How are you going?

Back in February somebody wrote about changing the way things are done - am keen to hear how that person has got - have they been radical as suggested -how did it go? 

Inquiry - Keeping a Learning log? Tracking the Inquiry

This is an area that needs lots of thinking...how do  you keep track of what is achieved? I have seen schools particularly in the Junior/middle school collate all the work into an Inquiry Book...these have been kept and just browsing through them you can quickly see how the children have "grow" within the Inquiry process... a quite effective way of keeping a record.

muritai

Th thing that struck me was the way in which they have embedded a school-wide Inquiry model. The students were confidently able to articulate what they were doing. A lot of time was spent gaining this consistency -this will be the challenge for us.

To be the best we can  -came across load and clear in how they implemented their model

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!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Muritai School/Inquiry

The journey of an Inquiry needs to be documented.

A number of children from Muritai School presented to an audience of teachers from the Horowhenua ICT cluster. The skills gained for these children were: interviewing and talking to people; creating questions, gathering information and researching and sifting information; more confident in approaching people; better able to research.

Teachers play a HUGE part in Inquiry, it is the teacher that needs to START the Inquiry-PROMPT and SET the QUESTIONS and IGNITE the SPART in the kids. Being able to set the scene, so to speak, will greatly help the children to engage and remain focused on the task in hand. The children need to be IMMERSED in the process and while we may be at the beginning of this journey for our school, most of it will possibly need to be teacher directed, using the 6 thinking hats or whatever thinking tool a teacher is comfortable with. At whatever level your class is at, the more that Inquiry is promoted the easier it will become for teachers and students.

In setting up our model, we keep some things at the top of our mind:

-length of inquiry?

-curriculum coverage?

-assessment? (what is the long term picture we want/require?)

I would highly recommend anyone looking at pursuing Inquiry to take a look at what Muritai School has to offer. Also check out their website.

Muritai School

"To be the best you can be" is what Muritai School believe for their students.

As a school, they self review and their achievements reflect high standards. The children demonstrate a love of learning, children are engaged, they build self-belief, they encourage children to take risks, the children are resilient-they are able to learn and move on from and through challenges.

Since 2001 Inquiry Learning has mostly been done at syndicate levels. They ask the question, does action research make a difference to the learning of the children?

The school has devised their own model called The Howie Learn model (The how we learn).

The head stands for VALUES, the heart stands for THINKING and the tools stand for SKILLS.

I really liked what I saw happening, you saw "Howie Learn" in every classroom and so it has become what they stand for and believe in, from the juniors through to the seniors.

They believe, the driver is the big idea, with integration and ecology, as ecology is a big part of their school. They are wanting to micro analysis Inquiry to study the impact at child level.

The school used to do 8 Inquiry a year, a few years ago, but what they shared was, keep it simple and be realistic! Time is always an issue, but I understand the need for keeping a model simple, user friendly, with step by step instructions, so that it becomes easy for all to use and so that its hopefully easier to get all on board. All need to be heading in the same direction, allowing for a variety of pace, until the confidence grows and then the realization hits, that they are not on the bottom rung of the ladder, but already 2-3 steps up.

Our Lady of Loudes

What a great day we had @ Our lady of Loudes in Palmerston North on the 19 June, 08. They shared their journey with the cluster about pre 2000, where the school was involved with info-link - Action Learning papers that were undertaken by the whole staff at the time. This gave them a solid foundation with which to build on later. The shift continued to happen with ICT related strategic tours, so that the school was aware of cutting edge technology. This encouraged a conscious effort by all staff to learn and acquire knowledge in the areas of kidpix, inspiration/hyper studio so that now in 2008, ICT is still a huge tool for student learning. Their approach to Inquiry Based Learning is a Hook in - tuning in - finding out - sorting out - designing and making - making connections/making and connecting - in the future. Digital photos are the key element with students taking the majority of photo's, as children often view things in a different way and can capture the moment very successfully. Part of the success criteria for this school is that ALL classes participate and Inquiry is timetables into the school day. Their ICT strategic plan 2008-2010 includes Inquiry and Loudes Learners use their paving stones as a header, just like stepping stones for a student's lifelong journey. Wonderful school, I would highly recommend it for those that are looking to implement Inquiry Based Learning into their school.

Inquiry - reflections.

Why look at Inquiry Based Learning? For Coley Street School and their journey, they had found that the children were switched off to learning and therefore change WAS necessary. 

For Levin North, we want to enhance learning and teaching through ICT, Inquiry and Student Engagement.HOW? - good question. This is a huge area that we are working on to ensure that our journey (students and teachers) is achievable and successful for all concerned and that we will grow together, with a shared vision. As a staff - this is our journey, we all need to take ownership and contribute, so that we can learn together, critically reflect, have support for and with one another, taking our time, using our professional development wisely, becoming aware of the tools available, ensuring student Engagement, as well as allowing for innovation. Watch this space.

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.