How do students sustain a love of learning ?
In 2008, I set up Fantastic Learning Systems as a space to enhance student agency. Using my own classroom, I explore questions like...
How do I motivate my students to sustain their engagement of learning via mandated curricula?
How can rubrics encourage the development of a shared understanding of learning progression between me and my students?"
How might conceptual metaphors assist students to self-regulate their learning behaviours as they participate in formative and summative assessments?
Today, I apply these questions to my teaching of Years 7 & 8 small-group 'structured literacy', Year 8 Humanities and Year 9 English. The particular challenge I set myself in 2024 is to implement the practices of the philosophy in school movement, inviting students to participate in communities of inquiry.
MIDDLE SCHOOL TEACHERS
Sharing the challenge
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LEARN MOREYEARS 7 to 9 ENGLISH TEACHERS
EVERYTHING WORLD: THEME PARK OF THE MIND™
Explore the role of conceptual metaphors in a philosophical enquiry.
Philosophy in schools has a fifty year history, focusing on crucial ways of relating thinking and doing, ethics and logic, and so much more. We partner with author Clare-Rose Trevelyan and show how her Young Philosophers Series can lift the calibre of interactions in any classroom through her inventive conceptual metaphor of the Theme Park Of The Mind.
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YEAR 8 HUMANITIES
LIVELY
& LOCAL
Designing warm-ups leading to philosophical enquiry.
Australian cultural history stories add flair to Humanities lessons, grounding inquiries in local knowledge. We look at designing warm-up strategies that anchor middle school student learning experience in local contexts.
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