Put Curiosity First With CURIOSITY WORKS®
Curiosity is essential for effective teaching and learning. Curiosity electrifies learning for students and teachers alike, in all kinds of schools and in all subject areas and grade levels. McREL has specific, evidence-based techniques teachers can use to spark curiosity in their classrooms, creating huge opportunities for student engagement, motivation, and deep learning. McREL also has strategies that principals, school leadership teams, and teacher teams can use to foster professional curiosity that supports schoolwide improvement and innovation.
Curiosity isn’t static, it’s a continuous journey, and McREL can be your guide. Contact us today to get resources, coaching, professional learning, and consulting to boost curiosity in your school or system.
Consulting & Professional Development
From a one-day introduction to a three-day implementation session, we offer a variety of professional learning formats that will show your team why curiosity is an important lever for learning and how to cultivate it in teachers, leaders, and learners.
Our approach walks educators through six phases of curiosity-based school transformation, and we provide practical resources, tools, and activities based on solid research and evidence to make the concepts come alive in your school. Curiosity Works is for all schools—from those struggling to improve to those looking to raise the bar through innovative, learner-centered practices.
Curious about Curiosity Works? Clue in with these videos.
Introduction to
Curiosity Works
Dr. Kristin Rouleau, a school and district improvement expert at McREL, gives an overview of Curiosity Works, McREL’s approach for guiding school teams along pathways to school improvement and innovation.
Curiosity Works &
School Improvement
Learn how Curiosity Works is different from traditional school improvement approaches, working to help school teams move toward real collaboration, shared expertise, and innovation.
Inside Out
Approach
Learn how McREL’s Curiosity Works approach helps schools make “inside-out” changes that focus on existing bright spots, and how this is more powerful than traditional “outside-in” top-down mandates.
Publications
Books and reports to kick off your study of curiosity on your own, with a study buddy, or with an entire school team.
Curiosity Works: A Guidebook for Moving Your School From Improvement to Innovation
Start here for an in-depth look at the way Curiosity Works unites the bodies of knowledge that McREL has been sharing with clients for decades.
Curiosity Works: Moving Your School from Improvement to Innovation (free white paper)
Yes, your school has bright spots, and yes, you can capitalize on them to launch a transformational process. A free introduction to the Curiosity Works model based on the book.
Tools for Igniting Curiosity
Mysteries! Controversy! Emotion! These are just some of the levers of curiosity that, once pushed, lead to practically infinite opportunities for going deeper with content and making the learning stick.
Building a Curious School: Restore the Joy that Brought You to School
Explore the nature of personal and communal curiosity with educator/executive Bryan Goodwin, and rediscover the yearning to learn that makes everything we do more meaningful.
Unleashing Curiosity Quick Guide Series
Get tips for professional dialogue and learn a better way of transforming schools—not through top-down pressure, but through teachers and school leaders working together to make a difference.
Student Learning That Works: How Brain Science Informs a Student Learning Model (free white paper)
Combining the science of teaching with the science of learning—understanding how memory works—can produce classroom tactics that make learning more joyful, engaging, & memorable for students.