Our district had the opportunity to have Steph Harvey come and speak to all our K-8 teachers on a staff development day. The foundations for our K-8 buildings is leadership (based on 7 Habits of Highly Effective People) and inquiry. We have had an opportunity to really integrate leadership into our schools. Steph was our kick off to integrating inquiry.
Below are some random take-a-ways from our day with her:
- kids really want to know stuff
- all kids are desperate to learn
- instantaneous access has changed our lives, but the need to be curious never changes
- we need to cultivate the natural curiosity that all students begin school with
- most direct rout to learning is engagement, the most direct route to engagement is FUN
- every 5 minutes of whole group instruction students need time to process - turn and talk
- if students can't make up their own minds someone will do it for them
- learning is a consequence of thinking
- we turn info into knowledge by thinking about it
- smart is not something you are it is something you get
- the questions students ask after reading a text are a better assessment than the questions the student can answer about the text
The final take-a-ways are that teachers need to be the chief learners in the classroom and principals need to be the chief learners in the building. The adults in the building need to learn something completely new so they can experience what our students are going through on a daily basis.
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