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The Persyou 'The Talks' Podcast, hosted by Nicholas McKie and supported by FOBISIA: The Federation of British International Schools in Asia, spoke to global educational leader, academic researcher, writer, influencer and Founder of High Performance Learning Professor Deborah Eyre.
Their conversation focused on Professor Eyre's 40 years of research, the creation of the High Performance Learning framework, her career, and her philosophy that re-imagines education and creates schools where almost everyone performs highly.
Listen to the Persyou The Talks Podcast below:
You can also listen to the podcast on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts or where ever you usually listen.
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At High Performance Learning, we believe that teaching and learning has to be done with students and not to them. Our High Performance Learning Student Voice series are short blogs by students in HPL schools who want to share their experiences.
We want to thank Sophia for sharing her thoughts and the whole GEMs Royal Dubai School team for being brilliant teachers.
You can download a shareable PDF version by clicking here
Hello everyone, my name is Sophia from GEMS Royal Dubai School and I’m going to be talking to you about a few High Performance Learning (HPL) skills I have recently demonstrated and applied in my learning during remote learning. Over the next few weeks, I will be, with great pride and pleasure, going to writing to you about a few HPL focuses, which are made up of VAA and ACP skills, I have showcased in my learning.
Hello everyone, I hope you are all doing well. For my final piece of writing, I will be focusing on the skill of meta-cognition. I believe meta-cognition is a great skill to reflect on your learning and make your work more accurate and precise.
During one of our recent weeks of online learning, our main focus had been on the skill meta-cognition. Meta-cognition is the ability to think about your own thinking. I had to use meta-cognition in various different subjects at school but I think I showed my knowledge of it best when completing a Maths revision lesson. During this lesson, we were given a set of word problems and had to find out the best division method to solve the questions. To precisely calculate the answers, I had to think about all the different methods of division I had learnt about in the past. This means I was thinking about my own thinking and reflecting on what I already knew. Therefore, I was using the skill of meta-cognition. After learning this skill, I have been able to apply it in my lessons and tasks frequently. By doing this, I have been able to look to the future and see the overall outcomes of my work, and correct any mistakes before they happen. In addition, I’ve realized that my work has been more accurate as I also look back at the past when I may have not known the skill meta-cognition and made mistakes whilst carrying out my tasks.
In my final blog post, my last tips for you are on meta-cognition. Whilst showcasing metacognition, you are reflecting on your work and thoughts. To carry out this process, you need to have some level of patience. The main reason you need patience is because you need to reflect and think deeply to understand your previous mistakes or to uplevel your work. You shouldn't rush through when re-checking your tasks then you may miss out small details that could make a big difference. Say you were writing a formal letter to your next school, I am sure you can’t afford to make mistakes. Therefore, you should read through it once more to check if your work is up to a high standard and is free of any typos or mistakes. Finally, my last tip continues from my previous advice, which is simply, go through your work. To explain more elaborately, you must make sure you go through your work however many times it is needed. This will prevent you from making any mistakes, let it be in the form or words, punctuation or even calculations. This is mandatory for all people of different ages no matter what it is they are going through. It could be for a student who is going through his Maths work or a passionate professional who is writing a résumé and hoping to begin her journey as an employee to become successful in the job she desires. No matter the circumstance, these tips ensure that you will be able to accurately reflect and think on your work and thoughts.
As you can see, all the HPL ACP and VAA skills that I have previously talked about, have helped and shaped me to be the person who I am today. Each year at RDS, I am introduced to many new skills but have learnt many more during my remote learning. I am grateful for these abilities that are constantly growing inside me and hope to encounter and learn many more during the next few weeks. To end this amazing opportunity, I have another quote to keep up with all the other quotes I’ve shown you previously. “Avoid the crowd. Do your own thinking independently. Be the chess player, not the chess piece”. That quote is by Ralph Charell, who is an author, and I believe it has a strong meaning behind it. Lastly, I hope these skills stick with me in the years to come and will help me to have a bright and happy future.
Thank you for reading my weekly blog posts,
Sophia
Year Six
Gems Royal Dubai School
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- Written by System Admin
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At High Performance Learning, we believe that teaching and learning has to be done with students and not to them. Our High Performance Learning Student Voice series are short blogs by students in HPL schools who want to share their experiences.
We want to thank Sophia for sharing her thoughts and the whole GEMs Royal Dubai School team for being brilliant teachers.
You can download a shareable PDF version by clicking here
Hello everyone, my name is Sophia from GEMS Royal Dubai School and I’m going to be talking to you about a few High Performance Learning (HPL) skills I have recently demonstrated and applied in my learning during remote learning. Over the next few weeks, I will be, with great pride and pleasure, going to writing to you about a few HPL focuses, which are made up of VAA and ACP skills, I have showcased in my learning.
Today we will be talking about the skill of intellectual confidence. Before we begin, what do you think intellectual confidence is? Go on have a think.
To answer this question if you correctly showcase the skill of intellectual confidence, you are able to explain your answers and thoughts. A situation where I believe I had shown this skill greatly, was during one of my English lessons. For the session, we were requested to find and explain the different uses of hyphens in a text. When carrying out this lesson and completing the task, I accurately reasoned why I think the hyphens were used and provided examples.
By doing this, I applied the skill of intellectual confidence in my learning because I explained why I answered the question the way I did. At the end of the lesson, after I’d shown intellectual confidence, I think I was able to understand the lesson better as I dug deeper to find out why - by providing examples - instead of just stating my answer. Hence, I had a clearer understanding of the topic and successfully learnt and applied the skill of intellectual confidence. My top tips for the skill of intellectual confidence are that you should practice and enquire. This is the process of reasoning and explaining your answers. To accurately answer all of your questions, you must practice the topic(s) they are based on. As I quoted previously, practice makes perfect.
Once you practice the topic(s) you are to have a clearer and deeper understanding of it. Having a better understanding will help in the future as you will be able to, if required, explain your answers swiftly and with ease. Moving on to enquiring. If you enquire frequently that shows you are motivated and interested to learn the subject. In addition, enquiring gives you better understanding but it also helps you to challenge yourself later on. If you enquire on the topic a lot, you are gaining more and more knowledge of it. For example, I might be learning the topic of angles in Maths. Once I enquire, I have gained information on how to calculate basic angles and as I move on in the lesson I will eventually have a clearer understanding. This results in me being able to challenge myself. I could possibly move on to calculating angles in a triangle, then around a point and so on. Now have a think, what does intellectual confidence mean?
Hopefully you have a clearer understanding of the skill. I have yet another quote that and I think this quote helps you to think about how you can answer unanswered questions. “Silence isn’t empty, it’s full of answers”. To me that quote shows that there are always answers and you simply need to find them with whatever strength and knowledge you have. I hope you have a great week and I’ll see you next time with my next blog!
- Details
- Written by System Admin
- Hits: 95
At High Performance Learning, we believe that teaching and learning has to be done with students and not to them. Our High Performance Learning Student Voice series are short blogs by students in HPL schools who want to share their experiences.
We want to thank Sophia for sharing her thoughts and the whole GEMs Royal Dubai School team for being brilliant teachers.
You can download a shareable PDF version by clicking here
Hello everyone, my name is Sophia from GEMS Royal Dubai School and I’m going to be talking to you about a few High Performance Learning (HPL) skills I have recently demonstrated and applied in my learning during remote learning. Over the next few weeks, I will be, with great pride and pleasure, going to writing to you about a few HPL focuses, which are made up of VAA and ACP skills, I have showcased in my learning.
Last week I wrote about the topic resilience. Today, I thought we would stick to the topic of not giving up and staying strong so I have decided that today I’ll be talking to you guys about the VAA skill of perseverance. Let’s begin with a question. What does perseverance mean to you? To me, perseverance is the ability to keep going even if there are obstacles or barriers that hold you back from achieving your goal. I’ve had to use this skill regularly in all my subjects, especially when learning new and challenging topics. An example of a lesson where I had to persevere is when I was learning the topic of angles in Maths. Whilst participating in this broad lesson, I had to find out the values of many angles in various different ways but not all of them was a piece of cake for me. So, I had to use the skill of perseverance to make sure I kept going and didn’t give up. Hence, I received references from my peers, teachers and parents whilst practising on extra worksheets and rethinking the questions multiple times a day.
Eventually, I mastered the topic and am now able to teach my peers and classmates too. Furthermore, I have also had to persevere during the past few years in relation to my sports. Due to my personal health issues, I dropped out of many squads last year which was quite a turnaround compared to my previous years. Sport is one of my biggest passions and I wasn’t going to let that one year ruin it for me in the future. Therefore, I persevered and bounced back this year. I was focused during PE lessons, trained for days and soon I was back on track. Although, I wouldn’t have been able to do so without the help of my friends, family, the PE department and especially the medical team. It took many hard days of training and determination but most of all I had to persevere and eventually I got there in the end. I was able to accomplish several accolades I am proud of this year.
Another instance where I’ve had to use perseverance is whilst completing a mouthwatering VAA starter along with my class. During this task, we had to keep a delicious snack in front of us. It could’ve been a few chips, a cookie or maybe a slab of chocolate. I chose a chocolate chip cookie and laid it in front of me on top of a tissue. Next, we were asked to follow a series of instructions to tempt our taste buds. From eyeing my cookie, to taking a sniff, to even having an almost irresistible bite, I had to gain control of my actions. Therefore, oddly enough, I had to use my growing skill of perseverance. In my situation, my goal was to follow all the instructions and successfully have the outcome of myself not have eaten my cookie. The obstacles or barriers in this case were the instructions I was given. These instructions kept me from eating my cookie and they were tempting me to my limits. But, in the end, I was able to achieve the outcome that I'd set. I now know that perseverance is a vital life skill as it will help me achieve my goals although I may face challenges. Yet again, not all of us are natural born persevering learners but I do have a few tips for you. First of all, look to the future.
By doing this, you are able to see your end results and will realize how proud you’ll be of yourself. That is if you persevere and keep going. Hence, you are motivating yourself and not giving up because you want to have a high standard and quality piece of work to display to the people around you. Secondly,set targets. Setting targets and looking to the future are two abilities that are closely linked. By setting targets, you are picturing what you want your end result to be like. Therefore, you should try and persevere and not give up then you will successfully achieve that goal or target you’ve set. Whilst this is said, I understand that you may not achieve your goals during your first try, and many of us are caught up in this circumstance quite frequently, but it isn’t something to worry about. In situations as such, this is where your persevering skills and knowledge kick in. Hopefully, these tips will help you along your journey of becoming a high performing, persevering learner.
And there you have it - perseverance. Hopefully, you have a clearer understanding of the skill and will be able to use it wisely in your daily life. To end today’s write, I have yet another quote. This one comes from Oprah Winfrey, a famous, powerful woman. “Think like a queen. A queen is not afraid to fail. Failure is another steppingstone to greatness”. What this quote means is you should never stop trying. You may fail but as Oprah Winfrey says, it’s only a stepping stone to greatness. If you don’t fail or make mistakes, you’re not trying hard enough. Persevere, you don’t have to get to the top but try your best because your best is enough. Finally, I hope I have encouraged and motivated you. Remember to never give up and I’ll see you next week!
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