Curriculum21 — Learning from a Book

Learning from a Book

Curriculum 21 by Heidi Hayes Jacobs

You must have noticed that I have been reading and re-reading “Curriculum 21” by Heidi Hayes Jacobs. I have posted my first impressions and recommendation here and since then have joined and written about the companion Ning to the book here. I created a Flickr Curriculum 21 group to have a hub for images and videos of Curriculum21 teaching and learning examples.

I was inspired by quotes from the book to write the following blog posts Geography is a Separate Subject. Really? and “It Isn’t the Answer Anymore, It is the Question”.

Curriculum 21 is a book that is just FULL of information, ideas, thoughts, research, recommendations and exactly about the change in education, life, skills, literacies, and global competencies I am contemplating and working for.

Unfortunately, the book is not available as a Kindle Edition, which means, I am relying on sticky notes and highlighters as a way to make the rows and rows of text more appealing to my visual eye as well as a way to find passages and quotes more quickly later on.

Stickies and Highlights

I am conducting an experiment about my own learning style. How can I read this book and best:

filter out the information that I want to keep?
make connections to my previous thoughts, ideas and blog posts?
remember quotes from different chapters?
make the text content more visual for my brain?

I am eager to find out:

Will I be able to learn about the content of the book differently/better/easier/?
Will I be able to “see” connections that with the text alone I did not?
Will the process of looking for and selecting the right image that will represent the quote make me think “deeper” about what the quote us trying to say?
Will the sum of the quotes I selected from the book tell a story in itself?

I wonder how my personal experiment will turn out… but in the meantime, please take the time to share:

How do you learn best from a book?
Highlighting, taking notes, talking/discussing it with someone ?
Do my visuals help you visualize what Curriculum21 is about?
Do the slides do nothing for you?
Do the visuals give you a different point of view, than when you were reading the text alone?
Are you interested in reading Curriculum 21 (if you have not done so) because of the visual “Preview”?
What opportunities do you give your students to learn from a a book?