‘What we see of student thinking is only the tip of the iceberg. It is our job to reveal the processes and sources of their reasoning.’  

As part of our ongoing partnership with the University of Queensland’s Critical Thinking Project, we welcomed Mr Adam Kuss to St Catherine’s to facilitate a workshop for our Senior and Junior School staff on Teaching for Thinking in the middle years.  

Adam is currently working in dual roles with the University of Queensland (UQ) and Brisbane Grammar School’s Learning Organisation Team. Adam is also completing a PhD on how school leaders’ understanding of leadership and pedagogy influences their professional practice. Adam has previously worked as a Head of Mathematics and Deputy Principal in Brisbane.  

Adam’s session focused on the importance of developing subject-specific reasoning skills in our students. Moving through several practical strategies, Adam facilitated cross-faculty discussion on how students can best craft arguments in their subjects and emphasised the need for students to practise taking a stance on issues such as source credibility and data reliability.  

The workshop is directly related to our Teaching and Learning Framework, particularly the Learning Competencies of Metacognition and Inquiry. It reiterated the need for students to engage in rigorous discussion and to regularly engage in the core cognitive skills of analysis, categorisation, evaluation, and justification. Adam convincingly argued that this can be done at all ages, in all subjects, and we look forward to putting his advice into action and sharing our practice in the future.