Nurturing Belonging and Agency in a Culture of Thinking - Workshops
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Registration opens 9am Thursday 6.08.2026
Slow Looking, Deep Learning
Slow Looking, Deep Learning
Description:
Have you watched a student rush past a powerful image or idea without really seeing it? This session explores what happens when we slow down, using the arts to reclaim attention as a foundation for thinking, drawing on Project Zero's Making Thinking Visible and Cultures of Thinking. In the spirit of Navigating Creativity: From Slow Looking to Bold Thinking, we'll practise pausing long enough to really see student thinking, then use those insights to spark bolder shifts in practice. Participants will leave with practical tools for building sustained attention into their own classrooms.
The Fresh Thinking You’ll Leave With:
Gain practical strategies for noticing and capturing student thinking, so you can move from close observation to confident classroom action.
Leave with ready-to-use prompts and routines that build sustained attention into everyday learning, across any subject area.
Audience: All
Presenters: Nathalie Ryan - Senior Educator at the US National Gallery of Art
Bio:
Nathalie Ryan is a Senior Educator at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., where she has led programs for educators, families, teens, and the adult public since 2002. Since 2008, she has been an instructor at Harvard Project Zero, teaching courses on Artful Thinking, Mindful Looking & Making, Engaging with Global Issues Through Art, and Empathetic Perspective-Taking in the Museum. Her current research, undertaken with Professor Dacher Keltner at UC Berkeley, explores awe and well-being in museum settings. She is lead author of An Eye for Art: Focusing on Great Artists and their Work (Chicago Review Press, 2013). Nathalie believes in the power of the arts to help people slow down, notice the world around them in new ways, spark curiosity and wonder, and build connections with others.
Code: WS01
School Deep, School Wide: Thinking, Playing and Being
School Deep, School Wide: Thinking, Playing and Being
Description:
When pedagogy travels across a whole school, what helps it also take root deeply? Drawing on Project Zero’s Cultures of Thinking and Pedagogies of Play, this workshop introduces three lenses developed through research at Brisbane Girls Grammar School: Thinking, Playing and Being. Through close looking at classroom moments, collaborative interpretation and practical design activities, participants will explore what each lens brings into view and how these insights might prompt bold shifts in practice. Participants will leave with a shared language, adaptable provocations and a framework for balancing schoolwide reach with school-deep attention.
The Fresh Thinking You’ll Leave With:
Leave with three practical lenses, Thinking, Playing and Being, that you can use to examine and redesign learning in your classroom or school.
Practise a simple process for slowing down, looking closely at classroom moments and deciding what might be preserved, deepened or changed.
Take back adaptable prompts and planning tools for translating schoolwide pedagogy into deeper, context-responsive learning.
Audience: All
Presenter: Andrew Pennay - Director of Creative Futures, Brisbane Girls Grammar School - Sessional Academic, University of Queensland, Edith Cowan University
Bio:
Andrew Pennay is Director of Creative Futures at Brisbane Girls Grammar School, where he coordinates the creative arts curriculum, supports teacher learning and contributes to schoolwide approaches to pedagogy. His work with Project Zero, particularly Cultures of Thinking and Pedagogies of Play, has taken him from Brisbane to Perth and Manila, working with teachers to ignite music learning in secondary contexts. Andrew is also a PhD candidate at Queensland University of Technology, researching secondary school songwriting through performative, post-qualitative and a/r/tographic approaches. A recipient of the 2025 ACEL New Voice in School Leadership award, he is passionate about arts education, teacher agency and the conditions that allow learning to become deeper, more playful and more attentive.
Code: WS02
Architecting Agency: Navigating Creativity with Project Zero Frameworks
Architecting Agency: Navigating Creativity with Project Zero Frameworks
Description:
In an era defined by rapid change, how do we move learners from the patient observation of "Slow Looking" to the "Bold Thinking" required to navigate an uncertain future? This workshop invites educators to challenge the "banking concept" of education—where knowledge is merely deposited into passive recipients, and instead embrace the "Infinite Game" of lifelong learning.
Drawing on foundational frameworks from Harvard Project Zero, including Agency by Design and Cultures of Thinking, we will explore how maker empowerment and a sensitivity to design can transform classroom culture. Participants will examine the "Punk" spirit of agency: a transformative force taken by the learner to ensure equity and voice.
Through interactive routines and a reimagined "Instructional Flip," you will gain practical strategies to trigger "Flow" and embrace productive struggle. We will move beyond temporary engagement (Heterogeneous Change) towards lasting residuals of intellectual character (Homogeneous Change). By the end of this session, you will be equipped to curate a "lifeworthy" curriculum that prepares students to be critical co-investigators of their reality. Join us to move beyond mere compliance and empower your students to play the "whole game" of thinking.
The Fresh Thinking You’ll Leave With:
By the end of this session, you will be equipped to curate a "lifeworthy" curriculum that prepares students to be critical co-investigators of their reality. Join us to move beyond mere compliance and empower your students to play the "whole game" of thinking.
Audience: All
Presenter:
Nigel Coutts - Head of Teaching & Learning, Middle School - Beaconhills College Berwick
Stellina Sim - Head of Teaching & Learning, Primary - Waverley Christian College Wantirna South
Bio:
Stellina Sim is an experienced educator known for her innovative teaching methods that challenge and inspire her students. As a creative leader of learning, she actively supports teachers in cultivating a culture of thinking within their classrooms. Stellina excels in designing learning environments that foster creativity, utilising maker-centered approaches to empower young learners in becoming proficient problem solvers. Stellina is Head of Teaching & Learning (Primary) at Waverley Christian College and is an assessor for HALT with ISV.
Nigel Coutts is the Head of Teaching & Learning (Middle School) at Beaconhills Berwick. He is a founding member of Project Zero Australia and a coach for Harvard’s online learning programmes. His areas of interest include empowering student agency, design thinking, making visible thinking and teaching for understanding. He has experience in International, Gifted and Special Needs Education and as a coach within ‘Creating a Culture of Thinking’.
Code: WS03
Beyond the Routines: Leveraging the 8 Cultural Forces
Beyond the Routines: Leveraging the 8 Cultural Forces
Description:
Often, when we think about effective learning and teaching, we focus on programming and instructional design — but what if deep learning depends on something more? In this interactive and reflective session, Ryan will invite participants to move beyond thinking routines and explore how the 8 cultural forces can shape classrooms and schools where thinking is valued, visible and actively promoted. Connecting to the theme, participants will consider how slowing down to notice the cultural conditions around student thinking can lead to bolder, more intentional shifts in practice. Together, we will unpack expectations, language, modelling, time, opportunities, interactions and environment as practical levers for transformation. Participants will leave with concrete ways to deepen cultures of thinking and learning in their own classrooms and schools.
The Fresh Thinking You’ll Leave With:
Explore practical ways to use the 8 cultural forces as levers for shaping deeper thinking and learning.
Walk away with strategies to move beyond routines and intentionally build a culture where thinking is valued, visible and actively promoted.
Identify small, purposeful shifts in expectations, language, modelling, time, opportunities, interactions and environment that can strengthen classroom and whole-school practice.
Audience: All
Presenter: Ryan Gill - Moriah College - Head of High School
Bio:
Ryan Gill brings a passion for learning and teaching, with a particular focus on critical and creative thinking. Having taught and held leadership positions in both the UK and Australia, he is also a founding member of the Project Zero Australia Network. Having led his previous school as one of the pioneers of building a culture of thinking in New South Wales for over a decade, in his current role as Head of High School at Moriah College, Ryan is focussing on ensuring that the pedagogies and practices of learning and teaching actively promote an environment in which collective and individual thinking is valued, visible and actively supported. Ryan’s work connects strongly with the theme by exploring how educators can look closely at the cultural conditions for learning and use these insights to create bold, meaningful shifts in classroom and whole-school practice.
Code: WS04
Slow Looking at Leadership: Exploring Identity, Influence and the Stories We Tell About Leading
Slow Looking at Leadership: Exploring Identity, Influence and the Stories We Tell About Leading
Description:
Rather than asking “What should leaders do?”, this workshop asks:
“What do we notice about ourselves as leaders, and how does who we are influence what we create around us?”
Drawing inspiration from the practices of slow looking, creative inquiry, and reflective noticing, this workshop invites leaders to step away from the urgency of everyday decision-making and examine leadership with greater attention and curiosity. Through carefully designed reflective experiences, participants will investigate their leadership identity, the influences that have shaped their practice, and the ways their presence, choices, and interactions shape the cultures around them (Ritchhart, 2015; Garson, 2026).
Participants will explore leadership as both an internal practice of self-understanding and an external practice of shaping environments where others can think, contribute, and flourish.
The Fresh Thinking You’ll Leave With:
Participants will:
Develop a deeper awareness of the beliefs, experiences, and values that shape their leadership identity.
Use reflective and creative practices to slow down and notice patterns in their leadership approach.
Examine how leadership presence influences culture, relationships, and ways of working.
Consider the tension between “schoolish” leadership (certainty, compliance, tradition) and “outlandish” leadership (curiosity, experimentation, possibility).
Identify opportunities to cultivate more intentional and authentic leadership practice.
Audience: Primary & Secondary leaders/aspiring leaders
Presenter: Dr Susan Garson, Director of Professional Practice, Brisbane Girls Grammar School
Bio:
Susan has taught in public, private, single-sex and co-educational contexts in Queensland for 26 years. She completed undergraduate and postgraduate studies at the University of Queensland, and doctoral studies at the Queensland University of Technology on the topic of middle leader identity development and influence. Susan is a founding member of the ACELQ Pivotal People Brisbane steering committee, is part of the ACEL Qld executive and is a PZ Australia steering committee member. Susan attended PZ Classroom at the Harvard Graduate School of Education in 2018 and is passionate about prioritising visible thinking in classrooms, meeting spaces, and within professional learning opportunities for educators.
Code: WS05
Beyond the Spoon: Teaching for Understanding
Beyond the Spoon: Teaching for Understanding
Description:
If “children grow into the intellectual life around them” (Lev Vygostky), then what kind of intellectual life are we creating in our classrooms and schools? In an era of crowded curricula and high-stakes assessment, it is easy for learning to become focused on coverage and test performance rather than deep understanding.
This interactive workshop explores how educators can move beyond spoon-feeding to foster thinking and understanding. We’ll engage in an interactive understanding experience (a core part of the annual Project Zero Classroom experience) and raise important questions about teaching and learning. What does it mean to understand? How does understanding develop?
The Fresh Thinking You’ll Leave With:
Experience a powerful understanding activity to spark deeper thinking and inquiry.
Gain strategies for helping learners develop genuine understanding.
Leave with thought-provoking questions that will help you design classrooms where thinking is visible, valued, and actively cultivated.
Audience: All
Presenter: Cameron Paterson - Director of Learning, Wesley College
Bio:
Cameron is Director of Learning at Wesley College, Melbourne. He also teaches courses on thinking and understanding for Harvard’s Project Zero. He has master’s degrees in history, educational philosophy, educational administration, and learning & teaching. He is the co-editor of books on teacher agency, cultures of thinking, and reimagining education. Cameron’s accomplishments have been recognised with national and global awards for teaching, leadership, and innovation.
Code: WS06
