Inquiry

Hello again! It's been a while, I know. I have finally settled into life in Italy, teaching with grade 4 once more. I've been an international teacher for many, many years and, as much as I love it, moving across to the other side of the world has got to be one of the mos

By: Diane Kashin, Ed. D, RECE. My last blog A Provoking Post on Provocations garnered some great comments and Twitter conversations that have sparked deep thinking about the process of pedagogy and curriculum in the early years. When I began my career as an early childhood educator I was fascinated by planning and programming. I…

A teacher explains why and how to promote a school culture in which teachers can honestly and openly reflect on their use of PBL, modeling the practice for students.

Every year, I ask my pedagogy students about their most memorable learning experience as a student. Inevitably, it involves a creative project. These were the moments when learning stuck and often it was when they

Toy company funds research suggesting educational development can be hindered by early formal schooling. So are UK schools getting it wrong?

This blog post explores how to plan an entire mathematics programme using PYP Planners. Part One describes the difficulties of using the IB PYP Mathematics Scope and Sequence document and th

Look up, go outside, see what lies beyond: an ethic of wonder made Rachel Carson a philosopher as well as an environmentalist

Our early years teachers call it 'ping pong'. What invitation or provocation do we throw to the children?  How do they respond?  How do we decide where to go next, based on what's been revealed? Whilst early years teachers are skilled at documenting learning, and at making decisions about what to catch and what to…

In the early days of digital culture, Jaron Lanier helped craft a vision for the internet as public commons where humanity could share its knowledge -- but even then, this vision was haunted by the dark side of how it could turn out: with personal devices that control our lives, monitor our data and feed us stimuli. (Sound familiar?) In this visionary talk, Lanier reflects on a "globally tragic, astoundingly ridiculous mistake" companies like Google and Facebook made at the foundation of digital culture -- and how we can undo it. "We cannot have a society in which, if two people wish to communicate, the only way that can happen is if it's financed by a third person who wishes to manipulate them," he says.

Carol Dweck researches “growth mindset” — the idea that we can grow our brain's capacity to learn and to solve problems. In this talk, she describes two ways to think about a problem that’s slightly too hard for you to solve. Are you not smart enough to solve it … or have you just not solved it yet? A great introduction to this influential field.