I first read For White Folks Who Teach in the Hood, and the Rest of Ya’ll Too by Dr. Christopher Emdin two years ago, and I was just enamored with the #HipHopEd approach to intentionally creating empowering learning experiences that draw on the intersection of youth culture and education. This book has been a constant... Continue Reading →
I have the pleasure of teaching a Language and Literature class of lovely, chatty and very social Year 9 students, 18 males and 6 females, all very curious, perceptive young people who are developing as analytical thinkers and soulful writers. Currently, we are engaging in a unit titled Intertextuality Study through the key concept of... Continue Reading →
Last year I purchased Intention: Critical Creativity in the Classroom by Amy Burvall and Dan Ryder. This book has become a constant in all my planning, teaching and yes, even assessing. Now that I am back in the blissful role as a Year 8, Year 9 and Year 10 Language and Literature teacher - having stepped... Continue Reading →
Last year I read For White Folks Who Teach in the Hood and the Rest of Y’All Too by Dr. Christopher Emdin. I was captivated by the idea of reality pedagogies, such a simple and yet powerful approach to teaching and learning. I was particularly inspired by Dr. Emdin’s emphasis on creating classrooms as communities... Continue Reading →
I have the pleasure of teaching in a semi-rural T-12 school in the Top End of Australia. Our environmental context is rough and this time of year our weather is either oppressively hot and humid or beautifully monsoonal. A vast number of our students spend their weekends on their quad bikes or motorbikes, traipsing all... Continue Reading →
As teachers within the Middle Years Programme of the International Baccalaureate we are given the challenge to strive to be the attributes of the IB Learner Profile alongside our students. We are encouraged to model these characteristics in our classrooms. This year I set a challenge for myself to take greater risks as I continue... Continue Reading →
Over the past few weeks our Year 8 cohort have engaged in a genre study inquiry focusing on the horror genre. I decided to try a different approach with my class. Like most middle school learners they are a very energetic and chatty bunch of learners who like to be actively involved in their learning,... Continue Reading →
To develop as an inquiry-based teacher is a continual process and it is often a process of reminding oneself to continually to teach and draw for conceptual understandings, rather than just teaching the content of our subjects. As MYP teachers we are given the challenge and privilege to teach the transferrable key concepts and the... Continue Reading →
H. Lynn Erickson and Lois A. Lanning write in their instructional book Transitioning to concept-based curriculum and instruction, the need to never simply assume that students conceptual knowledge is developing in our inquiry units, but we must explicitly teach the concepts for deeper learning to occur. The same can be said for learning within global... Continue Reading →
This year we sought to peel away curriculum clutter and refocus on what is key for our students to learn in order to prioritise first and foremost our development as inquiry teachers who foster and encourage the inquiring minds of our students. As a College we adopted the Kath Murdoch inquiry cycle as this allowed... Continue Reading →
The Heart, Head, and Hands of Learning 