Leaders in Learning for Life

St Leonard’s College is at the very forefront of the latest research and education methods designed to teach our students how to think effectively.

On June 14, 2018, we invited our parents to join internationally renowned Harvard Researcher, Ron Ritchhart, for a night of insight into how they could make a positive difference in their child’s learning and their capacity to think. Parents were invited to discover and explore:

• 8 key questions to ask your children that comprise ‘The Understanding Map’
• 9 simple tips to making thinking visible in your daily interactions with your child

Ron Ritchhart Video

View the complete parent seminar, presented by Ron Ritchhart, below.

Overview

Ron Ritchhart is a Principal Investigator and Senior Research Associate at the Harvard Graduate School of Education’s Project Zero; a vibrant centre for research that, for over 50 years, has been a prominent catalyst for advancement in the field of education.

Project Zero has led the complex inquiry, conceptualisation and birthing of new intellectual perspectives on the development and support of human potentials such as intelligence, understanding, thinking, and creativity. More specifically, Ron’s work focuses on topics such as teaching for understanding, the development of intellectual character, creative education, making students’ thinking visible and most recently the advancement of school and classroom culture.

Ron’s research and writings have informed and enriched the work of schools and school systems throughout the world, including St Leonards College. Ron has been working directly with the academic leaders and teaching staff at St Leonard’s for the last three years, building leadership and teacher capacity to develop St Leonard’s as a College where teacher and student thinking is valued, visible and actively promoted in our classrooms.

At St Leonard’s College, we are deeply committed to creating an environment that supports the discovery of our students’ ‘intellectual character.’ We recognise the seriousness of our responsibility to regularly review who our students are becoming, as thinkers and learners, as a consequence of their time with the College.

Ron pioneered the idea and exploration of intellectual character with the intention of understanding where effective thinking originates from. While a numerical indicator of IQ is positive, it does not compare to those thinking ‘dispositions’ that make students curious, reflective human beings who view the world with an open and curious mind. It is the development of these more expansive approaches to thinking that ensures our students are educated and equipped for life beyond the classroom.

This academic association between Harvard and St Leonard’s preserves our ability to fulfil our College Vision of: ‘An education for life’ by delivering a more enlightened educational process and system that prepares our students well, as robust thinkers and learners, for the world that they will live, work and mature in.

We are wholeheartedly committed to a progressive scholastic model comprising of classrooms as places of intellectual stimulation where the ability to think and learn is viewed not in test scores but in the development of individuals who can think, plan, create, question, and engage independently as learners.