TD Theme: Who We Are
Central Idea: Our individual uniqueness contributes to our learning community.
You know when you hit on a really amazing learning engagement and it works!? When it’s something you can do year after year, and each year it changes because of the directions students take it in? I’d like to take full credit for this, however it came out of a workshop (The Power of Inquiry) with the guru of #inquiry Kath Murdoch. It wasn’t even a planned topic (which seems like a bit of a trend in many of my posts) instead it came out of a discussion from other teachers. In an effort to have students take ownership for their own learning, it seemed like a good start to find out what a good learner is? In fact, even better to find out “what do good learners do to help themselves learn?” Over the years, there are few things I have gotten better at. One of them being, explicitly making connections. This question, assesses prior knowledge! Depending on how far you take, it can even provide you with the beliefs and values of your parent community. Understanding, and really unpacking ways we learn, and ways we help ourselves learn leads us to notice when we are actually learning. Identifying these moments gives us the ability to make connections. We (collective we – students, teachers, parents) become aware of when it’s happening, why it’s happening, and even how it’s happening! This year, thanks to an amazing team teacher and PYP Coordinator we even planned our central idea with this particular question in mind.
Ms. K Hansen 