I’ve been exploring making thinking visible in all curriculum areas. Thinking tools and questioning are being taught and added to a collection of tools the children can choose from to develop perspective, vocabulary and an understanding of their world.
One of the tools I’ve been exploring with my students is Point of View. This tool can be used for all curriculum areas, whether exploring a character from a book, developing a character for a narrative, or to solve and explore a general problem. When children put themselves in the position of others, their empathy and understanding of a problem, situation or character deepens. Our inquiry for the first 8 weeks of the year has been about relationships.
Central Idea: The relationships we have with each other affect how we feel and behave.
What lines of inquiry will define the scope of the inquiry into the central idea?
- Self Awareness (LP Attributes, Attitudes, Skills, Mission Statement, Essential Agreement, School Pledge)
- How we develop relationships (What is relationship? What relationships do you have in your life? What makes it a relationship?
- Roles and behaviours within relationships (Scenarios, Role playing, Photos of LP Attributes, Essential Agreement)
- How relationships affect us (Good, Bod, Reflections task board/Think board- develop their own)
What teacher questions/provocations will drive these inquiries?
How do we develop and maintain healthy relationships?
What makes a supportive relationship?
What/why do actions help to build healthy relationships?
My students have been exploring the relationships they have in their world.
Example: Point of View: Friendship and why we need to have more than one best friend. My role is to record my student’s ideas and not mine, but I think they covered all bases! 🙂
Brainstorm: A good friend…
The Point of View has been a fantastic tool to help sort friendship and playground issues which is part of building healthy relationships. Young children can be egocentric and developing their understanding that there can be other views has led to a very inclusive group of young learners.
The children have also used Point of View to understand the behaviours of a book character and to develop their own characters and plots when writing.
Cheers Nina
Nina Davis: Teaching & Learning in Australia 
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