The 2009 FNO Hong Kong Mini Conference
Thursday and Friday, March 12-13 2009

New Century Social Studies
and Research

Join Jamie McKenzie
at The Christian Alliance International School

Combining the best of Authentic and Engaged Learning Strategies

How can we best equip the young with the thinking, problem-solving and inquiry skills they will need in this century?

Hosted at the Christian Alliance International School , the seminar starts at 1 PM on Thursday afternoon, the 12th and then continues through Friday, the 13th.

Jamie McKenzie leads the group through the planning needed to adjust school social studies programs to emphasize robust research challenges combining the best strategies of Authentic Learning and Engaged Learning along with powerful questioning skills.

Detailed outline below.
The Christian Alliance International School
2 Fu Ning Street, Kowloon City, Kowloon, Hong Kong.
school web site: http://www.cais.edu.hk/modules/content/

The phone number is 2713 3733.
To arrive at the school, people can take a Taxi from Kowloon Tong MTR
Station or Mong Kok MTR Station  to Evangile Hospital in Kowloon City. Click to view map 1. Click to view map 2. Click to view map 3.
You can register and pay on line for this conference at
http://fno.org/fnopress/books.html

Schedule of Events
Thursday, March 12, 2009

1:00 PM  -  4:00 PM 
Authentic and Engaged Learning
Learn how to employ the best elements of these two learning models so your students are challenged to wrestle with difficult questions while intrigued by the issues being explored. Much of the learning during this session will be done online in pairs and trios sharing laptops.

Jamie will also share the key concepts he presented in his keynote in San Diego for the NCSS (National Council of the Social Studies).

Keynote Title - The Brave New Citizen

New technologies promise all kinds of great miracles like stronger thinking and better writing, but it turns out that many of those promises amount to Fool's Gold, according to Jamie McKenzie, unless good teachers and good schools combat much of the marketing and pressure to substitute templates, wizards and short-cuts for careful research, logic and questioning. In this keynote, Jamie demonstrates the perils and the promises of new technologies as they may promote and nurture desirable citizenship behaviors or do the very opposite, spawning a generation content with the glib, the superficial and the well-packaged. A former social studies teacher and school leader, Jamie warns against what he calls the onset of "mentalsoftness" characterized by a preference for platitudes, near truths, slogans, jingles, catch phrases and buzzwords as well as vulnerability to propaganda, demagoguery and mass movements based on appeals to emotions, fears and prejudice. He shows how mind-mapping, strong questioning and the pursuit of "difficult truths" are the antidotes to the cultural drift.
Friday, March 13, 2009

8:30 AM  -  11:30 AM
Biographies and Character Studies that Stir Thinking
Learn how to set up biographical studies that require more from students than mere cut-and-paste thinking. Participants will employ mind mapping software and online digital resources to consider the character of one person from history, exploring questions of import. While a full study might require 20-30 hours or more of reading and inquiry, this session will introduce the learning strategies required.

11:30  -  12:15 PM
Lunch
On your own. There is a McDonald's, 3-4 local Chinese restaurants and a Wellcome grocery store across the street from the school. There is also a small company that can provide sandwiches and various salads for Friday, if they are ordered on Thursday afternoon.

12:15 PM  -  2:45 PM
Wondering with and about Images, Words and Numbers from Social Studies Content

Images
Paintings, photographs, sketches and other types of images can provoke a sense of wonder and engage students in valuable inferential reasoning as they seek to grasp explicit and implicit meanings. Jamie will lead the group through a series of examples ranging from propaganda posters of previous wars through paintings and current advertising. "What's the story here?" will recur as a persistent question driving interpretation.

Numbers
Research findings, climate data, economic data and other types of data collections are much like other information sources, as they can provoke a sense of wonder and engage students in valuable inferential reasoning as they seek to grasp explicit and implicit meanings. Jamie will lead the group through a series of examples ranging from recent reports of educational research through datasets for population, crime and climate as well as news articles claiming to report the meaning of such data. As with pictures, "What's the story here?" will recur as a persistent question driving interpretation of the numbers.

Words
Many passages offer much more than surface meaning, providing levels of metaphor or subtexts that may be more important than what first meets the eye. In some cases, these levels are poetic in their intention. In other cases, words are used to control, influence and persuade. Jamie will lead the group through a series of examples ranging from poetry to news reports, editorials, advertisements and policy documents, showing how students can learn to wonder, ponder and unwrap such documents. As with pictures and numbers, "What's the real story here?" will recur as a persistent question driving interpretation of the text.
Costs

Full Conference - $ 200.00 USD

Thursday Afternoon - $ 75.00 USD

Friday - $ 150.00 USD

Additional discount for schools sending 5+ staff members. Email Jamie at


for details.

You can register and pay on line for this conference at
http://fno.org/fnopress/books.html