The Art of Inquiry; Kath Murdoch, Staff PD Day, Session 1

Tuesday 15th March, 2022. Whole Day Staff PD (Pupil Free Day)

Today we began our St Andrew’s inquiry journey with Kath Murdoch! To say I am excited is an understatement!  I wrote five pages worth of notes (sadly, I’m not kidding!). Here is a summary of the day and my key take aways that I think are worth sharing. 

Cannot wait to continue the process together as a staff. There were so many wonderful moments from today’s PD, it is impossible to document them all. I will say that it felt like having professional conversations with a friend, everyone was open minded, eager to contribute and passionate about the topic at hand. Aren’t we lucky to have such a great opportunity to work with great minds. 

 What is Inquiry? 

Kath described inquiry as such, “The essence of inquiry is absolutely about wonder, curiosity and seeking answers to our questions”.  Inquiry is a way of being, a stance. It is not a subject or a lesson.  Inquiry is a sustained, perpetual curiosity.  Cultivate this curiosity.  

What does inquiry based learning mean to you? (my reflection)

  1. Discovering answers to our questions 
  2. Exploring ideas, questions and concepts 
  3. Forming understandings through an inquiry process

Lessons from today’s session:

These were four of the practices for inquiry teaching and learning that we focussed on today. These come from Kath Murdoch’s The Art of Inquiry cards.  

  1. Cultivating Curiosity: When do we give children the opportunity to share their curiosity and wonderings? Not just classroom topical wonderings, their life wonderings. What materials and opportunities do we provide in our classrooms to spark that curiosity? Try to be that genuine person who shows interest in their curiosities and share your own curiosities.   
  2. Notice: The practice of noticing, it is such a significant part of the inquiry teachers repertoire. If I stay curious I am better at noticing. What helps us to notice?  Slowing down, observing, taking time to have individual conversations with students. Have space to get inside student thinking. 

    What gets in the way? Over planning, noticing but not having time to dig deeper or address this.  

  3. Grow Learning Assets: Changing the word work” to learning. “We need to finish our work: becomes “We need to continue with our learning”. Creating an awareness of building a learning toolkit, developing skills for learning and focusing on those Approaches to Learning in our inquiry journey. Using the What & How Method (see below) 
  4. Release: We need to release responsibility, give students the opportunity to do the heavy lifting themselves. Who owns the learning? Children have the right to own their own learning.  Be responsive to those moment in your classroom. Give yourself permission to go with the flow.  What can I release myself from? What do I leave behind and how can I move forward? What will best serve my students? I owe it to myself and my students to release.Flipping the gradual release model to rapid release.  

 

The practice I will be focussing on first is “Grow Learning Assets” but I was also very much drawn to “Release”.  One step at a time! Slow down. 

Grow Learning Assets and the What? & How? Method.  

The what is what we are learning about, the how is an approach to learning skill.  

Eg. What: What can we do to help others belong? How: As thinkers, how can we analyse information to understand it better.

I will use the What and How method to actively engage my students in their awareness in their learning and inquiry process. 

I work in small groups or 1:1 with EAL/D students. I wonder, in a classroom setting is it easier to release? When working in small groups for language intervention and support, we have goals for our non-English speaking learners, based on their lack of language and communication skills, we need to assist and model a lot of the language and learning. How can I employ more of my inquiry based teaching skills in what I do? 

I already use a play-based approach. Usually I set up a provocation or something to play with that will naturally encourage conversations and play. These playful scenes usually mirror their own classroom settings, or units of inquiry to help front load some vocabulary. From here we introduce new vocabulary and practise saying new words, sentences and phrases that accompany that type of play. I play alongside the learner and model the language. This is a starting point and I am eager to explore this further in our future sessions with Kath.

Exciting times at St Andrew’s.

Until the next session.

Multilingual Story Boxes in the Early Childhood Classroom

PETAA: Primary English Teaching Association Australia

Kim Cootes & Dr Gill Pennington

Pembroke Junior School 9:30am-12:30pm Thursday 12 March, 2020

Responding playfully to stories.

I am in my 16th year of teaching now, and with my teaching background and especially after becoming a mother, I know how intrinsic play and playful learning is within children. All children learn through play. Multilingual Story Boxes was the name of the PD I attended on Thursday, I thoroughly enjoyed this presentation, however, this was not the first time I had come across this concept, and I’m sure it won’t be my last.

About 12-13 years ago, my previous primary school suggested “Play Boxes”, which essentially are the same thing as these Multilingual Story Boxes. A box full of books, props, trinkets, toys, costumes, etc. around themes of texts to benefit all learners at whatever stage of development. The teachers loved them, the children loved them and each staff member would add their resources to the boxes after use and share it around. A great concept with fantastic resources, ready for the staff and students to borrow and use.

I was glad to be reminded of this concept at this PD. In my new role as the EALD teacher at St Andrew’s, I often have classroom teachers asking me for resources to support their EAL students. Whilst I have happily shared printed and digital resources, readings and supported students in and out of classes, there just isn’t enough time in my timetable to give these students and teachers enough support! Here is what I took away from this PD:

“What is essential for EALD students is also beneficial for all learners”

If we are providing essential, language rich, playful learning tasks for EAL students this will benefit ALL students in the class. Differentiation is key. Do what you would usually do, and cater for diversity.

As a side note, I am aware that play-based learning is predominantly an early years and junior primary school focus, however, it can and should also be done in the middle and upper primary classes – just pitched at a different level. I taught Year 6 students for three years and was creative in my approach to play based learning, it just looked a little different with older students.

I loved the suggested texts recommended below; some I have used before and others were new to me. It is important for children to see themselves represented in stories and be able to connect with characters. Mirror Books was a term used in the PD, and our teacher librarian (Tracey Billington) had just spoken to staff about books being windows or mirrors for students. A “window” to see into a character’s life and empathise with them, or a “mirror” to see themselves reflected in the book as a character they can relate to.

Recommended Books: Ziba Came on a Boat, Four Feet, Two Sandals & Stepping Stones (Bilingual), My Two Blankets & Handra’s Surprise.

This video clip is of a Reception class that read and explored Handra’s Surprise and recreated the story. It’s wonderful!

Storytelling Resources (Pennington, 2017):

  • Personal to the teller in the form of memories or events, leading to the development of family stories.
  • Artefacts to which stories become attached over time.
  • Printed and online texts, TV programs and movies.
  • National and cultural myths and histories passed down over generations.
  • Stories which accompany religious practices and beliefs.

As educators we know the value of storytelling, not just reading books to each other. Storytelling comes from the home, from communities, cultures, families and friends. It is a way of life, connecting with others and making sense of our world. Children should be given the opportunity to tell and share their stories.

The clip below called “Helicopter Stories, Letting Imagination Fly”, was shared at the PD. I think this method of storytelling is fantastic. I majored in Drama at university and have always had a passion for the Arts and expression through performance. This is exactly what students should be doing to explore, create and tell stories. I would also highly recommend using puppets/ puppetry to explore this method.

This is an example of children telling stories in their language. The method involves the teacher recording the student’s story on one page only, then reading their story aloud in a group, allowing the author of the story to act out their story with friends. Love it!

Resources:

Attached is the PDF of the PowerPoint from the presentation by Kim Cootes & Dr Gill Pennington. There were many useful pages with resources, references to research and examples of the Multilingual Story Boxes texts and props. Multilingual Storyboxes Adelaide

Where to from here?

  • My goal after this PD is to create a sample Multilingual Story Box for my school. With the assistance of our teacher librarian, I hope to source a box and add resources to it, then model the process with a selection of Reception and Year 1 classes.
  • I’d like to share this learning in one of our staff meetings to reinforce the message that “What is essential for EALD students is also beneficial for all learners”. All staff have the skills to cater for our EALD students, they just crave some resources and support, which is completely understandable.

Thanks for reading, I hope you found this useful.

Certificate of Participation

Sensory Needs: Putting the Pieces Together

Presentor: Dino Mennillo: Occupational Therapy for Children

On the 10th of August I attended a sensory needs training session with a colleague, as we have a few students in our classes who require sensory stimulation and output.

Here are some of the notes taken and areas that I will be implementing in my teaching practice.

What is it, how do we recognise it?

  • Sensory integration therapy, can we offer this in the classroom? Yes. How?
  • Restless students, movement and fidgeting.

Sensory preferences: There are different types of sensory needs in students.

1.  Under sensitive: these are the students who love sand, messy play, seeks lots of movement.

2. Over sensitive: avoids noisy, messy play activities, doesn’t like to be touched.

3. Tactile: Deeper firmer touch is more tolerable, use putty, shaving cream, beans

Parent Involvement:

There was a huge focus on this point and I was pleased to hear it.

  • It is the parent’s job to get the foundations right. Your child’s body learns when they fall, we need to let them fall, play, climb etc. We are seeing too many children who are not being given the opportunity to play, take risks, climb trees etc. So their bodies are not learning movements and developing the core strength, coordination and balance they need. Get your children involved in sports, playing games outdoors, give them time to play and move.

Importance of Play

  • Parent Questions: What time does your child go to sleep at night? Sleep patterns, ask the basic questions. Screen time before bed? Activities before bed? Limit screen time before bed and first thing in the morning.  It is recommended that school age children from Reception to Year 7 get 12 hours of sleep per night. This should be brought up at Parent information evenings.

 Classroom Strategies to Implement:

  • Provide regular movement breaks. Get this happening before they get restless, short spouts of movement. Get up walk to drink taps, do a small lap of the yard, 5 star jumps on the spot. Get them moving, it will help with their concentration and physical need for movement. I have been implementing brain breaks in my class with students and have noticed improvements in focus, concentration levels and quality of work.
  • Bum bags for fidget toys. This strategy allows the sensory need to be fulfilled but does not distract the student from the learning. Keep the sensory toy in the bum bag, if it comes out of the bum bag it gets taken away.

Sensory Diet: The Key to Sensory Success

  • Intensity (when they have the physical activity make sure it is intense so that it last for the period of time to aid focus),
  • Duration (Short breaks for 2-5 minutes),
  • Frequency (Have the breaks every 15-20 minutes). Get the pattern for sensory breaks right.

Key Points

Discussions and Questions at the end:

  • Handwriting and Pencil grip. This can’t change after age of 5 years old. You can try but unlikely to change it. When writing your left hand is the helper, one side of the brain switches off. 2 minutes a day colouring in on a vertical surface will improve handwriting/ pencil grip.
  • Develop typing skills instead. To be typing both sides of the brain need to be working.

Complexity of Writing

Certificate of Attendance Dino Mennillo: Occupational Therapy for Children

This was a useful session and I was able to use some of the information and strategies shared within my current school context.

Effective Lesson Design: Intentional Planning

Week 4, Term 2, 2015. Curriculum Staff Meeting

Category: 1. Know students and how they learn, 3. Plan for and implement effective teaching and learning, 5. Assess, provide feedback and report on student learning, 6. Engage in professional learning,

Topic: Effective Lesson Design: Intentional Planning

I presented at staff meeting this evening about a course I’ve been on recently called Effective Teaching in English & Mathematics. The course has been designed by AISSA (Association of Independent Schools of SA) and delivered by Rosemary Kadow and Desiree Gilbert. Some of the references and resources have come from their course guide. The course runs for 3 days and I still have one more day left but thought I should reflect on my experiences so far and what I have shared with my colleagues.

Our school has been focusing on curriculum alignment. We are an IB school so we have been focusing on aligning ACARA with IB, making our planning intentional and clear for all to assist with informing our assessments and reporting.

Here is the Keynote Presentation we used at Staff Meeting:

 

Attached are the handouts provided to staff from the course booklet we received:

Intentional Handouts

Things I take away from this experience:

  1. The reflective tools were useful and I have enjoyed using them with my class and other staff seemed to appreciate more strategies to try out in class. IMG_0447
  2. I spent a considerable amount of time planning out this presentation and working with a colleague of mine to really dig deep. We reflected on why we should plan intentionally and how we can improve teaching practice by starting at the big picture and working backwards by design. Breaking down the objectives and curriculum standards to teachable and intentional lessons. Here is an example of an intentional planner in Mathematics that I made this term. Intentional Planner Maths T2 Money
  3. Success Criteria. Our lessons should hold no secrets. Students should know what we aim to do, how they can achieve success and the purpose behind the task. This is all part of WALT (What Are Learning To), WILF (What I’m Looking For) & TIB (This Is Because). Shirley Clarke introduced the concepts of WALT, WILF & TIB, google her and images for each and you will find an abundance of resources.

I had some good feedback after the session from staff. One staff member (Paul Huebl) blogged about our presentation and noted the following:

  • Learning intentions must be explicitly clear for all students in the room. Intentions must be visible.
  • Learning intentions are not descriptions of an activity. They are directly linked to achievement standards.
  • There should be no secrets in the learning process –> this means success criteria must also be clear and explicit.
  • Success criteria tell kids “You can succeed at this and this is how you do it”. What does it look like to achieve the learning intention?
  • Along with WALT statements (We Are Learning To) and WILF statements (What I’m Looking For) you also need to address TIB (This Is Because) which links WALT and WILF to the students personal contexts.
  • To help with students engaging with WALT and WILF statements, these can be present on task sheets and blank work sheets. That way teachers can easily indicate how students have performed against them.
  • Students should be able to state learning intentions and success criteria. This is easier if displayed as above.
  • Don’t use the term differentiate. Say ‘make it accessible’.

If you wish to read more of Paul Huebl’s blog post please click on this link:

http://mrhuebl.edublogs.org/2015/05/12/deliberate-planning/comment-page-1/#comment-51

I will blog again about my final session and share some more strategies I have used in the classroom.

I hope you found this post helpful.

Thanks, please leave a comment.

Jade

Welcome back to school! Let’s play!

IB: Play-Based Learning in the PYP

PAC: Wednesday 14th to Friday 16th of January 2015

Presenter: Jo Fahey & Workshop Facilitator: Heather O’Hara

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It’s only a couple of weeks until the children come back to school and I’m trying to get my junior primary headset back and what better way to do that than to engage with play-based learning!

For the last three years I’ve been teaching in Year 6 in the MYP, prior to that I was teaching Year 2’s in the PYP and now I’m back! Very excited to be back too. My colleagues in year 6 would often say to me, “You’re such a JP teacher”, usually as I sat on the floor with my students, materials sprawled across the floor. I am generally a visual and hands on learner and I believe this way of learning is natural for myself and many children. This is also known as exploratory learning or play-based learning. Using materials, props, resources to make meaning and sense of our world.

We listened to Jo Fahey about the importance of socio-dramatic play. Research has shown that students are highly engaged and participate in an authentic and mature way whilst role-playing. These play experiences help students to make sense of their world and how it works. It also allows students to take on roles and responsibilities as global citizens.

We then went to our workshop with Heather O’Hara. As part of this course we explored the definition of play:

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We then looked at the image of the child and what was at the core of what we do as educators to meet the needs of children. Why do we teach? What is the purpose behind what we do? What do we as educators do to support and develop the child?

Great read: Your Image of the Child: Where Teaching Begins by Loris Malaguzzi

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We had some interesting discussions about the words inquiry, play and learning. Are these words interchangeable? We couldn’t come to an agreement but it was agreed that playing is inquiry and learning is a product of both.

I loved exploring learning spaces at PAC. We visited the ELC and Reception rooms. In particular I enjoyed looking at this writing space pictured below. It showed intention and purpose, involved sensory elements and tied in students prior knowledge and resources to further develop their understandings. It was an inviting and engaging learning space to assist playing with writing.

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IMG_1822 IMG_1823

I have also been inspired by Reggio classrooms. Something I have been researching and trying to work on in my own learning spaces for the last few years.

Here are some links to my Pinterest boards regarding Reggio and Play-Based Learning:

https://www.pinterest.com/jadevidovich/reggio/

https://www.pinterest.com/jadevidovich/play-based-learning/

These images were in the PAC Early Learning Centre. I particularly liked the grass mat and wooden blocks and tree stumps. Things I have been on the look out for and am acquiring soon 🙂

IMG_1815 IMG_1810

We explored this Central Idea:

Respectful and careful consideration of space, materials and relationships infuse all aspects of early childhood instruction.

From here my group came up with these lines of inquiry:

Developing Learning Spaces
Why is it important to change and develop learning spaces?
How can spaces be utilised effectively?
How can spaces be a provocation for learning?

Materials for Engagement & Exploration
How important are materials and resources for learning?
What types of materials engage the learner?
How do we select appropriate materials for learning?
Forming Positive Relationships
What does a positive relationship look like?
Why are positive relationships important to student well-being and their development?
How do we know that we are encouraging positive connections with self, peers, environment and the community/ wider-world?
It was great to listen to and discuss our own beliefs and experiences around these. We also had time to do our own research about each of these areas. Some other groups took us outside to explore how nature and the outdoor spaces around us can be learning spaces that engage students and activate inquiry and play-based learning. Visiting other learning spaces at PAC and this group time was probably the most enjoyable part of the course. I was also able to look at my current planners and think about how to set up my class as a provocation for our first inquiry. This was useful reflective time.
I’m looking forward to setting up my classroom for 2015.
Stay tuned for pictures of playful, intentional and purposeful learning spaces on my blog.
Thanks Heather O’Hara for running the course for the last three days. It has given me time to get my JP headset back and explore ideas for including more play in my learning space.
Lets start 2015!
Action Plan: 
1. Set up my classroom with the ideas I’ve accumulated over the last 3 days. Post pictures on my blog.
2. Share these play-based ideas with my staff and encourage this to be resourced and funded by the school.
3. Keep contact with the group to share our play-based learning strategies. Do this via Twitter, Pinterest and the Wiki.

A Poetry Lesson: My Poem

In class today, Mr Huebl gave the students the following instructions:

Please select your poem and compose a blog post on it. This post will need:

1. A copy of your poem, including author, date of writing and source
2. An explanation of what the poem is about, in your opinion.

Please submit the URL in the ‘my poem’ assignment on Edmodo.

I chose to partake in this lesson and have found a poem and will submit this assignment.

My Poem:

I Love You
by Jean: http://www.teachers.net/gazette/MAY03/poem.html

A child grabs my hand in “ownership.”
“Teacher,” he calls me. “Miss ______.”
I call the roll and, instead of his name,
he answers this, “I love you.”

What do I say while the others laugh?
I’m choked with emotion; words fail me.
I have to do something, I know in my heart,
But the words are so sweet, so lovely.

An “angel” is heckled for loving.
I have to reprove him – I do,
Just to set an example
So the others won’t act up, too.

But the words don’t stop with the laughter,
And the “angel” is not quite through.
When the other kids giggle, “He loves her,”
He stands up and cries, “But I do!”

And my heart sort of pulls at my chest now
As I call the names left on the list.
But my heart is waiting to hear once more
The words that I already miss…”I love you.”

My interpretation of this poem:
The writer is a teacher. The angel is one of her students. The student/ angel is a boy and he says he loves his teacher during roll call. Obviously this teacher has made an impact on this child. I have made the assumption that this is a young boy, a child in primary school. The other children laugh at him, obviously not many students announce their love for their teachers. This makes me wonder how old the children are, and if the boy is different in some way? Is this boy craving love from his teacher because he doesn’t get love at home? Or is this boy in a family who openly expresses their feelings and love for one another, that this appears to be a normal behaviour?
Is this boy different from his peers? Yes. How and why? We do not know.
The teacher appreciated this boy and his kind words but fears that his actions and words will isolate him. Yet she craves the words all the same. Teachers can love their students and students can love their teachers, but it is not something that is usually expressed for fear of judgement, limitations of standards of professionalism, keeping safe distances and boundaries within the classroom, defining an appropriate teacher/ student relationship etc etc.

A lovely poem all the same.
An experience I can relate to.