Investigating Inquiry

Inquiry has become a buzzword among educators of late, but in my experience many teachers are not exactly sure just what that means. Our Master’s class was fortunate to have Michelle Wood, VP at Walnut Grove Secondary (and a queen of inquiry!) come and offer some suggestions this past week. Inquiry, in her words, is wondering, observing, finding answers to the questions that intrigue us...the things that we do everyday without even realizing that it’s “inquiry”! The fact that it’s something we all do (to some degree) inherently doesn’t mean, however, that children are able to transfer this to learning in the classroom without scaffolds. I have observed classes where students are “inquiring” without any idea of what to look for! They have been told to research a question, when they can barely explain what a question is! Scaffolding, then, is key. Michelle outlined four stages of inquiry in the classroom. She provided Science examples (her area of passion) but this could be done with any subject area! All that changes are the levels of supports provided by the teacher. In fact, I’d say this leveled support means that inquiry can easily be done with diverse groups; not all students need to get the same level of support at any given time.

Four levels of inquiry

• Confirmation inquiry
• Learners confirm understanding through an activity in which the results are known in advance
• Structured inquiry
• Learners investigate a teacher-presented question through a prescribed procedure
• Guided inquiry
• Scaffolded learning of skills beforehand
• Leading through steps, but learners come up with method
• Learners investigate a teacher-presented question using their own design/procedure
• Open inquiry
• Learner investigates their own topic-related question using their own design/procedure

Among Michelle’s own gurus of inquiry are Judy Halbert and Linda Kaser, the authors of Spirals of Inquiry: For Equity and Quality. I was lucky enough to receive a copy of this book, and have already read through it! There is some incredibly valuable information about the benefits of formative assessment, the power of feedback, and the possibilities of reciprocal teaching. However, my greatest take-away from the book involves the importance of asking four questions of our students:

• Can you name two people in this school/setting who believe that you can be a success in life?

• Where are you going with your learning?

• How are you doing with your learning?

• Where are you going next with your learning?

These four, powerful questions put the focus of teaching exactly where it should be: on the student. It might be a bit frightening to find the answers. Perhaps the students we care about tremendously don’t feel that we do! Despite our beautiful lessons, it’s possible our students have no idea what they are supposed to be learning! However, I believe that knowledge is power, and I plan to ask my students this frequently. How can any of us get better at what we are doing, if we never ask where we are going? It’s certainly not just children who need to ponder these questions!

The Learning Process - in Teachers!

As teachers, we witness daily the struggle for our students to acquire new information. We see the various strategies of diving in headfirst to new concepts, crying with helplessness, or avoidance at all costs. In turn we provide guidelines, scaffolds, and prodding where needed, looking for various ways to ease the process of learning. For the most part, we feel that we have already acquired what we need to know, and are now focused on imparting it to others.

Being a part of this Master’s program, I have had ample opportunity to witness the stages of learning among my peers and myself - and it is very enlightening! We sometimes feel as teachers that it is only children who display the characteristics of avoidance or fear in the face of learning, but this is most definitely not the case. My Master’s colleagues and I are currently taking a course on Technology Tools and Information Literacy. Yes...technology. The challenge of many middle-aged teachers (myself included!). This course, more than any other we’ve taken, has highlighted our various approaches to learning difficult new material. Some members, of course, are very comfortable with technology. Some (like myself) are slowly gaining in confidence and enthusiasm. Some, by their own admission, would - if they could - run far, far away to avoid it! This was made

particularly clear in our class today, as the great February Snowmageddon of the Fraser Valley prevented us from meeting in our usual spot. Instead, our tech savvy instructor (the amazing Deanna Pelusso) taught the class through Google Hangouts. You can imagine that for some teachers just becoming aware of the existence of Google Drive, this was a major learning curve! The class was all about using a particular tool for research (the previously mentioned Mendeley) in the quest to develop our research questions for our culminating thesis project. Sitting there and looking at the wee videos of my colleagues as we listened, commented, and questioned, I found myself

thinking about the similarities to a class of our own students: some intrigued, some sleepy, some a bit stunned! It made me realize how much I value the face to face element of teaching. I see now how much I gauge my tone of voice, pace of the lesson, and levels of scaffolding based on students’ expressions and reactions. In this Hangouts format, it must have been incredibly challenging for Deanna to try to evaluate our various levels of need based on tiny and somewhat obscured facial expressions. Rather than Deanna being able to read our faces, we needed to be the ones to speak up and ask for help; something our students may be reluctant to do. However, the material was presented in an orderly way, with many visuals, and every question was answered. Even in a new and scary environment, learning can take place with great teaching. I can safely say that all members of the group felt that new skills had been acquired, though just as with any class, what each person gained was different from the others. And now each of us is ready for the next stage of learning!

Altogether, it was a great lesson - not only in the technology which was its primary focus, but also in the way we as teachers approach and master the learning process. This blog is in itself evidence of my increased confidence and ability; as a technology student, I have passed through the phase of feeling overwhelmed, and am now intrigued to see what I will conquer next!