Resources & Downloads
Here you will find a selection of resources that have been created to support teacing and learning in my work with schools. You are more than welcome to download these resources and use them with your students or staff to enhance agency and engagment in learning.
INQUIRY PLANNING RESOURCE
This graphic has been developed to support educators to design Guided Inquiries that empower student agency, reflection and action. Adapted from Kath Murdoch's model of Inquiry (2016) and the 4eX2 Instructional model (2007), it highlights how metacognitive strategies and assessment approaches compliment the Inquiry process. The graphic highlights the importance developing key questions that nurture critical and creative thinking, but also a focus on explicit teaching and intention to scaffold thinking throughout the Inquiry process. (Note the strategy library is available to partnership schools only).
LINK TO RESOURCE HERE (NOTE THE STRATEGY LIBRARY IS ONLY ACCESSIBLE TO PARTNERSHIP SCHOOLS)
METACONITION ACTION VERBS
Naming thinking facilitates learning growth by providing a structured framework for students to understand and articulate their cognitive processes. As part of my work with schools I have recently adapted a continuum of Blooms action thinking verbs and have mapped it through an Inquiry process. This tool is aimed to enhance how teachers might identify the types of thinking they are nurturing in their students throughout a Guided Inquiry. I hope that this tool can help learners to enhance their agency by encouraging reflective thinking and metacognitive awareness.
COST BENEFIT ANALYSIS
A Cost-benefit analysis is a decision-making tool used to compare the costs and benefits of a particular decision or action.
This strategy helps learners to analysis and consider the feasibility of their ideas for taking action in Inquiry
ONE PAGERS
One pagers are a great way to organize your thoughts by summarizing important information in a single page. They help you focus on what's most important and avoid getting overwhelmed by too much information. One pagers can also help you see connections between ideas and make it easier to communicate your thoughts to others. Even better are one pager templates that help learners to segment and sort important take aways within a framework. I've created a set of landscape templates which give students a choice of how they would like to set out their ideas and key messages in a visual way. Adding colour and images help scaffold thinking and reinforce long term memory. You can view and download my free set of one page templates for you to print via the link in bio! I'd love you to share with me how you use them!
THINK - PAIR - SHARE
One of the most commonly thinking routines used in classrooms, but do we rush it and not give enough consideration to scaffolding the conversion.....
THINK: The children are invited to firstly stop and take some time to think about their own personal thoughts and feelings. This should if possibly be noted down, ready to share. This step is vital in helping learners to consider new learnings and what it means to them.
PAIR: Children are invited to listen to one another and understand their perspective.
SHARE: The children are invited to then consider the different viewpoints and create a response that is shared by both learners. This may or may not be different from their own initial response.
HEAD, HEART, HANDS THINKING
Before we start a Guided Inquiry a tool we use with our teachers to help them unpack the big picture ideas and possibilities is Head, Heart and Hand thinking. This helps our teachers to not just focus on curriculum standards but to think more broadly about possibilities and how we can design learning opportunities that make it real and relevant for our children. This is a macro planning tool we use to help have conversations before we start. Then we move to rich provocations and tools that develop student questions and wonderings around our big idea.
THIN & THICK QUESTIONS
The ‘think or thick’ question tool is one of my new favourites. Post it notes on paper are always my preference but sometimes online templates and Jamboards can be great for older kids too.
I’ve created this one in Canva for you to use! Use it as a template or a background in Jamboards, edit to your heart’s content!