Feedback on Red on Blue

Staff focus = Questioning - maybe focus on the Task stage - assessment and staff development wise.

Feedback on Thoughts for Term 2 Ideas

Link with Key Competencies - Managing Self - having structure in place in terms of a timeline keeps students focused - we can discuss with children the importance of having a timeline to keep on track. Discussion around balance between time for finding and time for presenting information - a lot of time gets spent on finding rather than presenting information - obviously you need to find out information first. Integration of stages may occur -when we view a dance to find information, we are also learning how to present an idea at the same time. We need not think about the stages of STRIVE being entirely linear - not sure we agree on this one as yet! We need to have the model yes but we can and should be doing some Information at same time as Research etc - it's actually STRIVE with a stutter (STRTRITRIVRITRTRIVE) and lots of TRI!!!

From the Principal's Pen!

We have done it -we have all successfully blogged on some aspect of our Inquiry undertaken this term! We have also successfully used chatzy - aren't we simply the best!!! Yes  the bribes helped us get through the process.....and yes I  have yet to master anti clockwise!!!!! Ponder...how could you use blogging in your room? what about chatzy...could they be two tools we use with our Inquiry model?

In dealing with looking toward term 2  - we have come up with some excellent suggestions in how we can continue to strengthen the STRIVE model here at Levin North! 

red on blue

Red on blue

* school spark to inspire whole school learning. * are we going too far too fast? * we need to do lots of discussion in our classes about the STRIVE so students can see the process of the inquiry. * remember the aim of independent inquiry learning and passing onto the language and skills of inquiry. * perhaps staff focus on one stage of the model, e.g. questioning techniques. * more definition of boundaries of inquiry for next term e.g. dance or art or language. * bring/involve family cultural groups, including European * units need more time to gather info etc, probably 6 full weeks, 1 week to do Spark and teaching of STRIVE model, including the language of inquiry.

Topic Term 1 GJB

Topic: How a Mousetrap Works

Spark "There are mice around our storeroom ......" discussion, what now?

After discussion: Task - draw a mousetrap (any style acceptable, no pics etc to work from) - compare and discuss drawings.

Lead on to observe big pic of mousetrap - "How many parts?" "What purpose of each?"

Blogging our Unit

Today we are all spending some time in our staff meeting blogging our unit. Reflecting on the Stages covered to date...and digging deeper on one of these to reflect on what has gone well for me, what will I do differently next term and perhaps thinking about the support that I need -is it a team level? mentoring groups? or perhaps at the whole staff level?

Inquiry Celebration

Wow, we've reached the end of our first shared inquiry - What Would Make a Great a NZ Holiday? Today, the school is broken into three groups to share their learning with 3-4 other classes from across the levels of the school. Room 17 ( Year 1) had a great time camping at Papamoa (it's a place quite close to Miss Hepburn's office!) - they "slept" in a tent and played on the beach and went swimming! Room 13 (Year 3-4) shared lots of information about their journey through the STRIVE model and what they were doing at each stage. They learned a lot about various NZ places and the great activities you can do there. Mr Shekleton is playing his role as entertainer in between items! Room 14 (Year 5-6) have shared their findings in a Keynote presentation. They talked about their questions and the discussions they had as a class to choose the direction their inquiry took. They have created brochures to advertise the places they would choose to visit in Christchurch and also present the itinerary. Room 11 (Year 3-4) also shared what they did at each stage of the model. They have focused particularly on sharing their brochures and posters which are part of the Voice stage of the model. They used Pages as the software to create the brochures and established some shared success criteria to evaluate their work by. Room 1 (Year 1) have chosen to focus on our local area of the Horowhenua. They shared their discussions through the STRIVE model e.g. what is a holiday? Mr Baker has interviewed children about their various opinions and answers on the inquiry questions - e.g. what would you take on your outing or where in Horowhenua would you go? They have also shared their art work arising from the places they would visit. It's great to see the way that all classes have done things differently, going far and wide (and not so far) on their "holidays" but everyone has engaged children in using the new STRIVE Levin North inquiry learning model.

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.

Muritai

The thing that struck me about this school is their strong belief /desire to strive for excellence;so whatever they do they aim to be the best they can and I believe that it came through.

Posing the question "what does success look like for us" . They had really unpacked this  -so you saw consistency throughout the school. That is going to be a challenge that we need to meet . We have to as a team agree - what will success look like at North - and so in terms of our Inquiry model  -what does this mean? 

Hey I wrote this ages ago  - have just figured how to get it back and post it!!!!!Yay!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

My children are highly enthusiastic about asking  their own questions and finding the answers. The next step for me is to find more resources for the children to use that are appropriate to their skill level. I will be asking my ICT lead teacher/Mentor or hep with finding  websites and using Comic Life to display data.

Inquiry learning journey

We believe that it fits well with the new curriculum and is the best way for children to gain skills to become lifelong learners. It also ensures that children have involvement and ownership of their learning, thus enhancing student engagement. This year, we are exploring a variety of approaches to inquiry with a view to forming a model suitable for our school by the end of the year. The staff will be given some readings to ignite their understanding. Our term by term integrated units (schoolwide) are being adapted and tailored to encourage more of a student-driven, inquiry based model for learning, rather than teachers choosing a topic as was done in the past. For example, in term 2, our unit is What If... leaving the opportunity for syndicates, classes or groups to select what they are learning about and their main and subsidiary questions. We are currently working out how best to implement a schoolwide inquiry model, especially whether we go through a full process of the whole staff developing the model or our inquiry team devising a model which will be trialled for a year. We are learning from visiting other schools, taking inquiry workshops at conferences and investigating various models. Whichever way we choose, we would like to take on an inquiry model from the beginning of next year. So far, the main implication for staff has been the change of approach in our units and this change is being supported through syndicates working together and discussing how teachers are handling this new approach in their classrooms.

As we progress along our Inquiry journey it is exciting to see teachers moving outside their comfort zone and giving more power to the learner! You can feel the buzz as teachers progress in this direction.

Term two Unit and Our Inquiry Journey

I think it is exciting the way we have left the door open in terms of charting your own Inquiry. Using the team structure to develop this work means that you can pick up some good ideas along the way

Inquiry-based Learning workshop

Workshop with Jan-Marie Kellow e-fellow learning about Inquiry. We're really looking forward to getting our teeth into developing inquiry at North. IBL is based on questioning and wondering, children's interests and curiosity, investigation. It may focus on problems and issues and encompasses motivation, skills, processes. She suggested that key elements of IBL are

1. Student ownership (to some extent) - teacher still has a role though in developing the inquiry
2. Authentic contexts with purpose and relevance to their lives - they must be able to grasp and relate to the problem or issue. Idea - Wonder walls - allow children to post notes on a wall both for general and current inquiry topic based learning.
3. Some scaffolding needed - guided inquiry - means that children of any age can be engaged in IBL - there are different forms of inquiry - directed, guided, pure
4. The teacher has a facilitator role - may be doing some teaching - they are not Captain Answer!
5. There may still be a need for explicit teaching of concepts and skills relevant to the inquiry
6. IBL will often include knowledge creation - some new presentation or arrangement of information - related to the purpose of the inquiry
7. Action - this is controversial - some people argue that social action is compulsory, others do not. I think it does depend on the purpose.

Jan-Marie's model - Ask, Acquire, Analyse, Apply, Act, Assess - 6 A's. Many models have different expressions of the same handful of steps or concepts In the assessment stage - look at developing rubrics with your class for assessment of IBL IBL and Info Literacy are related in that you need Info Literacy skills to do good inquiry but they are not the same and shouldn't be confused. IBL is also a good means of meaningfully practising Info Literacy skills. These skills may need teaching in the context of inquiry. Models of inquiry may be class, syndicate or school wide. Expressing them visually and graphically is helpful to enabling students' understanding of their inquiry. When we find information an inquiry, we should triangulate it from two other sources Developing an Inquiry Learning Model in a School Link to follow It's important to have this to develop common understandings of inquiry - visiting other schools is a good idea. Also, look at the elements of Inquiry and discuss what they mean to staff. This discussion will be probably be quite diverse and may even be quite heated. We need to explore, question and trial existing models. We could use an "inquiry into inquiry" for teachers. Don't be afraid to get underway though..... Personalise the model for your school and express it visually. Communicate with your community. A change to planning documents may be needed to take into account inquiry based learning - important when doing integrated unit plan sheet for us. BUILD THE PLANE WHILE IT'S IN THE AIR! As teachers we need to developing a questioning attitude and the ability to question in our children. Why inquiry?

• Fun, meaningful, providing life long skills, purpose, sits well with the new curriculum, it's rich and motivating, engaging for children