Inquiry in Action
“Show me”….“Tell me more”…“What does that look like?”
On September 27, we had 63 educators travel to Berlin-Brandenburg International School from 22 schools and 11 countries for the first ever Inquiry in Action Workshop! Our participants arrived with great anticipation, greeted at the gate by third grade Student Ambassadors, who lead the educators to our meeting space, giving them the history of the historic buildings along the way.
Once everyone was gathered, we began a two day journey of deep inquiry into our beliefs around best practices in teaching, learning, and inquiry. On the first day, we broke into three groups and had the amazing experience of watching Kath Murdoch, Matt Glover, and Megan Holmstrom teach in classrooms with students. Each presenter had whole group lessons and individual conferences with an inquiry mindset. Whether the lesson was about ecosystems, the use of symbols as language, the concepts of area and volume, or immersion into a stack of texts, the through line of teaching with an inquiry stance was easy to see!
The second day, we debriefed, examined and reflected on the common threads of Inquiry in teaching these different content areas and learned inquiry moves to use in our teaching. We built relationships with other educators and created action plans to go back to our schools, feeling energized and motivated to improve our practices and better serve the children in our charge.
Many workshops focus on presenting information to grow our thinking. But in this workshop, in addition to exploring our thinking, we had the opportunity to have casual conversation with the presenters, creating a space that was personal. These masters of inquiry conferred with the participants to answer their questions and discuss overcoming hurdles that may be present in either their skill set, their experience, or their individual teaching environments.
This unique professional development opportunity was a tremendous success and created enthusiasm and energy that will be carried back into our classrooms. We have included a few testimonials from our participant below!
We hope that you consider joining us for one of our future workshops! Our next workshop is February 7 and 8, 2025 at Jakarta Intercultural School. We will then be in Hanoi in September of 2025 and Budapest in November of 2025.
Testimonials
“I absolutely loved seeing Kath, Matt, and Megan in the labs one after the other. As you have all worked with my school, I’ve had the opportunity to see you in action a few times. Seeing you all in a different context and the opportunity to reflect on the similarities and differences was very valuable to me.It was by far the most valuable professional development I have attended yet in my career. Being with you all in such a relatively informal setting to learn from you will give me so much to learn from for a long time to come“.
Jamie Phillips – International School of Uganda
“This was such a valuable opportunity to connect the common threads of an inquiry-based approach across a range of age-groups and subject areas. In addition to having the opportunity to watch these globally-renowned experts facilitate inquiry with students, meeting like-minded colleagues from across the region and from different types of schools was also an amazing collaborative and networking opportunity. “
Nikki Ellwood, Elementary Director of Teaching and Learning, The American International School of Budapest.
“This PD with Kath, Matt and Megan was excellent. I had had professional development with all three before; watching all of them teach in a single day brought out many throughlines of excellent inquiry practice – especially the value of productive struggle with the invitation to students to create theories and to prove or defend their points of view knowing their voices are valued. The second day provided an opportunity to go deeper, to begin to reflect on the ideas sparking in my mind and to make concrete plans to implement some of the effective inquiry strategies into upcoming lessons. I feel a shift in my language and in how I respond to students’ offerings … and the shift feels good. “
Moira Noble – International School of Uganda
“Last weekend I had a wonderful opportunity to participate in Inquiry Labs with Kath Murdoch, Matt Glower, and Megan Holmstrom. On the first day, we watched them in action, leading lessons to grade 2, 3, and 5 students (our group observed these); on the second day, we analyzed these experiences. Regardless of whether it was a language, math, or unit of inquiry lesson, what shone through was the language used when talking to students. What was said clearly helped students learn how to learn:
– What do you notice?
– How did you think? What happened in your brain?
– How could you show me your thinking/ reasoning?
– Prove it (if a child finds the answer quickly), explain it (if the answer comes slowly)! Prove it with the…
– We’re gonna share lots more theories.Let’s see if we can come up with a theory for…
– Our goal is not to finish, our goal is to get our thinking going.
– How do you know it works every time?
– Researchers, are you ready? Let’s see what we can find out!
– I will show you what I do when my thinking changes.
– Oh, yes, that changed my thinking.
Ginta Karklina – International School of Riga