Thursday 11 June 2009

"What's in a name?"



Thomas Tallis have decided to set up a new course for Year 8 and 9 next year. It might sound slightly unusual in that, at the moment, it doesn't have teachers, a curriculum, rooms or even a name! What we do have is a set of guiding principles that we will use to help us get things underway:

"To make students take more responsibility for the content, processes and outcomes of their learning"

The plan is for students to develop their problem solving and enquiry skills and then maybe think about developing new media skills to make, share and reflect upon work that has its foundation in their own interests. This is all very well, but I'm really struggling to come up with a name. The wordle above contains some of the important ideas that I associate with the plans, but I can't quite get a combination to work for me. All ideas much appreciated.

Soren

5 comments:

Jon said...

How about @tallis?

Jon said...

Maybe that's too Twitterific?
What about...
...wait for it...

NOODLE

You thought it was just a type of Japanese food didn't you? Oh no, there's more to noodle than meets the eye. It's also:

1. Slang for the head.
2. to improvise a musical passage in a casual manner, esp. as a warm-up exercise.
3. to play; toy: to noodle with numbers as a hobby.
b. to improvise, experiment, or think creatively
4. to manipulate or tamper with
5. to make or devise freely as an exercise or experiment

I like the idea that learning is a kind of meal and you can't beat noodles for versatility.

Jon said...

Project Noodle?

Soren Hawes said...

Project Noodle reminded me of a very funny Harry Hill sketch called the 'Fruit Union". Basically certain fruits got together to extend their shelf space and share of the food market. Apple joined the Fruit Union and did very well out of it - he got a sauce, a pie, a cake, a crumble and a chutney. Pear decided to go it alone and ended up on the margins and only got a soap.

I've done a bit of digging on noodle and its derivations. I wasn't aware that noodling is a form of fishing in the southern states of America where you don't use a hook or bait, but catch fish with your bare hands. I like the idea of thrusting your hands in the murky pool of thoughts and then pulling out an idea.

If you type noodle into wiktionary you get words like :

think, ponder, play, fiddle, mess around, improvise ...

That sound like us doesn't it?

Soren

Danuta said...

definitely improvise!
love the name - very catchy and the kids will fall for it - I'm IN!