Inquiry Learning Launch

We've spent time with our staff at another staff meeting sharing an "Inquiry Learning Support Booklet", perhaps a first draft of our bible of inquiry learning! It sets out what is to happen at each stage of the S.T.R.I.V.E. model. This document was well received and should give teachers plenty of ideas, which of course will be built on with their own experiences and inspirations. Next we brainstormed how to launch our Term 4 Inquiry - Are We There Yet? The challenge to staff for our launch event is to have fun and participate with enthusiasm in the initial SPARK assembly! I suspect this challenge will be easy for some and more.... well, challenging for others! I'm not allowed to give away too much though. We've also shared our staff meeting presentation with the Board of Trustees on Monday night and it went down a treat - the board members were genuinely excited by the opportunities presented by the introduction of an inquiry learning approach.

Michael Pohl

Michael challenged us to think about what we are doing and to in a sense be able to justify what we are doing! So why teach thinking.....yes that was an excellent springboard as we discussed what we do at North and more importantly need to be doing at North. 

Neil touches on this in his reflections. For me it is about getting us all paddling the same waka  -so we need to be "talking the same talk!". We have chosen the Hats as a major thinking tool for our school...but then he challenged us re our level of expertise and very quickly it became apparent that our expertise is some what lacking...so this will need to be a strong focus for us as we implement "Strive!

Michael Pohl seminar (Neil's take)

Michael Pohl Seminar - Coley Street 11/9/08

This session was hugely useful and timely as we ponder the new LNS curriculum vision and inquiry learning model - thinking is a core component of both these things. Today was thought provoking and challenging for me as a class teacher - what am I doing to foster a culture of thinking in my class? Some things but I'm nowhere near as committed to it as I should be. As well as the thoughts below I got a lot from the modelling of use of various tools, some new to me and some I haven't used much or for a while. Why is important to develop a culture of thinking in the classroom and school? Why teach thinking?

• John Hattie - “teaching thinking strategies” and “giving good feedback” had high positive effects on student achievement.
• The amount of information in the world is growing exponentially, therefore we need to think more and think critically.
• Thinking is one of our key competencies! This is one good reason for developing a culture of thinking.

Principle of Abandonment In order to move forward, we need to be able to leave something behind (rather than adding something to the backpack). - How would we at North cope with cutting something we’re good at/have done for ages/are comfortable with in order to try something new? Some thoughts/key ideas

• Important that teachers AND students become good questioners.
• Balance of divergent and convergent thinking activities is good - (wide - deep thinking)
• To think is to question (Dewey)
• It is important to be able to communicate one’s thinking (not just be able to think).
• Establish a language of thinking - get them young! Pervade the class with this language, visual prompts, etc
• Plan and Programme with a Thinking focus
• Share ideas/models etc - pass them on to students.
• Make the teaching of thinking manageable.
• We want to see good thinking transferred from the class to the playground and out of school time and as a lifelong habit.
• If we are going to do deBono’s Hats or any thinking tools, they need to be thoroughly understood (all hats) not just superficially.
• We need to help teachers see the long term, global, sizeable benefit of having a thinking curriculum and seeing that it is manageable and achievable.
• We should use SCUMPS in our trial unit in Term 4. SCAMPER/SCUMPS acronyms can be adapted to different contexts e.g. music, character analysis. Acronyms help make these tools more easy to remember and use.
• Questions and Questioning are the most powerful technologies of all (Jamie McKenzie)
• We as teachers should reflect on our use of closed and open questions and whether they are requiring divergent or convergent thinking.
• What matters more than the answers is the questions...
• We must involve students in the previous teacher’s domain of planning and questioning to encourage student engagement and student ownership of their learning.

Inquiry and Thinking We still need to start with a guided inquiry approach (e.g. with a contentious issue) Students can create question chains to get to higher order or deeper thinking - what if and how questions. It is really important to get questioning right in an inquiry model - take time over it, vary the questions, probe to get good questions. Also, make the questions those that will lead to new learning. It is good to get students devising their own questions as it leads to increased ownership. It is also important to build the skills that will be used in successive inquiries.

Inquiry Learning 1st Staff Meeting

We had our first Inquiry Staff meeting in Week 5 of Term 3. Staff had been directed to readings on Inquiry Learning online at www.inquiringmind.co.nz. Several activities and discussions took place: 1. What is Inquiry Learning? i.e. What are the key features? What does IBL look like in the classroom? What do we know about it? 2. What are some of the features of a traditional teaching model in a classroom? 3. What are some of the features of an inquiry learning model? In an inquiry learning classroom, what is the role of the teacher? And what is the role of the learner? JPGs recording our thinking are embedded in this post for you to view. We were pleased with our team of dedicated teachers and what they came up with - they showed a good basic understanding of inquiry, essential for our launch in Term 4.

Launching S.T.R.I.V.E.

We launched our trial school inquiry model today - S.T.R.I.V.E. (Spark, Task, Research, Information, Voice, Evaluation). Over 2007 and 2008 we have looked at a range of inquiry models and seen some in action in schools. We wanted to create a model for us that would be easy for everyone to understand, especially the students and easy to remember (hence the acronym). Although we have a culture of kotahitanga and consultation at North, we felt the urgency of getting something up and running that people can get their teeth into soon, so we decided to draft a model for trial over the coming year, rather than have a full on process of school wide development. All of the staff will have a voice as we travel the journey together - planning together, discussing progress and of course having fun and showing enthusiasm together as we launch our first shared and directed inquiry - Are We There Yet? with the essential question "What Would Make a Great N.Z. holiday?

Our Model -the launch

Tuesday 2nd September  -we launched our Inquiry model! 

STRIVE  -Spark, Task, Research, Information, Voice, Evaluation

Yummy fairy cakes to get us into the zone and a polished presentation from the ICT team.

Some interesting discussion around the pictorial to support the model. I am pleased that the ICT lead teachers are going to organise posters etc for every room. I think this is important. As one staff member said we need to get it out there to our wider community.

We filmed our launch so that staff who were away today able to be "virtually" here!

We are being pretty formal to start with ...our first one will be 6-7.  I believe that how we launch this first Inquiry will be very important - we need to show that this is going to be fun and that we are all in this together! By injecting real enthusiasm and energy in to the launch we will get off to the perfect start!

The six thinking hats are going to be used schoolwide. We have resources within our school. We are also going to be  using the website to access resources to support us in this work.  This is  our first stage of integrating thinking skills into our Inquiry. Other models will be used as teachers see fit.

Watch this space!

Our Model -the launch