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When we approach this task with key questions in mind, we focus our thinking on how we might plan learning experiences and opportunities that will have the impact we desire.

Recently I have been contemplating how we might define inquiry. Like many terms in education, it is often used in multiple contexts and has a range of meanings attached to it. Coming to agreement on what inquiry is, requires negotiating seemingly divergent understandings. If we are to avoid oversimplifications and dichotomous thinking, we need to explore these multiple perspectives and find a balance point.

Number Talks are a wonderful way to see where our students are with their mathematical thinking. As a part of a daily routine, a Number Talk promotes number sense and mathematical reasoning. In this post, I revisit what a Number Talk can reveal about our students' understanding of mathematics, and how they might be used to promote a fresh perspective. In addition, I examine a success criteria for Number Talks that is more expansive and recognises their true power.

As schools prepare for the upcoming Christmas break here is a list of books that are bound to get you thinking.

A fascinating site with thought provoking questions specifically for teachers and students. http://ictmagic.wikispaces.com/Cross+Curricular

Time to think of our students as customers and provide a high quality product and service.

Take a quick look students as our customers

"Discover our programmes on design thinking, formative assessment and creative leadership"

This is a wonderful site from the University of Salford in the UK. Listen to soundscapes which have been recorded all over the world. Navigate on the map to find a place of interest, listen to the recording and read the information about the location. Upload your own soundscapes using the site or download the iPhone and iPad app at https://itunes.apple.com/app/i-say/id516927213. It's a useful geography resource and should get your students thinking about the sounds around them. http://ictmagic.wikispaces.com/Music%2C+Sound+%26+Podcasts

I tried to think of a different way of titling this post, I wasn't keen on the word 'surviving' but the more I thought about it, the more I realised that actually, you really do feel like you're surviving… Just about. I've been onto Twitter, Instagram and even scrolled through my personal Facebook a few times to discover that Teacher Training Nerves are setting in. Now, I know you've probably (definitely) heard some complete horror stories but let's begin with an open mind. Having just completed the PGCE, I totally understand why you are so nervy and that is why I've created this post… So, sit back, take a deep breath and repeat "I can do this"...

What are the mindful habits of successful learners and how can an understanding of these habits help us better achieve our learning goals? This is the question Art Costa Bena Kallick set out to answer with their study of the Habits of Mind. In 'Learning and Leading with Habits of Mind' Costa and Kallick identify sixteen habits which when utilised promote deeper understanding, unlock creativity, encourage reflective thinking and scaffold problem solving for individuals and groups. 

For those in Australia the end of the teaching year has arrived or is just around the corner. With holidays approaching now might be the perfect time to find a good book to read and reset your thinking ahead of the start of a new year. Here are my favourite reads from this year. 

Something is missing from my classroom lately and I am quite happy to have seen it disappear. It is the traditional line at the teacher's desk formed by students awaiting feedback on a recently completed piece of writing. What has replaced this is our use of Google Docs and Slides as a tool for the collaborative development of ideas from initial thinking and strategising through to final editing and refinement. It has introduced a new workflow to the class that both streamlines the process of providing feedback, allows for greater detail and transforms the process into one that is richly collaborative.

Are you interested in becoming a personal trainer? Native Mentor put together a process to help you with the process of becoming a personal trainer and explore your teaching to grow the others..!!

There is something about human nature that draws us towards dichotomous patterns of thought; an all or nothing, us or them style of thinking in which an option is either good or it is bad. In such a model complexity and subtle nuance with multiple possible outcomes and routes towards a goal are ignored. The field of educational technology is one where such a pattern is evident and recent ban on technology by a Sydney school shows how this style of analysis can have a significant impact on student learning.

How can we take more notice of the culture of our classrooms and what it communicates to learners about the value of thinking? 

"Because the Internet is everything, it has always lacked coherence for me. More available than things in their entirety are blurbs about things, captions, dialogues about things; or more removed, dialogues about blurbs about things. I'm a nontraditional educator who was educated traditionally, so I tend to think about things in their entirety, and the relationships of coherence created between those things. I canonize, holding up certain works of literature as both cornerstones and harbingers of academic dialogue. The works of Shakespeare and Dickens converse with the works of Woolf and Hemingway and give them meaning. But a quote from Shakespeare tossed into the muddle of all the quotes from all the books in English loses its lucidity and relevance. And this is exactly what the internet does."

The Knowledge Graph is an attempt into machine learning search technology, making search engine think as human, an intelligent model that understands real-world entities and their relationships without strings.