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Friday March 14th, 2025 Program Bergen
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Friday March 21st, 2025 Program Bodø
A picture is worth a thousand words. Lynda LeBlanc
Choose from a collection of iconic American photos and write a tale of danger, of joy, of loss, or even of love
A picture is worth a thousand words. Choose from a collection of iconic American photos and write a tale of danger, of joy, of loss, or even of love_Lynda LeBlanc
A young boy practicing his bull riding skills for a rodeo. Buffalos roaming the hills of South Dakota. Girls having fun on skateboards. Which photo interests you and why?
In this workshop you will select one quintessentially American photo from photos provided and discuss with a partner what you see. Then, you will imagine what is happening in the photo. Using the photo as a tool, teachers will be guided through a writing process with a focus on conflict.
Unlock Creativity: Design Thinking for Effective Teaching Don Jenkins
Design thinking is not new, but it can be powerful to assist students in learning content while helping them create innovative solutions connected to what they are learning in class. Examples include creating a museum exhibit in history class, designing an invention to help a character solve a problem in language arts, or even a school wide design challenge to kick off the school year.
In this workshop, teachers will learn what design thinking is, look at some examples of design thinking lessons in all subjects, and have some time to develop a design thinking lesson for their classroom.
A Picture’s Worth a Thousand More: Visual Literacy and Reading Without the Lines Jeffery Spanke
Since its earliest days, Western culture has privileged words over images, the latter, Nick Sousanis argues, having “long been sequestered to the realm of spectacle and aesthetics, sidelined in serious discussions as mere illustration to support the text—never as equal partner.” But what if, in the spirit of “unflattening” our fixed viewpoint and engaging a spirit of critical inquiry, we can teach students to fuse words and images to produce new forms of knowledge? What happens when we learn to access modes of perception that exceed the boundaries of what we traditionally apprehend?
This workshop focuses on activating students’ multimodal/media literacies and curious imaginations. Through accommodating and evaluating differing vantage points, students can grow to cultivate their inquisitive natures, capacities for empathy, and civic identities.
The Medium and the Message: Teaching Writing and Feeding Curiosity in the Digital Age Nicole J. Camastra
Good writing is anything but efficient because it is a recursive process. We know only what we want to say after we try saying it many times over: draft, edit, revise, repeat. Students don’t like this; they want to sit down, write their paper start to finish, and move on. Moreover, they tend to rely on technology to do it. Technology gives the illusion of productivity, but it doesn’t necessarily make their writing better, and students often lack the confidence to realize this. Comprised of two major parts, this workshop will provide 1) a framework and tools for working alongside AI in the classroom, including inquiry-based approaches to composition that help offset the temptation of AI by feeding curiosity; and 2) practical tips for helping students improve their writing on the sentence level so that, maybe, they will prefer their prose to that of Chat GPT.
This workshop does not pretend to have the answers to all the questions about AI or Ed Tech, but it will provide some actionable steps teachers can take to start considering how and why they teach writing.
Inquiry in vocational English Majlinda Vokshi
This session will present an ongoing project from the Norwegian National Centre for English and Foreign Languages in Education. The project focuses on integrating inquiry-based practices into vocational English education. Inquiry-based learning as an approach designed to meet the specific needs of vocational programs will be introduced. Participants will explore how this approach can foster critical thinking, problem-solving, and deeper engagement, key elements that contribute to success in vocational education. A central aspect of the workshop will be an overview of a lesson plan that has been trialed in vocational classrooms.
This lesson plan demonstrates how inquiry-based methods can be applied in real teaching scenarios and highlights their potential to enhance student participation and improve learning outcomes. Resources to support vocational educators in adopting inquiry-based practices will be shared.
Escape Room in the English Classroom Gini Lockhart-Pedersen
This workshop explores the potential of escape rooms in English Language Learning. You will experience a hybrid escape room combining physical and digital elements, gaining firsthand insight into the approach. We will then discuss how escape rooms can enhance inquiry-based practices in language acquisition, reflecting on how the method can support pupils in inquiry-based processes and motivate them to practice their communicative competences.
The session presents practical ways to integrate escape room elements into your English classroom.