The power of sustained shared thinking in building self esteem as a learner

Sustained Shared Thinking is commonly used in classrooms, but it can also be implemented at home to promote connection, curiosity, and a love of learning through investigation. By working on projects together you can find new ways to connect with your child and gain an understanding of their unique approach to learning so you can support and advocate for them as they grow.

Through sustained shared thinking, children learn to articulate their thoughts, listen to others, and engage in meaningful discussions. This method helps develop essential skills that will benefit children throughout their lives and assists in building a positive sense of self, leading to improved self esteem.

As adults, it can be easy to become the holders of knowledge, or work to quickly answer a question when asked. “Mum, how far away is the moon?” “Dad, is the bear in the book a good guy, or a bad guy?” Sure you can use your knowledge or access to google to give the answer, but what does your child learn in that moment?

Instead, we aim to co-construct knowledge with children as investigators. How many different ways can we find the answers to a question? Do we know any experts in the field? Can we conduct experiments to gain a better understanding? Can we create a model to support our idea?

At home this could be a whiteboard for ideas and questions, an investigation wall, or a photo collage. Whatever your child’s interests and hobbies, be it a favourite book at story time, their daily walk in the park, their weekend visit to the beach, or even their favourite tv show. By engaging their curiosity, you can help build their identity of themselves as a learner.

For example, you may ask your child what they’ve seen on your daily dog walk through the park. Write down their answers then when you go on your next walk, act as investigators, taking photos of some of the key landmarks or animals along the way.

Adding these photos to a whiteboard and asking open ended questions like “where do you think those animals go at night?” Or “how do you think that big hole got there?”.

From there your child may want to create a map of the park, so you can add the photos to the spots they’ve been seen, on the next walk they may notice some differences, which could bring up more questions to investigate.

These types of projects can last a long time, and even when they don’t seem interested, the visual learning board will often pull children back days/weeks or even months later with a new discovery.

The take away:

• Shared sustained thinking is an effective way to boost children’s self confidence as learners, who contribute their unique talents, knowledge and experiences to the process of group learning.
• Making the learning visible on a whiteboard, wall, clipboard, etc helps children and adults revisit their thoughts to extend on them later.
• In SST adults help children co-construct knowledge rather then giving or testing for answers
• SST can be applied to everyday experiences like story time, a tv show, a walk through the park or to the beach. It can also stem from questions like “how far away is the moon?” Or “why can some birds swim?”

We asked a parent who uses this method at home, his top tips for implementing SST as a parent are:

“Next time your child asks a question consider these:

• How can we co-construct knowledge?
• Don’t google, think about what is around you to help in the enquiry, could you call a friend or relative with your child who could have knowledge to share?
• Give the question your attention, write it down even if it means pulling over to find an old piece of paper to scribble on,
• Remember, asking good questions is more valuable then the answer”

By practicing SST with your child, you can help form a life long love of learning, that focuses on finding answers rather than knowing answers. So no matter your child’s learning abilities or styles, they are able to form a positive sense of self as a learner.

Sienna Craig is a passionate advocate for early childhood education, educator wellbeing, and sector storytelling.

As Communications and Educational Leader at Currumbin Pines Early Learning Centre, an Exceeding-rated service on Queensland’s Gold Coast, she combines creative leadership with a commitment to inclusive, high-quality learning.

Sienna is dedicated to advancing conversations that centre educators as key to child outcomes and systemic quality uplift.