The University of Melbourne Education Fellow has been researching and publishing material on teaching methods for the past 20 years and was in Dunedin yesterday to show primary teachers and their principals from College Street, Silverstream, Balaclava, High Street, Green Island and Waldronville schools how to create "inquiring classrooms".
The technique creates learning environments where pupils are regularly encouraged to ask questions, investigate possible solutions, make choices, work collaboratively as well as independently and think more deeply for themselves.
Ms Murdoch said there had been a resurgence in that approach in recent years because educators were beginning to realise the pupils being taught today would need to be more multiskilled tomorrow.
"We don't even know what kinds of jobs they will be doing in the future.
"We need to give them transferable skills, such as creative thinking and problem solving, so that they can do a range of jobs and be prepared for an uncertain future.
"People don't go into one certain job. The trend is, we are moving away from one lifelong career."
Ms Murdoch said the teaching technique had been around for centuries and good teachers had used it for a long time.
"It is important to say though, that it was once regarded as a loose and laissez-faire approach to teaching. But we are much more skilled at using it in the classroom now."
The seminar continues today at the Mercure Hotel in Princes St, Dunedin.
