Kath Murdoch is an experienced teacher, author, university lecturer and popular consultant who has worked for many years in schools throughout Australia, New Zealand, Asia, America and Europe. She is widely respected for her work in the field of inquiry based learning and integrative curriculum in which she has taught, researched and published for well over 25 years.
Kath began her professional life as a classroom teacher in Melbourne, Australia. Her fascination in how students' constructed their understandings - and her interest in the way questions and big ideas could drive curriculum soon lead to a passion for integrative and inquiry based methodologies. This passion has become a career-long focus for teaching, research and writing and the methodologies in which Kath specialises are now central to curriculum frameworks in many parts of the world - including the popular International Baccalaureate, PYP program.
Critical to Kath's success is her continued involvement in classroom teaching. Whether it is to demonstrate techniques, coach teachers or build her own repertoire of practices, Kath is committed to regular and ongoing work with students. Her classroom work and research feeds a dynamic and ever-evolving expertise in the area of integrative and inquiry-based learning.
Kath's professional development offerings are diverse. They range from intensive partnerships with schools to develop inquiry programs and practices over several years through to one-day workshops for beginning or experienced inquiry teachers. Whether in her home town of Melbourne or on the other side of the world, working with a team or speaking to a packed auditorium Kath's style is refreshingly practical, inclusive and always connected to the real world of teaching.
Venue:
International School of Luxembourg
36 Boulevard Pierre Dupong,
L-1430 Luxembourg
8:30 am to 4:00 pm
Registration at 7.45 am
on the 24th November 2019.
This workshop will focus on the way we can design learning experiences to support learners as inquirers. Whether we are planning for a single lesson or an extended sequence of learning engagements, the design of learning experiences has a critical role in determining the extent to which learners use and strengthen the skills and dispositions needed for effective inquiry. During this workshop, we will consider how to structure learning experiences by:
- Using cycles of inquiry to inform the design of a unit / lesson
- Split-screening learning intentions
- Using questions that prompt deeper thinking
- Gathering and using learner’s questions / ideas to inform design
- Providing more choice
- Avoiding the trap of over-planning
- “Flipping” lessons to enhance problem solving, creativity and active investigation
- Re-thinking pace and volume of ‘activities’ in a learning sequence
- Designing for inquiry in ways that allow for variety rather than ‘cookie cutter’ experiences across grades
- Re-thinking the use of existing, former unit plans and instead treating each inquiry journey as a new opportunity for designing for learning.
