Interview Karin Morrison

Paula Ellacuria, KARIN MORRISON, Marta Perea y Patricia Rey-Baltar.

Last Wednesday our English teacher, Tania, took us to interview Karin Morrison at the “Abando Hotel”. She is  a “featured speaker” of the ICOT 2015 organised by COAS which will take place in Bilbao. This Australian education researcher  has been working on “Project Zero” in Harvard University for the past 10 years. “Project Zero” is an educational group that has examined the development of learning in children, adults and organisations. Its mission is to understand high level thinking and learning in different contexts and cultures. 

She talked about the multiple intelligences and about how important it is to develop all aspects of the brain, not just the academic one. She first got interested in the process of learning when she was teaching at elementary school in Australia. She noticed every single child thought differently or was interested in different things, and therefore, they should not be taught the same way. She started researching and ended up writing a book called “Making thinking visible”, in which she talks about the various thinking routines.

We also asked how much arts affect brain development and learning processes. Even though “Project Zero” has not done much research on the topic, she was convinced of the importance of arts and the big role they play in our lives. Arts are not considered an important subject in our schools but they can have a very positive effect in everybody.

Talking to Karin was very inspiring and enjoying. She said she will be back in Bilbao in June for an ICOT conference, which we think may be a great opportunity for students to learn about thinking.