Get ready to transform your classroom conversations from surface-level to thought-provoking! In this energizing session, participants will explore how five simple but powerful questions—like “Wait, what?” and “I wonder...?”—can unlock deeper academic dialogue. Drawing from real classroom examples, including immersive role-based scenarios and Socratic seminars, this session demonstrates how to engage students in higher-level thinking across content areas. Whether you're looking to boost student voice, create equity in discussions, or just hear your students say, “That actually made me think,” you’ll leave equipped with practical tools and inspired to lead with curiosity.
Tiny Thinkers is a professional development session designed to equip early childhood educators with strategies to foster rich academic discussions in the K-2 classroom. This training focuses on building young learners’ oral language skills, encouraging critical thinking, and creating a classroom culture where all students feel confident sharing their ideas.
Since promoting academic discussion and higher-order questioning continues to be a problem of practice, how can we adjust our daily practices to make them a consistent and integral part of instruction? Together, we’ll explore practical, cross-curricular strategies and activities that foster meaningful academic discourse and deepen student thinking through higher-level questioning.