Big Ideas for Little Learners: Concept-based Inquiry in the Early Years (presented by Kath Murdoch)

Description

Inquiry based approaches have long been foundational to early years classrooms. Teachers working with young learners understand the power of nurturing children’s curiosity and using this curiosity to fuel learning across the curriculum.  While inquiry-based learning is highly engaging, we can miss opportunities for deeper, transferable learning when we get caught up in shallower ‘topics’.  When we combine inquiry-based learning with a concept-based approach, we take inquiry to a much deeper level. Concept-based learning focuses on depth and transfer. Even our very young learners are capable of ‘big picture thinking’. By fostering a more concept-based approach to inquiry in the early years, we help develop skills of pattern seeking, connection making, comparing and contrasting and synthesising that lay powerful foundations for continued, deep learning.   Teachers who bring a more concept-based lens to inquiry learn how to view children’s specific, localized interests and link them to bigger, universal ideas that can also act as curriculum connectors. 

In this practical workshop, Kath will work with early years educators to explore the following questions:

- What is a concept? Why are they important? 
- How can we use concepts to help connect children’s interests? 
- How might a more concept- based approach help us keep inquiries fluid and emergent across a year? 
- What teaching strategies help children learn to make connections and ‘think big’?
- How can we design provocations and use materials connected to concepts? 
- What does planning for concept based inquiry look like?
- How can we encourage young learners to express their conceptual understandings?
- How do concepts help us frame up shared inquiries? 
- What concepts weave across disciplines? 
- What resources can we use to strengthen conceptual understandings? 
- What is the role of content, skills and dispositions in a concept based inquiry?