​Are you ready to get personal with inquiry learning?  I am so honored to be part of this book club where we are delving into Kath Murdoch's new book, Getting Personal with Inquiry Learning.  It's a great way to get the mind moving and planning for the next school year during the summer break.  

We will be using the book club roles by Misty Paterson, the author of Pop-Up Studio: Responsive Teaching for Today's Learners.  I'm excited to take a deeper look at Kath's book through these roles, because it will help us to make more conceptual connections. ​

One of the most challenging book club roles is the Muse.  It requires the participant to consider a static object or malleable material to create a conceptual representation of the big ideas. 

In the last book club, we use a piece of aluminum foil and created an object that represented inquiry.  This fabulous role helps your learners to connect o symbolism in a new way. 
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​As we look at playing with the ATLs, I’m reminded of my friend Vidhya.  She is a passionate PYP educator from India.  If you are on Twitter in the education community, you have probably run across her many tweets.  Ever since last summer, she has opened my eyes to so many possibilities in seeing learning and teaching.  

In a recent chat, Vidhya and I were discussing this challenge and the role of the ATLs.  She posed an amazing question that got my mind thinking. 

What skills do we learn naturally within a purposeful learning space that is designed for play?  Not just materials, but play with ideas.

This sparked my curiosity and I had to know more about this idea.  Here’s where my mind meandered to.  When we consider our learning space design, we need to think about the big purpose.  Is it to inspire play?  Bring about inquiry? Control the learning? Evidence of learning and growth?  

All of these considerations greatly impact how the approaches to learning (ATLs) are exhibited to the school community.  With purposeful learning spaces focused on play, the learner is able to self-direct their learning pathway by manipulating materials and ideas in their own way.  

Why does this matter?  More than ever, our learners need to learn how to create their learning identity by mastering and applying a variety of skills in different contexts.  These skills will help them to navigate uncertain times and hone problem-solving skills that they will need in the future. 

​To bring context to this process, Vidhya shared with me how she encourages her learners to make a personal connection to the ATLS.  As part of a unit of inquiry, Vidhya asked her learners to go beyond “learning” the ATLs, but rather applying them to real-life context.  Here are some connections that her learners made. 

• Homework Connections:  when beginning any assignment, we have to think about what thinking skills that we will focus on for the task.  This helps us to decide which skills we will use from prior learning.  Then, we are able to connect to the other ATL skills. 

 

• Relationship Connections:  we communicate to different people within our community based on their role and age.  When we talk with our family members or elders, we speak to them differently than we do with our friends at school.  Each relationship is different and we need to have certain skills to know how to interact appropriately. 

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• Procedure Connections:  we use all categories of the ATLs to create a procedure for an inquiry.  We use thinking skills to help us know what type of thinking we will explore: creative or critical.  We look at what strategies we want to research and how we will communicate it with the world.  Then, we look at how we will become better during the process through self-management and social skills. 

​Your challenge is to brainstorm with your learners how they can possibly make a personal connection to the ATLS and let them showcase it to the school community.  Let them make the learning decisions and justify their choice. 

When I make connections to the ATLs, I think of how we all pivoted so quickly during the pandemic to learn new skills and increase our technological understanding.  This podcast was such an adventure for me.  We just passed the second anniversary and I am proud of “The Little Podcast That Could” and I hope it’s helped your practice in some way.  

A big shout to the top 5 countries with the most downloads:  United States, Australia, Canada, India, and United Arab Emirates.  I’ve lived in four of these countries and they all have a special place in my heart and India is still on the bucket list. 

The top 5 cities are Singapore, Hanoi, Melbourne, Sharjah, and Brisbane.  Ironically, I’ve been to four out of five countries; Hanoi is also on my bucket list.  

Thank you for listening.  I’d love to hear your ahas and topic wish lists on social media #thinkchat2020, so I can continue to grow.  I can’t wait to see your ideas!

I am so excited to share that my resources are being translated into Spanish by Kim Galbraith.  She reached out to me to offer her services, so her fellow PYP educators could have a better understanding of the program.  This touched my heart so much and now, we have a beautiful guide to help so many others.  This is what it truly means to take self-initiated action. 

​Let’s continue on with this theme about learning space design and how it impacts play.  From an organizational standpoint, what makes your space so special? 

When you look around your special spot in your home, what are some special things and tools you use that inspire you to play? 

One of my favorite spots in my home is my inspiration room.  Everything is organized in drawers, tubs, cabinets, and shelves.  For me to function, I need it to be clearly labeled and organized.  Imagine that.  When you look around the walls, you will see comic art from one of my favorite artists, Des Taylor. One of my treasures is a hand drawn sketch of Poison Ivy that he made for me.  Interspersed between the pictures is a Banksy with Billie Holiday, record covers of my favorite childhood tales, and local street art. This sets the tone of inspiration and creativity to come.  

All of this décor sounds silly, but to me it sparks creativity.  On the shelves, I have materials from my mother’s house, a cross stitch sampler with my name made by a student as a Genius Hour project, and artifacts from my travels.  These artifacts make me feel at home…all parts of me are represented from different chapters in the story of my life. 

As I examine the tools, I connect to my mother.  When I was a child, she was quite crafty and I’ve inherited her love of creating within and beyond the classroom.  My sewing machine is circa 1990’s.  It’s solidly built, made out of metal, and has very few stitches.  It makes me happy when I hear the hum of the machine as I create something new.  The pinking shears she used to use all the time with her handwriting sit in my drawer.  They are no longer sharp, but I keep them anyway. 

Besides being sentimental, the materials are carefully organized, so I can easily retrieve like materials to create.  All of my sewing notions are together while my cardmaking supplies are nestled together.  As you can imagine, I have lots of drawers, baskets, and containers.  Every time I walk in the room, I feel inspired to create something new. 

When looking at your home and learning spaces, consider answering these questions and make some suggestions for improvements. 
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• How does the space make you feel?
• How does the physical layout and décor invite inspiration? 
• How are the materials organized for ease of use? 
• Are similar materials placed near each other for easy retrieval? 
• How are the work surfaces created for multiple purposes? 

Just like my inspiration room, our learning spaces should be a place that excites, invites, and provokes.  

This should get your mind racing with new ideas!  Let’s have some fun with this application challenge. Be sure to post your new thinking on social media with #thinkchat2020.  I can’t wait to see your ideas!

I enjoy working at Texas IB Schools, because the teachers always stretch my thinking.  This time, I was able to meet teachers in Carrollton, Texas near Dallas.  We worked together to unpack the elements of the PYP and how they apply to the early learner.  I just love this stuff! 

We worked in teams to use loose parts to create our ideal learning spaces.  It truly revealed what people value and how the learning space greatly impacts play and inquiry in our practice. ​

We collaborated to extend mathematical understanding of number sense concepts.  Groups presented their engagements with each other to stretch our practice. 

Although we learned through play, we made deeper connections to our systems and how they drive help or hinder the learning process. 

Welcome to another application series, where we are going to take ideas we have explored before and apply them into a new context.  I absolutely love this part, because it helps to look at old things again…the process of anew (4A’s by Misty Paterson).

Since our last application series, you’ve had a chance to participate in the Transdisciplinary and Design Thinking challenges.  They helped you to take content and apply it to your individual context.  Now, we are going to do a minor version for learning environment, play, and the approaches to learning (ATLs).  

Over the past couple of months, I have become obsessed with the Danish way of life called Hygge.  I know it’s been coined as the next design trend or lots of candles with fluffy blankets.  It’s more than that.  It’s about looking for little things that bring you happiness, contentment, and joy, such as candles, good lighting, comfortable textiles, and cozy aesthetics.  Even still, it’s a way of being.  In Denmark, most of their year is cold and dark.  To offset this dreariness, they create work, home, and place spaces that celebrate those simple pleasures.  Besides candles, the Danes are known to eat a lot of cake.  My kind of people. 

When I think of Hygge, I consider my own home and yours.  Here are some questions to consider about your own living space. 
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• What is your favorite spot in your home?  
• What about the spot peaks to you and evoke happiness? 
• How has the space been designed to meet your needs?
• How are the materials arranged and stored for maximum use? 
• How does the spot attract your sight, smell, and feelings?
• What corner or area do you always go to more than any other? 

If the feeling of coziness and warmth are important at home, why don’t we focus on it more when designing learning spaces?  Most of the time, we’re married to overhead fluorescent lights and flat pack furniture.  How can we bring a little Hygge into our school spaces? 

​Go around your school and find a learning space that is underused or not reflective agentic thinking.  Consider how you will bring it to life.  We will use a reflective tool to help us make lasting, sustainable change. 

When we are thinking theoretically, we consider the big abstract ideas or philosophy that we are learning about.  We are trying to identify and connect the big aha moments that have arisen. 

For the theoretical reflection, consider asking yourself these questions: 
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• What is your favorite spot in this space?  
• What about the spot peaks to you and evoke happiness? 
• How can the space be designed to meet your needs?
• How can the materials be arranged and stored for maximum use? 
• How might the spot attract your sight, smell, and feelings?
• What corner or area do you think you will like most? 

When we think operationally, we determine the resources that we need and how they are being used.  We advocate for support through human resources, professional development, and collaboration.  We consider the potential obstacle that may block our way. 

For the operational reflection, consider asking yourself these questions: 

• What resources do you need: read aloud books, manipulatives, loose parts, art supplies, etc.?
• Who in your school has a model classroom that you can use as inspiration? 
• Do you need help from others to share design ideas? 
• What type of professional development may be needed?  Will it come from formal training, school visits, etc.? 
• How can you use the knowledge of your staff to solve most of your design needs? 
• What are some potential obstacles to making the space the way you envision it? 

When we think practically, we focus on how we are going to make our process work on a daily basis.  We think literally.  We think concretely.  We want to know how it will happen. We demonstrate our inquiry thinking strategies to make relevant connections to our learners. 

For the practical reflection, consider asking yourself these questions: 
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• What is the purpose of the room? 
• Why are you redesigning it? 
• How can you use it to increase learning agency?
• When during the day will you use it? 
• How can others use it independently?
• How can other people in the learning community use it as well? 

This should get your mind racing with new ideas!  Let’s have some fun with this application challenge. Be sure to post your new thinking on social media with #thinkchat2020.  I can’t wait to see your ideas!

​Learning transfer is our greatest gift.  It helps us to better understand ideas that we are toying with during our learning.  What better way to transfer all of these ideas in our design thinking challenge, but to teach them to our learners?  Agency at its finest.

Now, let’s circle back to the big ideas from Pop-Up Studio: Responsive Teaching for Today’s Learners that resonate and guide our thinking.  Think about how you will model them for your learners and make them a vital part of your planning process.  Remember, their purpose is to add depth and complexity to your learner’s thinking and understanding.  Isn’t this what we want for all of our learners? 

CME is more than using a combination of concepts, materials, and experiences together.  It considers how the learner with use the combination to show their thinking so you can truly "see" their level of understanding.  To accomplish this task, we consider: 

• Who is involved in the experience and the context
• The specific concepts, materials, and experiences to be used
• How to make connections through generalizations

​Now, let’s pivot towards the design thinking process.  To make this come alive, I pose an abundance of questions to stretch your thinking during your planning sessions.  Remember, more is more.  We want to go beyond where we have been in the past, so true inquiry, agency, and conceptual understanding can thrive.  Now that we know better, we must act better.  At the same time, keep in mind that this is part of our journey.  Try to stretch yourself, but don’t take on everything at once.  Take it a bit at a time. 

​How will you connect Misty’s models with the questions from the design thinking process? 

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​All of these questions have sparked my curiosity within my own practice and I can’t wait to hear how they help to deepen your planning process.  Be sure to connect on social media at #thinkchat2020.  I’d love to learn from you!