Applications, Big Ideas and the Art of Connections

What I am writing about today is my take on how you can use the Inquiring Minds application process to get your brain moving in a way that will help your plan for next year whether or not you get a site school week or (God forbid or maybe Halleluiah) you are asked to change grades or decide to move schools.

Consider mulling over some of the questions you need to answer in your application proposal as an opportunity for personal reflection on how you like to teach and begin to play with an interesting theme, organizing idea or key concept. Start rolling one around in your brain. For inspiration check out Edna Sackson’s Feb 2010 blog on Big Ideas at What Ed Said. Edna herself teaches primary IB (PYP in Australia) and her blog inspires me every time I click on it. Google “big ideas key concepts” and read from some of the diverse results to inspire yourself. Look at Table 1 (pg 3) in Focus on Inquiry (Australia). Look at this poster of Research Summary from Oxford University Press.

Do you personally journal in any way, shape or form? Do you read your students’ writing regularly and respond? Do you have a passion? If so, try making a web about one/all of these experiences and consider using it as illustration.

If you used to journal or never have, get busy. Try writing for 10 min everyday for the next 2 weeks (perhaps while you have your class doing it as well) on your thoughts connecting your class, next year planning and anticipating making this application. Let it inform your teaching practice. The site based experience is as much about how it opens you as a teacher to making all kinds of connections as it is for the development of that ability in your students.