Thinking Cultures

Sharron Cramer 

Think Cultures 

Welcome to the first Thinking Cultures update for 2019!

For those who are unaware, one of my roles this year is to continue the leadership of Thinking Cultures across the school. My work will centre around supporting staff and students and be guided by the Understanding Goals below.

I look forward to sharing our achievements over the year.

Learners as Thinkers

Through extensive research and the work being undertaken at Harvard University’s Project Zero Classroom, 8 Cultural forces have been identified as key conditions for learning in classrooms. By creating these conditions, we cultivate a culture of thinking and powerful learning.

These 8 Cultural Forces are: Environment, Modelling, Language, Interactions, Expectations, Visible Thinking Routines, Opportunities and Time.

The year has kicked off with a review of strategies to build on existing work that promotes a Thinking Culture across the school.

Teams have reviewed their Inquiry units of work for the year by posing Big Ideas, aligning work to the Victorian Curriculum and finding authentic contexts in which to develop student engagement and deep understanding.

The Specialist Team have devised a Framework for Teaching to target key concepts in their domains and build common threads across their team. The team is promoting the student values when planning learning activities “To inspire curious minds” and promote student agency.

Teams were encouraged to build student relationships with their new classes and we were fortunate to have the ongoing support of Karen Boyes who presented the cultural forces of Opportunity and Expectations. We explored ways of providing explicit criteria for gauging student success and providing opportunities to challenge student thinking. Revisiting The Habits of Mind as a tool for meeting challenges was well received, particularly by our new staff. Over 2 days, Karen worked with the Instructional Leaders and PLC Leaders to review existing practice, give feedback on classroom visits and helped to determine a future strategy plan. Next term there will be a professional development and implementation focus on Learning Intentions, Success Criteria, Habits of Mind and the Victorian Curriculum Capabilities-Creative and Critical Thinking and Personal and Social Learning.

A small, but enthusiastic group of parents attended the session “Learners as Thinkers - Beyond the school gate”. They went away with a deeper understanding of how we do things at Kingswood and many strategies to use at home. It was a fun and informative and I thank those parents for their positive feedback.

The learning Environment was also a focal point for Prep-Year 6 as the teams undertook  their own Inquiry Challenge and reflected on how the classroom promoted the school’s commitment to building a Thinking Culture and the new Student Values- Be Engaged, Be Curious, Be Inspired, Be Interdependent and Be Leaders.

The whole school is undertaking professional learning around Student Voice and Agency which complements the conditions for effective learning in line with the 8 Cultural Forces.