Plenary session by Kieran Egan: Students’ minds and imaginations
Kieran Egan was born in Clonmel, Ireland in 1942. He was brought up and educated in England. He read History (Hons.) at the University of London, graduating with a B.A. in 1966. He worked for a year as a Research fellow at the Institute for Comparative Studies in Kingston-upon-Thames and then moved to the USA to begin a Ph.D. in Philosophy of Education at Stanford University. He worked concurrently as a consultant to the I.B.M. Corp. on adaptation of a programming method, called Structural Communication, to new computing systems. He completed his Ph.D. at Cornell University in 1972. His first job was at Simon Fraser University in British Columbia, where he has remained ever since. He is the author of over 20 books, and co-author, editor, or co-editor of a few more. In 1991 he received the Grawemeyer Award in Education. In 1993 he was elected to the Royal Society of Canada, in 2000 he was elected as Foreign Associate member to U.S. National Academy of Education, he received a Canada Research Chair in 2001, won the Whitworth Award in 2007. His main area of interest is education. His work focuses on a new educational theory, which he has developed during the past two decades, and its implications for a changed curriculum, teaching practices, and the institution of the school. His work deals both with innovative educational theory and detailed practical methods whereby implications of his theory can be applied at the classroom level. Various of his books have been translated into about 10 European and Asian languages. His recent books include Teaching as Story Telling and Imagination in Teaching and Learning (Chicago: University of Chicago Press), The Educated Mind: How cognitive tools shape our understanding (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1997), Getting it Wrong from the Beginning: Our progressivist inheritance from Herbert Spencer, John Dewey, and Jean Piaget (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2002), An imaginative approach to teaching (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass,2005), and Teaching literacy: Engaging the imagination of new readers and writers (Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press, 2006), and most recently The Future of Education: Reimagining our schools from the ground up (New Haven: Yale University Press).
Students’ minds and imaginations
In this talk I will offer a rather new way of thinking about the process of students' cognitive development. It focuses on the kinds of "cognitive tools" or learning toolkits students develop as they grow up in a society like ours. In schools and in most currently dominant psychological theories of development, short-shrift is given to some of the most powerful learning tools students have available to make sense of their world and experience and the languages that surround them. We tend also to think of the imagination as something of an educational frill--something to try to engage after the hard work of learning had occurred. I will try to show that focusing on central features of students' learning "toolkits" makes it clear that the imagination is one of the great workhorses of learning, and that we ignore it at the cost of making learning more ineffective than it should be and much schooling more tedious than it need be.
16 March 2010
2 years 6 days
Hello Kieran,
The education system in our country (India) puts the students in a strait jacket and rarely allows any room for things like imagination and creativity.
Your talk is going to focus on something that has always been a matter of concern for me, so I am looking forward to it.
Bindu
16 March 2009
1 year 49 weeks
Hello,
Very, very intresting indeed.
I live in Uruguay, South America, and the whole education system is now trying to pay more attention on developing imagination and artisitic skills on the students. But, it is a very slow process.
I´m looking forward to watching your session online.
2 April 2010
2 years 6 weeks
I have read three of your master pieces and really love the idea of developing students imagination, now, how about making a start by shaking up our own imagination first!,Comé on teachers, we can!
Hope to see you, as you promised Mr Egan,in Argentina next year.
15 March 2010
1 year 38 weeks
Dear Mr. Egan,
Thank you for the interesting session. I have often tried to provoke students imagination and I am sure there will be interesting ideas to hear during your talk.
Ophelia
11 March 2009
2 years 4 weeks
dear egan,
your topic seems quite interesting.waiting for your session.
regards
dr.mangay
moderator esp
1 April 2010
2 years 5 weeks
Dear Mr. Egan,
Your speech is of primary interest for me. I believe that students having so called "learning difficulties", are infact very creative and imaginative children. Whereas, we cannot fit them into the traditional school system. I am looking forward to watching you online in Istanbul.
Best regards,
Candan Büge
10 March 2009
2 years 6 weeks
Dear Mr Egan,
I would like to congratulate you on your interesting and intensive work for the past two decades, highlighting a new educational theory focusing on "students' minds and imaginations".
Let me tell you I am retired (having been an EFL teacher for 37 years, at the secondary level). I belong to your generation... and always applauded imaginative approaches to teaching.
Look forward to following your Session, from my country - Portugal.
Best regards,
Maria
7 April 2010
2 years 5 weeks
Dear Mr Egan,
The topic is quite interesting. Look forward to watching your session online.
Best regards
Aparajita
15 March 2010
2 years 5 weeks
hello Egan
Your topic really focuses on students. The chasm between the teachers and the students minds must be closed.
by
Selvaraj
India moderator
8 April 2010
2 years 6 weeks
Dear Egan
More than eighty teachers of Englich as foreign language in DRC are in frontof their computers fond of your planery. They are members of the Congolese Language Assossiation Supporters Society"CLASS".Inspite of our uncomfortable listening conditions,we do thing that your plenary about "cognitive tools" will help more than one teacher all over the world improve their teaching activity.You're welcome. And once more, Thank you.
CIZA
CLASS Provincial chairman
16 March 2010
2 years 6 weeks
Dear Professor Egan, I'd like to know if you have any plans to come to Spain. I would certainly love to attend your sessions. I've been using music, poetry and stories in the classroom for years as a means of exciting students' imagination and creativity and it's really a pleasure to attend your talks and read your books.
9 April 2010
2 years 6 weeks
Hello Egan
Thank you for praising us teachers who teach English to children at primary level.You talked about songs as a basic tool for teaching simple language structures to them.That is what i have been doing for years, thank you again for this point.
EMMA NDOMA
9 April 2010
2 years 6 weeks
Hello Kieran
I am very happy with you and your subject.I am happy too for the opportunity you give us today to become one of the members of IATEFL .What I would like to say is that imagination is for great importance in the teaching/learning process in so far as that it helps teachers and learners imagine and create the world they would like to live in .So,imagination and creativity always go together. We need to train imaginative,creative and inventive leaders for the future.
All the best,
Jean Adolphe NKHUNGU MBUMBANGU
9 April 2010
2 years 6 weeks
Hello Kieran
I would like to add something on whatI have said before mentioning that your online conference is very important but not everybody can follw,especially in in the Democratic republic of Congo because of the lack of access to internet.
We will be very glad if you should think to visit one day here in DRC and organise such conferences in order to help teachers of English with new technics and methodologies.
All the best once more,
Jean Adolphe Nkhungu Mbumbangu
CLASS member(Congolese Language Supporters' Society)
Kinshasa,DRC.