Intro to Concept-Based Inquiry with Rachel French

Dates: March 8-9, 2025
Location: International School of Portland campus, Portland, OR
Audience: Teachers and school leaders committed to implementing a concept-based approach

Register here!

This will take you to the Professional Learning International site to register.

Unlock the power of a Concept-Based Inquiry approach!

An intensive 2-day workshop for Teachers and School Leaders committed to implementing a Concept-Based approach. This workshop has practical strategies that invite you to rethink the unit design process.
Discover the Concept-Based Inquiry model developed by French and Marschall, and unlock a framework for intentional teaching and learning. Immerse yourself in various teaching strategies carefully crafted to cultivate students’ conceptual thinking.

Workshop Goals

  • Share a model of Concept-Based Inquiry that you use as a framework for planning intentionally designing learning experiences across the curriculum.
  • Build a shared understanding of different types of inquiry and the strengths and challenges of each, so you can make intentionally choice about how to utilize them in your school or classroom.
  • Develop your toolbox of practical teaching strategies that can be used flexibly to support concept attainment, scaffold conceptual understanding, promote learning transfer.

Workshop Outline

  • Join a model lesson where teachers engage as students to experience using guiding questions and a range of case studies to build conceptual understanding.
  • The lesson debrief invites teachers to explore the role of guiding questions, case studies, and the process of inductive teaching.
  • Teachers reflect on when and how they use structured, guided, and open inquiry to promote conceptual understanding.
  • Video clips of teaching and learning will illustrate the kinds of thinking that are developed at each stage.
  • Rachel French will introduce a model of Concept-Based Inquiry with six distinct phases. You will engage in a variety of teaching practices that help students think conceptually.
  • Explore practical instructional strategies can enhance units they are currently teaching leaving with a toolkit of strategies they can immediately implement in the classroom.

Ticket Types

Early Bird
(available until January 15)

Regular Registration

Groups of 5 or more

Cost per Ticket

$700
.

$750

$700

Register here!

This will take you to the Professional Learning International site to register.

Rachel French, MA Ed. is a certified Independent Concept-Based Consultant,
Presenter, and Director of Professional Learning International. She has led innovative curriculum design and transformed how educators teach and how students learn for over 12 years.

Mentored by the founders of Concept-Based Curriculum themselves, Dr. H Lynn Erickson and Dr. Lois A. Lanning, Rachel was entrusted with the exclusive worldwide rights to be the sole provider of the Erickson and Lanning Concept-Based Curriculum and Instruction (CBCI) Trainer Certification Institute — the certification that kick-started her journey into Concept-Based Inquiry and inspired her own approach to the pedagogy.

Rachel has presented numerous workshops and conferences on Concept-Based Learning globally. She now hosts the annual Concept-Based Inquiry Learning Labs Conference, a conference dedicated to bringing together passionate CBI educators from around the globe.

Rachel’s mission is to help other educators transform their classrooms and schools by accessing leading professional development, planning and implementing Concept-Based units, and adopting a Concept-Based curriculum development approach.