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Create a new document and edit with others at the same time -- from your computer, phone or tablet. Get stuff done with or without an internet connection. Use Docs to edit Word files. Free from Google.

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Inspiring Learning – Kath Murdoch in Conversation

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Inspiring Learning – Kath Murdoch in Conversation

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Inspiring Learning – Kath Murdoch in Conversation

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Swiss International Scientific School in Dubai

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Welcome to Early Years - Play Based Learning, the IB in the Kindergaten

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GROW Model Coaching Framework

Train with us in coaching, mentoring and managing with with the GROW model coaching framework, in-house or on an open course.

The GROW model was developed by Sir John Whitmore (1937-2017) in conjunction with colleagues in the 1980s and disseminated through his book 'Coaching for Performance' (Whitmore 2019), first published in 1992 and now in its 25th edition having been translated into 20 languages.

GROW provides a framework for a coaching session, a conversation, a meeting or a project and is the best known coaching model in the world today:

The GROW model sequence illustrates the solution focus of coaching and breaks down like this:

The Grow Model Sequence broken down

Goal:

The Goal section of GROW is addressed at the beginning of each session and referred to again from time to time to keep the focus moving forward, especially if the coachee becomes stuck. It raises energy and clarifies thinking. Identifying what we want to achieve puts us on the path to accomplishing it by focusing on the solution rather than the problem.

Some Goal questions are:

What do you want?

Over what time frame?

Where would you like to be on a scale of 1-10?

What do you want to achieve in five years/one year/three months?

How could you say your goal in a few words?

Which part of that is the real focus?

How will you know when you have achieved it?

In an ideal world, what do you really want?

Reality:

This is an exploration of the coachee's world at the moment. Time spent here helps people get clear about what is happening and how it affects themselves and others. It provides an opportunity for viewing issues from different perspectives.

Some useful questions here are:

What is happening at the moment?

How important is this to you?

If an ideal situation is 10, what number are you at now?

What impact is this having on you/how do you feel?

What have you done so far?

Who else is affected?

What are you doing that's working towards your goal?

What are you doing that is getting in the way of your goal?

Tim Gallwey, author of the 'Inner Game' series of books, was one of the pre-cursors of coaching. One of his key discoveries was that if he asked clients to 'watch the ball' they would tense up and under-perform. However, if he asked them to count how many times the ball spun as it went over the net, or how many centimetres it cleared above the net, their shots improved significantly. Neither of these measurements matters in terms of technique, but the process of focussing on the detail has the dual effect of forcing the coachee to watch the ball, and providing a distraction from internal 'chatter', like 'I've failed before', or 'I can never hit the ball'.

Exploring the current reality is one of the practices that differentiates coaching from normal conversation, where we tend to go straight from the past to the future, for example from:
'He said I was always late; I said I wasn't; he said I was unreliable,'
to:
'I'm going to resign!'
In the above statement, the speaker is taking the emotional baggage of the past into a crucial decision about the future. Reality questions (together with Goal questions, which can be thought of as 'future reality') enable coachees to step off the confusion track, gain some new perspectives, and make calm, informed decisions about how to move forward.

It may feel awkward at first to explore current reality, and new coaches are tempted to go straight to the Options or Actions stage of GROW. However, doing this without exploring the coachee's Goal and Reality may well result in the answer 'I don't know what to do, that's why I'm here! '.

All these questions help people dig deeper into their own awareness. They will show signs of energy, for instance, lightness in the voice, brighter eyes, a smile and more upright posture. That is the time to pin the new insights down to Options and Actions, and the chances are that by this time, coachees will spontaneously start originating actions where they were stuck before.

Note that we are exploring the present, and although we may ask what someone has done so far, we are not dwelling on the past or listening to stories about it. We are focusing on what the situation means to the coachee more than on the facts. We are not asking questions to find out what has happened, but to find out what impact it is having on the coachee's work and/or life. When the coachee reaches a new insight or level of understanding, it is wise to explore the new Reality to embed the new awareness and to revisit the Goal. Possibly a new Goal or direction will emerge. Then the 'Options' and 'Will' sequence start again.

When the coachee reaches a new insight, these questions are useful:

What do you know now that you did not know before?

What is your insight about that?

What have you learned about yourself from that?

Where else could you use this?

Options

Coachees will move naturally towards the Options stage as their Reality becomes clearer. Often they show a new energy by sitting up and smiling, or a lighter tone of voice. Then it is useful to ask some of these questions:

What are your options?

What could you do?

If there were anything else, what would it be?

What has worked in the past?

What steps could you take?

Who could help you with this?

Where could you find out the information?

What might someone else do in your shoes?

Imagine you have achieved your goal; look back on the journey and tell me you got here.

Notice that most of these questions are almost all open. Keep asking open questions until the coachee has stopped coming up with options on the table. Once it seems that the list is complete, ask the closed question 'is there anything else?' to find out whether it is time to finalise the process. This question often results in new options and can be asked as many times as it continues to deliver results.

The following questions probe for more information and, in order not to commit the coaching sin of 'leading' the coachee, should be used only when the coachee has raised the subject in question, for example:

Coachee: I need some help.
Coach: Who could help you with this?
Coachee: I need more information.
Coach: Where could you find more information?

Will

As opposed to 'Options', which brings to light all possibilities, 'Will' is about discovering which actions the coachee can commit to undertaking. When asked, 'What will you do about this?' there is a danger that the coachee will make a list of what they think they should do, rather than choosing a pathway which suits their talents and ways of behaviour. The classic example is where a man commits to joining a gym because he wants to lose weight. However, if he is never going to attend because he hates going to the gym, he would get more benefit from committing to walk his dog every morning, if that is something he would enjoy.

Some examples of Will questions are:

If the coach senses a lack of commitment, a question like, 'How committed are you to doing that?' should be asked straight away. If there is any hesitation, it is best to go back into the GROW process to clear any blocks and find the most comfortable way forward.

Flexibility of GROW model

It is crucial to understand that the components of GROW do not necessarily follow that order; an effective coaching conversation usually starts by exploring Goal and Reality, but then moves about between all four elements at will:

Since the GROW model was coined there has been some variation on the interpretation of the 'W'. Sometimes it is given to stand for 'wrap up' or 'way forward', or 'what actions will you take?' Sir John Whitmore was unequivocal in his explanation to me that W stood for 'will' in the sense of having the will to commit, and that this interpretation is an important part of the model.

John was also concerned that people should not follow the model slavishly. It is merely a framework to provide an awareness of which type of question will be the most productive, in terms of future asp-ration, current reality or next steps. Where the coach's question lies in this framework usually matters more than the question itself. Goal questions raise energy, Reality questions provide clarity, and Options and Actions questions turn ideas into achievements.

Grow Model References:

Whitmore, Sir J. (2019) Coaching for Performance. London, Brealey.
Wilson, C. (2020 Ed3) Performance Coaching: a Complete Guide to Best Practice Coaching and Training. London, Kogan Page.

Grow Model Coaching with Culture at Work

Train with us in coaching, mentoring and managing with the GROW model, in-house or on an open course.

About the author

International speaker, writer and broadcaster Carol Wilson is Managing Director of Culture at Work and a Fellow of the Institute of Leadership & Management, the Professional Speaking Association and the Association for Coaching, where she is a member of the Global Advisory Panel. A cross-cultural expert, she designs and delivers programmes to create coaching cultures for corporate and public sector organisations worldwide and has won awards for coaching and writing. She is the author of 'Performance Coaching: A Complete Guide to Best Practice Coaching and Training', now in its third edition and featuring Forewords by Sir Richard Branson and Sir John Whitmore, and 'The Work and Life of David Grove: Clean Language and Emergent Knowledge'. She has contributed to several other books and published over 60 articles including a monthly column in Training Journal.

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The world-renowned GROW model provides a framework for coaching sessions, conversations, meetings and projects.

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Hello! Here is a picture of me and my partner hiking in the mountians.

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Sharing Responsibility - A commitment to Inclusion

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Sharing Responsibility - A commitment to Inclusion

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Sharing responsibility - A commitment to Inclusion

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Leading Learning in the Early Years: Collaboration and Emergent Curriculum

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Leading Learning in the Early Years: Collaboration and Emergent Curriculum

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This article looks at how one Early Years team of teachers reimagined the design of the learning in their grade level. Teachers revisited the roots of their own personal philosophies before building a culture of collaboration and inquiry within their teaching team. This changed their programme and student interactions.
Pre-Nursery at Suzhou-Singapore International School caters for our youngest learners at two and three years of age. I am writing this article as the grade level coordinator of this programme, leading a team of four teachers. We have revised our programme and moved towards a model of emergent curriculum which places student voice and agency at the centre.

This article explores the collaboration that brought my team together around a shared vision of authentic, child-centred practice with children as agents of their own learning. This involved confronting our own thinking about the beliefs we hold true to as individual teachers, and investment in the vision of our students as capable, co-creators of discovery, innovation and learning.

Our school tasked each teaching team to unpack the IB publication "The Learner", which views the early learner as an agent with voice, choice and ownership. This process set in motion a domino effect of talking, learning and reflecting which has reshaped our programme.

Laying the groundwork for potential change was an essential first step. With support from the senior leadership team, I was able to facilitate professional development for my Pre-Nursery team alongside our weekly planning meetings. The aim at the beginning was to cultivate a shared mindset: to create a space where we could speak without judgement, share thoughts without censor and ultimately connect as educators through the common ground we shared.

Reimagining our programme by co-constructing the learning with students not just in theory, but in actual practice, was the risk we decided to take. To achieve this, it would involve becoming vulnerable as we stepped away from 'how it's always been done' and tried something different. Up until this point, the programme had followed a yearly planner with recurring themes. Susan Stacy notes that "when teaching methods are held over from previous teachers and remain unexamined, curriculum becomes stale. Such a situation serves neither the children... nor their teachers" (2009, p.10). An emergent approach with inquiry and agency at the centre would involve turning this on its head and starting from scratch: letting the children guide us instead of teachers solely charting the course. It would leave us open to fail. The essence of this first step in our collaboration is captured in Brené Brown's observation on vulnerability: "Vulnerability is not winning or losing. It's having the courage to show up when you can't control the outcome" (2018, p.19)

Building trust, and creating a safe space in which to be vulnerable, was key to begin. We got excited as we shook off the habitual thinking that is ingrained within us and dared to imagine what our ideal curriculum would look like. We chatted and scribbled, letting ideas flow.

Excited children, unhurried teachers and that most elusive of teacher wishes, time, were talked about at length.

From this initial deep dive into our own thinking I led my team through 'bite-size' upskilling in emergent practice through our weekly collaboration meetings. These amazing teachers, in turn, brought their own books, pictures and insights to share, so we all learned from each other. We examined features of inquiry and authentic play-based practice from around the world, seeking their commonalities, challenging their differences, and adding to our own understanding of emergent practice each week. In tandem with our inquiry, we actively sought to be compassionate, open-minded listeners, reserving judgement and seeking to respectfully learn from and challenge each other.

The development of our emergent programme happened by running two tracks parallel to each other. Track one was teacher professional development with time for active discussion and reflection in our collaboration meetings.

Track two was taking theory to practice, which required careful planning and meticulous observation of our students. By documenting our observations on their developmental trajectory and emergent socialization, we came up with two overarching themes for our first semester. The first 6 weeks emerged as an exploration of identity and belonging: separating from parents and negotiating new relationships outside of the home. Our emergent central idea was "I belong at home and school." This shaped our interactions, how our room was set up, and the learning engagements we planned. Each step was taken from the cues of our students. Once children had settled, we observed a trend for emergent communication which was a natural next place to explore. We used the emergent central idea of "I use sounds, words and movement to communicate" as an encompassing statement within which observations and learning engagements could be documented and framed. We deliberately chose "I" statements for our central ideas because, simply, our children are developmentally in the "I" phase.

As a team we used the Microsoft Office tool Sway. This enabled us to access a shared digital space which each teacher could contribute to. This was a central space where significant learning and social observations could be documented, building up a picture of each child or small group of learners. These observations became the basis for our planning meetings and professional discussions- what have we seen this week? How can we extend the learning, or collaborate with our students to enrich their discoveries?

Each Sway board included an explanation for teachers which outlined the purpose and expectations for collaboration. This kept each team member accountable and sure of their role in weaving the fabric of our learning together.

This is a sample post from our Sway. It illustrates how I built on the ideas of my co-teacher. This post shows multiple benefits for any PYP team: a teacher documenting student learning, how one teacher's work can inspire another's thinking and the potential for this kind of documentation in forward planning and reflection.

In taking time at the beginning of the year to build our shared philosophy, rooted in the PYP and play-based emergent learning, we began to connect as professionals with our students at the very heart. In documenting our thinking and observations in a centrally accessible space through Sway, we could each influence and grow each other's thinking. All decisions were made in the best interests of the learner, based on clear and documented evidence of their interests, progress, challenges and attainment.

In "The Learner" we read that "our understanding of the learner is the foundation of our approach to learning and teaching" (p.1, 2018). This article proposes that in leading grade level teams in the Early Years PYP setting, we lead bravely. Transitioning to a more reflective planning and documentation model, with the learner at the heart, ensures that these children are ready to join the PYP programme at 3 years of age as confident, competent beings who are experts at guiding their teachers and leading the way for their own learning.
Bibliography

Brown, B. (2018). Dare To Lead: Brave Work, Tough Conversations, Whole Hearts. Random House, New York.

International Baccalaureate Organisation (2018) The Learner. Peterson House, United Kingdom.

Scott, S. (2009). Emergent Curriculum in Early Childhood Settings: From Theory to Practice. Readleaf Press, St Paul, MN 55117

Niamh Price is a Pre-Nursery teacher and Coordinator at Suzhou-Singapore International School, China. She is in her 8th year at this school. Prior to this, Niamh enjoyed teaching and working with children and families in different areas of Dublin, Ireland. Niamh holds a Masters degree in Drama in Education, with a research specialization in play and creativity in the early years classroom. She believes in the importance of establishing relationships with every student who crosses the threshold of her classroom, and is committed to finding out not just what each child can do, but who they are. Creating environments that invite beauty, curiosity and collaboration is an essential feature of her practice.

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Leading Learning in the Early Years: Collaboration and Emergent Curriculum

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This article looks at how one Early Years team of teachers reimagined the design of the learning in their grade level. Teachers revisited the roots of their own personal philosophies before building a culture of collaboration and inquiry within their teaching team. This changed their programme and student interactions.

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1. Engage: What’s collaborative planning and reflection like?

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Creating a culture of Collaborative Planning

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Creating a culture of Collaborative Planning

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Creating a culture of Collaborative Planning

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Programme standards and practices_ Helping schools grow (2)

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Listening to learning: Agency in the early years

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Listening to learning: Agency in the early years

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This article is based on an example of listening to learning within a pre-kindergarten classroom and how teachers tuning into student voices helped to shape the direction of our inquiry into the transdisciplinary theme of 'How we express ourselves'.
Within our school in Suzhou, China, our pre-kindergarten learners shine brightly as leaders in their quest for understanding and experts in their play. As a co-teaching partnership, my colleague Anna and I understand that often our job is to listen to learning and to take our cues from what we hear.

As we began our inquiry into the central idea that "imagination extends our ability to think, create and express ourselves", Anna and I were supervising outside morning play and talking about how to get started. What provocations might we set up? What stories might we share? As we were talking, a most extraordinary thing was taking place, not five feet from us. One of our students had bent down in concentration, another had joined, and another, until a little group huddled closely, and the buzz of their excitement was reaching us. As I approached, one of our students exclaimed: "Look! Look what we found! It is a blanket from a fairy!" The "blanket" was a golden sweet wrapper, cradled carefully in the hands of a 4-year-old child. As I examined this treasure, our students began to add to the fabric of the tale. "There must be a fairy house nearby! Where could it be?", said one learner. "I hope the fairy is not cold without her blanket!", add another one. Little voices erupted around Anna and I, brimming with excitement and ready to seek out magic.

In The learner in the enhanced PYP communication, it is said that "agency is present when students partner with teachers and members of the learning community to take charge of what, where, why, with whom and when they learn" (IB, 2017). Student agency is supported when teachers marry the interests, talents and skills of the children to the inquiry. Samuellson (2008) notes that play, initiated by children, is often separate to learning, initiated by the adults around them. Within the early learning framework of the PYP, there is a strong case to be made for teachers leveraging students' play and making it the foundation of inquiry, enhancing the status of play and celebrating the competency of children.

Immediately, we realized that the provocation we were seeking had come straight from the perspective and imagination of our learners. Immediately we sought books about fairies from the school library. Supporting our line of inquiry, which was to bring stories we read, share and know to life, we became consumers of fairy mythology. Designing clothes and homes, making beds and blankets, we gave life to our theory of fairies in our playground through shared belief. We naturally began to explore our second line of inquiry, imaginative use of everyday materials, as we played and built.

That evening, I painted a small fairy door and hung it on one of the trees. The next day at play, a shriek of excitement told Anna and I that it had been found. We began to sketch fairies, talk about who might live behind the door, and whether we could only see it now because the fairies knew we believed in them. When the fairies sent us a letter with ingredients for a magical potion, we mixed the ingredients and began to wonder if a small fairy school existed behind the door, where making potions and flying lessons were taught. Students talked, played, drew, sculpted and danced their ideas of what magic might exist around us. We effortlessly explored our final line of inquiry, which was different ways to express ideas.

It may be said that often times, we unpack our central ideas through looking at the words on a page or through a conversation without context. Had Anna and I ignored the voices beside us that fateful day in the playground, we could have had a very different inquiry. Our lesson that day was that the possibilities for magic and wonder that exist when we listen, trust and follow the leads of our students is simply phenomenal.
References:
Pramling Samuelsson, I. & Asplund Carlsson, M. 2008. "The Playing Learning Child: Towards a Pedagogy of Early Childhood". Scandinavian Journal of Educational Research. Vol. 52, issue 6.

Primary Years Programme. The Learner in the enhanced PYP. December 2017. http://blogs.ibo.org/sharingpyp/files/2017/12/2017-December-The-Learner.pdf
Niamh Price is from Ireland and has been teaching for ten years. She has been a pre-kindergarten teacher at Suzhou-Singapore International School in Suzhou, China for 6 years. Prior to this, Niamh enjoyed 4 years of teaching and working with children and families in different areas of Dublin, Ireland. Niamh holds a Masters degree in Drama in Education, with a research specialization in play and creativity in the early years classroom. She believes in the importance of establishing relationships with every student who crosses the threshold of her classroom and is committed to finding out not just what each child can do, but who they are. Creating environments that invite beauty, curiosity and collaboration is an essential feature of her practice.

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Listening to learning: Agency in the early years

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This article is based on an example of listening to learning within a pre-kindergarten classroom and how teachers tuning into student voices helped to shape the direction of our inquiry into the transdisciplinary theme of 'How we express ourselves'.

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Supporting learner agency in the early years

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Supporting learner agency in the early years

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This article illustrates the importance of listening to students' voices and the powerful learning that can happen when allowing them take the lead. Planning for inquiry
As we made our way through the first year of our Primary Years Programme (PYP) journey, teachers at Summerhill International School shifted their focus from planning a unit of inquiry with their teams to a collaborative process that included the learners' voices in the planner.
Listening to the students' voices
Our five-year-old class was exploring the central idea, Members of a community can cooperate to achieve their common goals under the transdisciplinary theme How we organize ourselves. During circle time, the students discovered that their teacher had gotten engaged during the break and were excited to hear about her wedding plans. Upon hearing that their teacher had not yet had the time to plan for her wedding, one learner said, "It's ok; we can help you plan". Everyone was very excited about that idea and the Wedding Project was born.
Letting students lead

One way of thinking of learner agency is when learners have the 'power to act'. When learners move from being passive recipients to being much more active in the learning process, and actively involved in the decisions about the learning, then they have greater agency.
~ Derek Wenmoth, CORE Education 10 Trends

The students started by thinking about what they needed to plan for the wedding. As they started to share their ideas, they decided that they needed some way to record and remember their thoughts. They recorded their ideas on cards and stuck them on the wall. A system to organize all the ideas and everyone's roles and responsibilities soon emerged as the students were readying to put their ideas into action. After a group discussion, the students decided to organize their ideas into categories and delegate who would be doing what.

As they got started, they began to take on roles within their wedding plan. The students negotiated their responsibilities with their friends, managed their own materials, and then chose a space to store their on-going project. They also used the calendar to manage their own time by counting how many days were left until the wedding party.
Putting it all together
After all of the wedding preparations for the bride, the students turned their attention to the ceremony and celebration events. They had decided that since they would not be able to attend the actual wedding, they would have a class wedding party with their teacher. This launched a new query into how people celebrate their weddings. The children took on roles as wedding planners by planning and organizing the schedule of events, the guest list, what to wear, and how to set up and decorate the room. They even found a way to make sure that the groom was present at the wedding!
What we learned
Throughout this unit, we witnessed the power of learner agency when we involve students in the planning process. Both students and teachers learned a great deal during this inquiry. With reflective dialogue the teachers realized the power of following the students' lead and how empowering this is when students have ownership over the direction of the inquiry, and are truly invested in what is going on. As teachers became more comfortable with the capacity of young learners to steer the inquiry, the depth and quality of the inquiry rose substantially.

At the beginning of our PYP journey, we tried to plan for student-led inquiry by filling in all the boxes in the planner without leaving room for the learners' voices in the planning. As a school that is new to the IB Primary Years Programme, we felt comfort in knowing that the unit was planned for and in a sense, "completed" before we began the learning. Now we have shifted our thinking to a having a planner that starts off with just a few good provocations and an inviting environment. This means that there is space for children's ideas in the planner. Student-led inquiry can only happen when we listen to and honor the children's ideas and take the time to plan the unit together.

Reference:

Wenmoth, D. (2014) "Ten trends 2014: Agency ". Edtalks. http://edtalks.org/#/video/ten-trends-2014-agency
Jenny Yan is the PYP Coordinator at Summerhill International School, and IB candidate school. She has been a PYP educator for seven years and is passionate about supporting the development of critical and creative thinking in learners.

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Supporting learner agency in the early years

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This article illustrates the importance of listening to students' voices and the powerful learning that can happen when allowing them take the lead. Planning for inquiry As we made our way through the first year of our Primary Years Programme (PYP) journey, teachers at Summerhill International School shifted their focus from planning a unit of inquiry with their teams to a collaborative process that included the learners' voices in the planner.

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PZ's Thinking Routines Toolbox | Project Zero

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The Toolbox organizes the Thinking Routines into categories that describe the types of thinking the routines help to facilitate. Some routines appear in more than one category, and some routines have different versions that offer modifications for specific age groups or more specific conceptual challenges.

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The PYP learner in the early years (3–6 years old)

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The PYP learner in the early years (3–6 years old)

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Supporting Children’s Agentic Identities through the Approaches to Learning

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Supporting Children’s Agentic Identities through the Approaches to Learning

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This piece draws from experiences in an early childhood PYP context in Switzer l and . Reflections are shared on ways the Approaches to Learning have the potential to be powerful tools for supporting children's agentic identities with a particular focus on environments, experts and teacher talk.

"Maybe if I get the idea of something. Maybe I get it in a book or maybe I tell [my sister] I'm going to be the one who knows it. Who found it out." - D., aged 4

These reflections by three- and four-year-olds are ideas that have been thoughtfully cultivated as part of in-depth inquiries and a classroom culture that actively seeks to nurture a sense of agency. We educators have found that thinking deeply about the Approaches to Learning as tools for sup porting children's identities as scientists, makers, artists, and in the example above, RESEARCHERS has framed how we plan for explorations connected to inquiries.

The young children's reflections on what it means to be a researcher make clear that they are quite capable of developing a strikingly self-actualized sense of themselves . Without hesitation, they identify THEMSELVES as the researchers-citizens of our community who are highly capable as active participants in meaning-making with strong images and identities as learners.

Many children in our school community are developing English as an additional language, so we educators also bring in other ways for children to share thinking and tell us about who they are as learners. A confident scientific drawing, ease with using materials to represent ideas-these traces of learning give us lots of information about agency, identity and learning.

But getting back to those articulately shared ideas about what it means to be a researcher...  As teachers, we have been considering how lines of inquiry and connected proposals to support learning outcomes might be optimized through the lens of the Approaches to l earning (ATLs). Playing with the idea of developing the skills of Researcher (or Thinker/Communicator, etc.) as central to planning, we have identified three areas which have had a significant impact, including: Learning Environments , Experts and Language (Teacher Talk).

"Children are natural scientists, and an open-ended outdoor setting inherently promotes a sense of wonder and a space ripe for questioning, inquiring and theory-building."

Learning Environments

For an inquiry into ways of how ' exploring and caring for the natural environment leads to discovery ' (Sharing the Planet), much of the "fieldwork" happens in outdoor environments. Dedicated time learning outdoors in the forest, pond and garden provides inspiration for observing, questioning and collecting data. Children are natural scientists, and an open-ended outdoor setting inherently promotes a sense of wonder and a space ripe for questioning, inquiring and theory-building. The outdoors is the ultimate space for developing research skills, but there are others. Classrooms, for instance, have endless potential to support identity and agency. More on that from my far more knowledgeable former colleagues and me he r e.

Experts: A Different Approach

Opportunities to connect with members of the wider community have been important components of many of our inquiries. A visiting musician, an engineer and a professional dancer are just some examples of experts we have hosted. These visits often promote a meaningful exchange of dialogue, sharing of skills and connection. As a team, we have thought a lot about how to optimize these visits. Instead of the traditional invitation to come in and share expertise, we wondered how we might rethink these experiences with a view to reframe the relationship between the children and visiting experts.

Recently, we were fortunate to have a scientist visit as part of a science focused inquiry. Before the visit, we shared that " Dr. O" was interested in hearing about the children's work/projects/research and that a professional scientist might have interesting ideas to share back with us. The children were extremely motivated to share an ongoing color mixing project. Dr. O was able to make connections to his work by sharing, among other things, about how his research also takes place in a lab much like our classroom. Of course, this took some preparation and "frontloading" for our guest but he was grateful to have the teachers provide direction and shared how impressed he was with the children's work and how it made a lot of sense for him to connect to their work and not the other way around. Our aim was to actively cultivate the children's identities as Researchers/ Scientists by valuing their work in real time as opposed to something precluding the work they might someday aspire to - a sh ift in the role of expert toward a dialogue between researchers.

"In thinking about words we use to describe children, we asked ourselves as teachers how this strong image of children as learners might inform the way we speak to children and each other in our classroom communities."

Language (Teacher Talk)

PYP teachers do lots of thinking about how to support the development of the Learner Profile. In my context, some of us have spent dedicated time developing a shared understanding of young children as capable, curious and motivated to be active participants in their learning. In thinking about words we use to describe children, we asked ourselves as teachers how this strong image of children as learners might inform the way we speak to children and each other in our classroom communities. Circling back to those self-actualized young children/researchers at the beginning of this post, we see that their words are weighted heavily with a sense of agency. They spontaneously employed action verbs like investigating , discovering , finding out . They identified themselves as the researchers . They knew what "tools" they required. As teachers, we hope that our conscious use of empowering language contributed to the childrens '  metacognition-their ideas about themselves-as learners.

For most educators, the day-to-day planning for teaching/learning is a practical, often creative, but usually time-consuming labo u r of love. The time we set aside to consider the impact our choices have on children's agentic identities for lifelong learning is also time to appreciate the beautiful work of early childhood education.

Andrea Mills  currently works as both a Primary Teacher and Atelierista /Arts Specialist at The Inter-Community, Zurich. She is from the US, and has a range of international school experiences. Passionate about play based learning, she is also a trained Forest School Leader and is inspired by the educational projects of Reggio Emilia.

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Supporting Children's Agentic Identities through the Approaches to Learning

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This piece draws from experiences in an early childhood PYP context in Switzer l and . Reflections are shared on ways the Approaches to Learning have the potential to be powerful tools for supporting children's agentic identities with a particular focus on environments, experts and teacher talk. "Maybe if I get the idea of something.

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Hi everyone, here is a picture of me with my daughter on her graduation day. We both like to travel and cook.
I'd like to see your pictures too, so please share them in this corner.

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Developing your PYP Framework: Early Years

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Dear Participants, Hope you're having a good start to Spring. I am Shikha Ahuja, and I will be your workshop leader for the upcoming 'Category 3 - Developing your PYP Framework: Early Years' workshop scheduled for the 25th and 26th of March 2023.