Training

Our Learning Journeys

Some of the best learning experiences have come from developing within. This can come in the form of reading, attending a webinar, joining a book club, grabbing a hot beverage with a colleague, or attending a professional development session. You must decide how you best learn, so you can feed your mind with out-of-the-box ideas. This is part of educator self-care.

What are some professional development moments that created a burning in your heart to learn more? I think it's all about timing. I have been touched by so many fellow educators, but the three people who completely changed the course of my learning journey are Kath Murdoch, Sudha Sunder, and Lynn Erickson.

My Inquiry Journey

In the fall of 2014, I attended "Teaching and Learning Through Inquiry" with Kath Murdoch in the smallest rectangular meeting room found in Dubai. About 100 educators were clustered together to hang on Kath's every word and to connect to her practical examples about inquiry learning and teaching. Up until that point, I had read about inquiry, but I needed the human element of connecting to what it looked and felt like. Although her books are magical, it just wasn't the same.

Kath's training was an eye opener to me. For a long time, I would ask colleagues how to do inquiry and everyone told me to ask inquiry questions. I knew it was more than that, but I couldn't put a finger on what I was missing. This professional development opened up my eyes of what was possible if I just believed in the inquiry process.

In 2016, I was fortunate to attend a one day workshop with Kath, which was sponsored by the British International School in Houston, Texas. This was a hands-on learning experience that forever changed my usage of imagery in my lessons and how I create essential agreements. I have created podcast episodes and blog posts describing these processes.

Here I am with several of my colleagues from Harvard Elementary School in Houston. Jorge Rodriguez has always inspired me with his inquiry-based physical education program. Since this workshop, he has worked at the KAUST School in Saudi Arabia.

The other person to the left of Kath is Jen Escalante. At the time, she was my PYP Coordinator at Harvard.

Jen taught me the power of positivity and the joy of learning. Even when pressures became too tough, she would wear a smile and give the best hugs. Sadly in 2024, we lost Jen to a health battle. She will forever remain this vibrant person who was so passionate about changing the world through inquiry with her quiet grace.

Inquiry Pathway

After attending the Houston workshop, I became even more invested into my inquiry journey. I was a champion of teaching that was centered on the learner making their own meaning, instead of mine. The pandemic hit and everything went pear shaped. At home, I found it a resourceful time to begin my podcast, start blogging, and creating resources. My biggest fear was getting on social media. I was afraid of what people would think of my silly posts. One of my inspirations online was Kath and her blog post. Her posts on Twitter helped me to get out of my shell and try to give back to the community.

In June 2022, I was given permission by Kath to podcast about her latest book, Getting Personal with Inquiry Learning. This fabulous book helps to guide you through the process of getting your learners to initiate inquiry on their own. Anyone else struggle with this too?

I found the book an easy read with thoughtful suggestions, strategies, and self-reflection tools. If you are trying to get your learners invested in the inquiry process, be sure to have a read and listen to my podcast. Look at what Kath wrote about my podcast! I might still blush when I re-read this comment.

Crafting Inquiry Conference

Flash forward to Oct 2022, I had the opportunity to attend the Crafting Inquiry conference with Trevor MacKenzie, Kath, Kimberly Mitchell, and Stephanie Harvey. Talk about a learning delight. These were my online heroes come to life and it was so much fun learning alongside them.

My friend Denise Kraft and I were fangirling the entire workshop, because we couldn't believe that we had the opportunity to chat with these brilliant minds.

Also, Denise was hosting the Igniting Inquiry conference in April 2023 and this was a chance for us to see the logistics of operating a conference first-hand.

Life goes on as it does and I continued on my learning journey as an independent consultant. Along the way, Denise asked if I would be a break out room moderator for her conference, which made me giddy with excitement. The first ever Igniting Inquiry conference would feature Kath and Misty Paterson as the main leaders over a four-day workshop and I was one of three break out room moderators. Talk about gratitude!

Igniting Inquiry Conference

In April 2023, the Igniting Inquiry conference was a huge hit. You can search for details about the conference anywhere on my website. It was truly a magical time and Kath was gracious as always.

I finally got a picture of us together again. I completely forgot to get one at the Crafting Inquiry conference, because I was too busy fangirling. It sounds rather silly at my age, but these are people who have been shaping my mind for so long.

The two days of Kath's workshop seemed to fly by and there were so many wonderful learning moments. As a thank you gift, she gave me a packet of inquiry cards that I use for reflecting and sketching. It's a gift that keeps on giving to this day.

I still marvel that my learning journey would end up one day being listed on the same conference as Kath Murdoch. This was never a life goal, but it has filled me with gratitude.

The Learning Continues

In September 2024, Kath showed her vulnerability in a post about a health scare of her eldest daughter. I will let you read the post on your own, but these were the two things that lingered with me: it takes courage to share the reality of life with others and deeper content matters over volume.

Even months later, I still think about his post. This is the power of storytelling. Long after the initial reading, elements of the story still linger with me. I have re-learned about the power of vulnerability and sharing our deep feelings. It's definitely not easy, but much more important than two minute sound bites. This has impressed upon me to share less content, but make it more meaingful and real. This is my goal.

I am not personal friends with Kath, but I am still connected to her ability to share her life's passion with others. I think if we all did a little bit of this in the world, it just might be a happier place.

My Conceptual Journey

In 2015, I attended a job alike session with Sudha Sunder about concept-based learning. It was the first time that I felt a hunger to learn more. As a PYP educator, I knew that concepts were important to planning and teaching, but I didn't understand their role until that moment.

Sudha took me under her wing that year and helped me to see that teaching for inquiry and conceptual understanding was intentional, but not necessarily more preparation. It was up to the learners to create meaning for themselves by making most of the learning decisions. My mind was a little blown away by this idea.

Little did I know what our interactions would lead to in my life. At the time, I was just interested in becoming a better teacher than I was. I knew I could do more, but once again I didn't have the tools. Sudha's guidance during my last year at Unversal American School Dubai was life-changing. She taught me to understand myself as a systems thinker, a person who is able to think at a deeper level once all of the pieces of the system were aligned together.

Through Sudha's guidance, I was able to determine that inquiry without conceptual thinking is just another craftivity. It may be hands-on, but there was very little thinking going on. This kindled a passion to learn more about conceptual understanding and how to build it within my planning and teaching.

WIth Sudha's guidance, I was able to capture the learning journey in the second half of the academic year. It was an amazing process to be more intentional with documentation and gathering learner feedback.

As the risk-taker I am, I created a website of the learning journey. In particular, search through Unit 4, where Sudha and I began our work together. You will see how my learners made the conceptual connection of interdependence to the topics of habitats, ecosystems, and biomes. It still makes me giddy today that I have this record of our shared learning journey.

Enter Lynn Erickson

Throughout the year, Sudha had shared her passion for the work of Lynn Erickson. At that time, Lynn was the only one who really published books about the role of concepts and building conceptual understanding in learners. I was intrigued by her work and wanted to take the next steps.

Due to Sudha's encouragement, I was accepted for the 2015 Lynn Erickson Concept-Based Curriculum and Instruction institute.

This was a big deal, because it was the final session led by Lynn Erickson and Lois Lanning with content specialists including Julie Stern and Tanya Elmer.

This intensive 10-day program examined every aspect of concept-based learning and allowed me to analyze my existing practices from a new lens.

By the end, I became an independent consultant with the Lynn Erikson Institute.

I won't lie, this institute was hard. There were a lot of demands during the 10-day journey in San Antonio, Texas. While going through the learning journey, I had to deal with issues related to my shipping container arriving from Dubai and getting settled in my new life in Houston, Texas.

The one constant for me during this journey was Marie-Louise Vanesse, a mutual friend of Sudha and myself, who came from Dubai to attend the institute. It was an incredible time connecting together and sharing in this unique learning journey.

Also pictured above is Saundra Mutton, my former PYP coordinator at Briarmeadow Charter School. This was my first school in Houston and a great learning opportunity.

My big takeaways

Developing conceptual understanding is intentional. You need to think about your content through the lens of concepts to help make meaning. Thankfully, I process ideas this way naturally. I have been quite reflective all of my life and it was easy to see how concepts worked and how they create relationships. But, there were many peers in the institute who struggled, because it was directly opposite of what they had been taught in the traditional system.

Over the 10 days, there were many ideas and examples share with us. I remember two artifacts that I still use today: the structure of knowledge by Lynn Erickson (focused on content) and the structure of process by Lois Lanning (focused on process).

The structure of knowledge is a visual that helps you to make generalizations about the content being explored. This can be of big ideas, topics, facts, etc. The key is that it is founded on factual information and experiences.

The structure of process is looking at the skills and strategies that are being developed to help learners understand how and why they learn.

I found an excellent article by Corwin Press that discusses the difference between these structures with visuals.

The Lynn Erickson Institute was about building educator relationships. It was the first time that I had met others that thought like me, outside of my mentorship with Sudha.

I've struggled with being different all of my life. People didn't get me, because I was so insular and a deep-thinker. This doesn't imply that I wasn't surrounded by these people, just that I struggled to connect.

I enjoyed learning from the content specialists, because they helped me to apply the ideas into action, particularly Tanya Elmer for science and Julie Stern for social studies. They are the Concept Angels.

Since the institute, I have been applying concepts and conceptual understanding to my practice. It's nice to see ideas evolve over time. Julie Stern has written several books about conceptual understanding and learning transfer. Meanwhile, Rachel French took over the CBCI institute from Lynn and is running sessions for educators around the world.

I am still using the elements of the institute in my practice. Over the next year, I want to lean into my practice and find areas that I can reconnect with my CBCI training. I did find a unique adaptation of Lynn's work through the lens of an instructional coach.

For the full article explaining this instructional coaching model, you can click here. I love when others take a piece of foundational practice and make it their own.

Have you had a chance to read the work of Lynn Erickson and Lois Lanning?
What are your thoughts and feelings about using concepts in your practice?
How has using concepts regularly changed your thinking?

Please feel free to share as I'm always seeking ways to grow and learn.

The result

Life is a winding journey. I never thought my participation in any workshops would change anything about my life, except my teaching and learning. Little did I know that through this amazing work that I would meet one of my best friends, Misty Paterson.

Misty and I met based on our equal passion for inquiry and conceptual understanding. We met over Zoom to discuss her book and our shared love of this work. Next thing you know, the universe puts us together in various projects, which I am grateful for.

Our friendship cemented over several visits to Vancouver to lead IB workshops, the Igniting Inquiry conference, an Edu-Retreat in Brussels, and so much more.

To learn more about my dyanmic friend and her work, please read this blog post. Be sure to search for Misty on my website for book club videos and so much more.

She truly is a gift and so is this work.