This three hour workshop is suitable as a whole of school introduction to philosophy for K-6 targeted to teachers, P&C tertiary students or interested parents.
Completing this course will contribute 3 hours of QTC Registered PD for Teachers towards maintaining Proficient Teacher Accreditation in Australian schools.
This course is also held on a demand basis and will include:
A discussion on what is philosophy and the pedagogy behind philosophy with children.
Why do it and how can it enhance learning and teaching?
How does it differ from the traditional classroom practice?
What is a community of inquiry (COI) and why do we use it?
What does a philosophy session look like?
This is followed by a one hour demonstration lesson where all participate in a ‘community of inquiry’ similar to what is done in schools. This includes an exercise to assist the participants in this new environment (no hands up please!) and to return to their confident, curious, adventurous character. Using a motivational starter (usually a text/news story/problem) participants are invited to ask questions relating to the material, to make attempts to classify them into philosophic statements and to discover the philosophic questions behind their statements. A theme or question is decided and the dialogue begins using the community of inquiry methodology.
This session concludes with a reflection and Q&A and it is during this period that the following questions will arise.
What is a philosophic question?
What are the techniques for elicit the question?
What is the role of the teacher in a community of inquiry?
How can I learn to conduct a philosophy lesson?
How does this fit into the ‘crowded’ curriculum in K-6?
How can we measure if children gain from philosophy?
What opportunities are there for further professional development?