My colleagues at Salvado Catholic College in Western Australia and I have been working on how we might support the teaching assistants in the early years spaces to nurture curiosity in the children and model more inquiry thinking. The teaching assistants are AMAZING at the school. They love the children and have entered the classroom to make a difference. However, one missing piece in their training is what it means to foster an inquiry mindset.

To help in this regard, the team of teachers at the school have created these lovely question resources that are placed at the various stations in the room. As children are engaged in rich play and meaning making, the teacher assistants can access these helpful questions to shape their interactions and enrich their observations.

Over the last three weeks I have co-taught inquiry lessons in PK, K, Years 1, 3, 4, 5, 7, French 9 and Math 10. Across each lesson there have been several constant learning design features that allowed the agency in the classroom to blossom. No matter the subject, the grade level, nor the class composition, in every lesson we saw every student engaged in deep thinking where collaboration and curiosity thrived. That is not hyperbole. Every single student demonstrated competence and engagement in these lessons.

So what did we plan for?

Sometimes the simplest strategies and tools can lead to amazing outcomes. Recently I was reminded of the powerful return on investment in using noticing frames. Noticing frames, quite simply, are a variety of shapes cut into frames. Whether it be circles, squares, or rectangles, the frames are used to support independence, critical thinking, collaboration, and language acquisition. Typically noticing frames are introduced and utilized during a provocation experience, inviting students to look more closely, sharpen their eye, and get more specific in their observations.

One of the most fruitful opportunities in all of the work I do with schools (see a glimpse of these offerings here) is within the Learning Lab model. I have written about learning labs before and shared how they get to the heart of inquiry, allowing teachers to co-plan, co-teach, and reflect together across the span of a single day. There are a number of specific resources that I use to help colleagues I have the good fortune to co-teach with and I to make the most of our partnership. There are a few Learning Labs models schools and I discuss to help maximize impact for staff and spread the learning as much as we can. We care about student learning and teacher learning. We care about creating capacity and impact. We care about getting the absolute most out of our investment of time, budget, and effort.

Recently I have had the good fortune to be closely involved in the writing and publication of three books that have proven to be powerful additions to my bookshelf and offerings that have pushed my thinking. In no particular order, here they are. I encourage you to look into the work of each author (if you are not already).

Part of the work I do supporting schools in their teaching and assessment growth is in Learning Labs. This is not uncommon in the professional development field of work, getting into classrooms and modelling or co-teaching a lesson, showing strategies and routines in action. Talking about and planning learning only takes us so far in our growth as teachers. It is when we put things into practice, and even better, when we do so together, that the conditions for rich reflection, collaborative inquiry, and broader growth can occur. Some features of Learning Labs that I facilitate are: