Month: October 2011

math, professional_development4 Comments

A Permanent State of Re-invention

Deirdre Bailey

by Deirdre Bailey I turn around and look at the teacher I was in August and my perspectives have changed so dramatically that I have some difficulty remembering exactly what it felt like ‘before’. I remember sitting down to plan with Amy Park in August and being confused about how to allow for openness in learning while restricting inquiry to the curriculum topics. I remember answering a question about ‘inquiry’ in our first staff PD and feeling uncomfortable with the answer. I remember driving to the Shuswap reading Fosnot and having the feeling that we were on to something big … Continue reading A Permanent State of Re-invention

grade4, math7 Comments

Inquiry in Math

Deirdre Bailey

As a school that tries to develop rich, inquiry-based learning experiences, one of the questions that often emerges is how we handle inquiry and math. Our thinking around inquiry-based teaching and learning is that it develops ‘disciplined’ ways of being and thinking. That is, inquiry is more than students just ‘doing projects.’ Rather the purpose of taking an inquiry approach is to structure learning so that students can tackle problems, generate possible solutions, share and improve each other’s ideas, and demonstrate their understanding in a variety of ways. The end goal of inquiry is students developing deep understanding of key … Continue reading Inquiry in Math