attempt to save the world ourselves, making small changes today collectively, can have larger impacts on the way the world works, 

Whilst doing so, we can also influence the mindset of our children as they grow and develop into being wonderful human beings in the future.

This very simple guide towards being more eco-friendly as a household can be downloaded, printed, and discussed within your household and these simple goals can be achieved to make your home and the future of the world a much better place for everybody.

Use this chart as a very simple guide or discussion tool with your entire family.

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Parent Resources – Phonics Chart

Before we can even consider teaching, our students and children how to read, we must first understand what the meaning of phonics is

Phonemes are the sounds that letters make when we say them out loud. Graphemes are the sound of two or three letters combined together to make a new sound. We call these Phonics.

Use the chart attached to understand all of the phonemes and phonics sounds which will allow you and your children to decode any word whilst learning to read sentences, paragraphs and even complete books.

This chart can be kept on the wall in the bedroom, in the library, or even on the fridge and used at any point when a child or a parent is attempting to decode a new word.

Parent Resources – How to Save the World from your Home!

Everyone can help limit climate change. From the way we travel, to the electricity we use and the food we eat, we can make a difference.

Start with these ten actions to help tackle the climate crisis and help set the example to the children of tomorrow, that the planet and nature are our greatest resources and we should work together to protect and preserve them as much as possible.

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Travel Diary: July 10-15. The long and winding road (home)!

Date: 10th – 15th July

So we received some interesting news on the 10th of July, just as we were to start the journey home. Unfortunately, the SAS airline strike was ongoing and our flight from Longyearbyen to Oslo at 2.30pm had been cancelled! We disembarked early at 9am and made our way to a nearby hotel to either figure out some other way home or wait out the strike.

We decided to write this last blog to combine the next few days of our journey, because it ended up taking us so long to get home that we are now trying to repress the memory!

It took hours of refreshing the page, but eventually Gavin managed to find us four seats on an SAS flight out of Longyearbyen that would definitely (hopefully!) be leaving on the 11th. We quickly snapped those up but then it was on to the more daunting task of how to get home from Oslo – by the time we arrived, we would have missed our previous connecting flight.

On the 12th morning after a delicious buffet breakfast, we met up in the hotel lounge area and basically spent the next ten hours trying to work out the best and most economical way of flying home to Sydney without breaking the bank and/or our will to live. Eventually we settled on what was to be a 50-hour journey. We had one more night in Oslo and then the journey would begin with our first flight at 9.30am on the 13th. Oslo to Bucharest. Bucharest to Doha. Doha to Maldives. Maldives to Singapore. Singapore to Sydney. Touchdown at 11am on the 15th.

Somehow we made it back with hardly any complaints – we even got to make a quick run to our favourite curry house in Singapore, ‘Banana Leaf’, because that stopover was for about 6 hours!

With the journey (finally) at an end, we can safely say that we have achieved our mission to bring the Arctic’s most important issues to the fingertips of those who may not ever have the chance to experience it. Hopefully one day soon, we will be able to create a new educational program for Upschool.co from the next exciting location – the Antarctic!

See you again soon and thanks for reading!

Love from the A Team 
Tanya, Gavin, Richard & Graeme

Travel Diary: St Jonsfjord, Steinpynten. Farewelling the Greg Mortimer.

Date: 9th July
Latitude & longitude: 78.15°N, 12.55°E
Wind speed: 14 knots
Wind direction: W
Barometer:  1010 hPa
Air temperature: 5°C
Sea temperature: 4°C

Total polar bear count: 9!

We woke early today feeling a little bit sad because it was to be our last day on board the Greg Mortimer! Breakfast was a quiet affair but we all perked up when the first Zodiac cruise for the day was announced. No matter how often we cruised around in those Zodiacs, it was impossible to get bored – the Arctic sights always offered something new to amaze and delight us.

Today, we cruised to a large glacier in an area called St Jonsfjord. Once again, we were in awe of the massive scale of the glacier before us. As we drifted through the growlers and bergy bits, we were lucky enough to spot a seal playing in the waters! Growlers and bergy bits are the scientific names for the different sizes of icebergs. Icebergs break off from the glacier in an event known as ‘calving’ and they vary in shape and size. If they are less than 1 metre high and 5 metres long, they are called growlers, and if they are 1 – 5 metres high and 5 – 15 metres long they are called bergy bits.

In the afternoon we were able to make one final landing and a hike on Steinpynten – there were no bears in sight! Steinpynten is a spot just near the entrance to Forlandet National Park, which is known for the world’s most northerly population of stone seals and the world’s northernmost breeding population of guillemots. The terrain on Steinpynten is a barren tundra of mostly rocks and some sparse grass and flowers. It was a crisp and cool day and though we were sad it would be our last Arctic Adventure, we were fortunate to have great weather once more to enjoy it.

Back on the ship, we met up in the lecture room for final drinks and a farewell from the Captain, and Aurora Expeditions showed us all the amazing photos we had all taken, compiled in a beautiful slideshow they had created for us. They handed out some fun certificates – one for ‘SOAR’ – the Society of Arctic Rowers, and one for ‘SOAP’ – the Society of Arctic Plungers! The plungers also got a free t-shirt – ‘I survived the polar plunge!’

Dinner tonight was a sombre event as we all came to terms with the adventure coming to an end. Tomorrow we would be disembarking early and flying back to Oslo for one more night before heading home to Sydney.

See you tomorrow and thanks for reading!

Love from the A Team 

Tanya, Gavin, Richard & Graeme