December 13, 2018

Let's Daltonize English a great success

Pilot schools in Austria, China, Holland and Poland started with the material which is developed by Dr. Agata Sowinska, International Dalton Consultant.

Under the title 'Let's Daltonize English' the first of five projects is adopted by the pilot schools and they started to work with the material.


Children of Kindergarten nr 34 in Koszalin started to work enthusiasticly with this project thanks to the director of the school Violetta Antkowiak and the head of the project Katarzyna Pyrzynska.



December 1, 2018

November 29, 2018

Workshop Let's Daltonize English


Today Agata Sowińska  gave a workshop about her project for teachers of all groups 1/2 at "Daltonschool de Leeuwerik" in Leiderdorp. This school is pilot school for 'Let's Daltonize English'.

November 27, 2018

Strong development in China


Dalton International started a cooperation with 
'Dalton Education Management (Shenzhen) Co., Ltd.'
Together they founded the 
'Chinese Department of Dalton International'.
Dalton education in China has a great perspective.


November 24, 2018

Visit to the Staatliche Grundschule "Dalton Schule" Unstruttal - Germany


                                                                                                                                                                   



Workshops by Agata Sowińska and Roel Röhner

International Dalton Conference 2019 in Germany


November 22, 2018

International Dalton Conference in Poland

On Monday November 12. 2018 the Polish Dalton conference took place in Koszalin.
More than 250 participants got a scala of presentations and workshops given by Dalton specialists from China, the Netherlands and Poland.

International Dalton Congress Deventer

The delegation from 'Shenzhen Dalton Xinhua School' participated in the Dalton Congress.

 
The director of the Chinese Dalton School, Liansheng Mei, gave an introduction about the development of their Dalton implementation.



November 3, 2018

October 9, 2018

RENEWED

THE SITE OF DALTON INTERNATIONAL IS RENEWED.

In the coming period the site will be regualary  actualised.

October 5, 2018

October 5th is the "DAY OF THE TEACHER"


In the Netherlands today is celebrated as the "Day of the teacher".
Parents and  schoolboards pay their gratitude to the teachers by bringing small presents.

This was presented by parents of 'Daltonschool de Leeuwerik' to their team of  teachers this morning.

see also their Facebook site 



September 25, 2018

Advanced training program for secondary Dalton education



Titles of the 12training  modules

For information click on the link below.

  1. The original Dalton Laboratory Plan from theory to practice.
  2. The main pillars of the Dalton Plan in theory and praxis on the examples of secondary schools worldwide.
  3. The Dalton Plan’s three-part structural foundation.
  4. The philosophy and values of the Dalton secondary school.
  5. Dalton hours in praxis.
  6. The structure and organization of the Dalton secondary school in theory and praxis
  7. The students and teachers as co-workers- how to build the atmosphere of mutual trust and respect?
  8. How to design learning environment in secondary Dalton schools (praxis). 
  9. Sample group and individual exercises to use. 
  10. Teaching students social and emotional intelligence.
  11. How to take care of students’ wellbeing in secondary Dalton schools?
  12. A short guide to become a successful secondary Dalton school teacher.
       
Special attention for:
Dalton Plan and English language Teaching and Learning as an innovation of 21st century on the         example of secondary Dalton schools.
(authorial elements from my book “Innovations in ELT in secondary schools”)


Dalton Österreich published this reportage

Mit einer Bildreportage wollen wir einen Einblick in unseren Abschlusstag der Lehrgänge in Steiermark, Ober Österreich und Wien bieten. 

Jede(r) TeilnehmerIn musste die eigene Arbeit vorstellen und drei Arbeiten (jeweils eine aus jedem Bundesland) wurden breiter präsentiert. Es waren dies die Arbeiten von Barbara Müller, Marcel Felber und David Rühringer. Alle Arbeiten wurden im Kern als wissenschftliches Plakat dokumentiert und die Arbeiten lagen auch in Druckversion für alle einsichtig auf. Den Abschluss bildete dann die eigentliche Diplomverleihung. Es war ein interessanter und netter Tag, der hervorrangede Leistungen zeigte. Danke nochmals an alle Studierenden für ihr Engagement.

MEHR FOTOS HIER

September 23, 2018

Dalton training program for secondary schools


Vison:

“The true business of the school is not to chain the pupil to preconceived ideas, but to set him free to discover his own ideas and help to bring his powers upon the problem of learning”

Helen Parkhurst, Founder of the Dalton School

1.     The original Dalton Laboratory Plan from theory to practice on the example of ‘The Dalton School’ in New York and ‘Ascham’ in Sydney: historical outline, main pillars of the Dalton Plan as education for the future that stimulates child’s holistic development.



2.     The main pillars of the Dalton Plan in theory and praxis on the examples of secondary schools worldwide.

-          The principle of freedom: how does it stimulate independence and awaken creativity? How to differentiate secondary students’ interests?

-          How to nurture students’ motivation and learning attitudes?

-          The principle of cooperation: how to awaken and shape social and emotional skills? How to shape the attitudes of perseverance? The analysis of different learning styles and multiple intelligences theory and praxis

-          How to develop Independence and students’ taking responsibility for their learning experience? How to awaken and instill the independence while working with secondary school students?

-          The principle of effectiveness

-          The innovative dimension of “reflection”        (theory and praxis)

-          The innovative dimension of “embedding”     (theory and praxis)


For the complete program of workshops click on the link:

International Dalton Consultancy

September 17, 2018

Academic Dalton Studies for K-12 schools


FOR BOOKING AND INFORMATION

CLICK HERE












International Dalton Conference in Poland


On Monday 12. November 2018 the International Dalton Conference of the Polish Dalton Association takes place in Koszalin.

The Chinese delegation from 'Shenzhen Xinhua Dalton School' which also takes part in the Dutch Dalton Conference, will have an active role in this conference. Director Liansheng Mei gives a speech during the plenary opening of the conference.

The head of the English department of this Chinese Dalton School, Zhiling Xu, is supporting in the workshop "Let's Daltonize English", given by Agata Sowińska.

Dr. Agata Sowińska, Chair of  'Dalton International Research Platform' in  the Netherlands, is researching Early English teaching in some countries in Europe and China.

'Shenzhen Xinhua Dalton School' is pilot school in this research.






September 16, 2018

International Dalton Conference in the Netherlands

The Dutch Dalton Association and Dalton International are organizing this International Dalton Conference in Deventer. 

With delegations from : 
Austria, Belgium, China, Germany and Poland




More information: click here

August 23, 2018

Interesting article


Dr Agata Sowińska writes in her blog 'International Dalton Consultancy' :

My new article about the unconventional teaching English, in which I explain that constant teaching secondary school pupil grammar and vocabulary, in order to prepare to exams is not teaching language in itself, but exam procedures. What to do to enrich secondary school English teaching and learning? How to motivate students to learn foreign languages and finally how to increase creativity and sensitize pupil to the global problems? In my article I try to present and analyze the possibilities and give a proposal to unconventional English teaching and learning.
The article was published in Warsaw School of Applied Linguistics one week ago in the volume "Neofilology for the future" (page 97-108)

http://lingwistyka.edu.pl/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/llsw_neofilologia_3.pdf

July 13, 2018

June 24, 2018

Dalton International Research Platform



Leader of the platform  Dr Agata Sowińska - International Dalton Consultancy
International researchers:
Austria:  Henriette Steinhauer - Akademie der Diözese Linz
Holland: Drs. Annemarie Wenke - Wenke Perspektief
Poland: Prof Renata Michalak - Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznan

June 19, 2018

Easy, Informal Professional Development


Opening your classroom so your fellow teachers can just drop by and observe is a low-pressure way to collaborate and share best practices.


In our school, Northern Valley Regional High School in New Jersey, our local professional development committee created our own version of the operating theater (without spilling any blood). We called it our “Open Classrooms” initiative.

The genesis was simple enough: Many of us wanted the benefit of another set of eyes, or to share a new tool or technique with colleagues. We also knew that even the best explanation lacked the power of a real-time demonstration with students. So, teachers invited others into their classrooms and received honest, non-evaluative feedback, as well as validation and support from their colleagues.

What we did not expect, though, was how much visiting others would energize us. Even more unexpected? We were learning not just from our colleagues but also from their students.

We liked that other schools that had created similar practices used signs and charts to indicate which classrooms were open to visitors. We chose a clipart picture of a smiley face with a thumbs-up gesture, hoping that others would see the sign and join in. Our goal was for the Open Classrooms concept to catch on naturally, with people inviting and visiting because they wanted to. Several teachers opened their classrooms daily.

When we began, we were successful in many ways that we could not have planned. Some of our committee members had the thoughtful idea to bring newer teachers along on visits. Doing so enabled the new teachers to see veterans in their classrooms. Traveling alongside established teachers also demonstrated that regardless of how long you’ve taught, there are still new tricks worth learning.

We set clear norms for visits. We agreed that they could be short, even just a few minutes, because we wanted to encourage a casual atmosphere where people felt comfortable dropping by a class. It was also OK to take your sign down if you were not open to visitors. The informality led to a more authentic professional development experience. Teachers could visit an Open Classroom and then go back to planning or grading. 

Finally, we tried to discuss the status of our Open Classrooms at each monthly professional development committee meeting so that we could share the wonderful things we were seeing.

Though our first year went well, visits tapered off as the school year concluded, and the long summer break made it difficult to start again in the fall. We wanted to get the momentum going again while maintaining the organic, grassroots feel. So, we developed Open Classroom Wednesday as an add-on to our usual daily practice. This monthly celebration encouraged staff to visit their colleagues’ classrooms, as well as to open their own.


Source: Edutopia


June 18, 2018

Ken Robinson




In the beginning of June I published this book on our Dalton sites.
Great to see that others took over my idea.

June 9, 2018

This assignment form I created long ago to show during my Dalton workshops.

In the Netherlands in 1985 a new law for Primary education was designed to integrate Kindergarten and Primary school into one school for "Basic education".
Dalton elements were transferred to the first groups of our school.
We invented "day-colours" - "day rythm cards" - the use of smilies - visualisation of tasks.

I am proud that this schedule is taken over in all countries in Europe.
Variations on this design are used in Australia and China.


First of a serie of Dalton projects


May 27, 2018

Dalton board game


This board game is developped to give teams of teachers another way to organize a team meeting.