Reflection about inquiry

It's now the start of Term 3. So where am I at with my inquiry?

I have found that time or lack of time is an ongoing issue. This is the first year in over a decade of teaching where I don't actually have my own class. This means that I don't have the luxury of shuffling or reorganising my teaching programme so that students can complete lessons or tasks throughout the week at a different time. Side projects or other opportunities (e.g trips and video conferencing with other schools) meant that some planned lessons were put on hold, even though they were rich learning experiences. 

I only have the extension students (who are my focus group for my inquiry) for 2-3 hours each week. As a result, there is often a lack of time to cover what I want to teach which has been really frustrating. I often wonder whether what I am doing is making any difference to my students learning. Developing higher order skills takes time to teach and learn. I sometimes feel that I am rushing my students so that the product/rubric is completed on time, but I know that the process of researching, thinking, reflecting, summarising, sharing etc is important in order to develop higher order thinking skills. 

It has become more apparent that time management skills is a key component of student success. During the marking of student projects and presentations, I could clearly see which students had gone the extra mile and put in the extra effort in their own time. This was reflected in the higher quality of work produced and the depth of knowledge and understanding displayed. 

I believe that students need time to complete projects and finish things off properly (one of our school korero). So where necessary, I have given extra time for all students if needed to complete projects. This was worthwhile as I noticed that some students managed to use the extra time to complete projects to an outstanding level. 

Developing an extra inquiry site for my extension students to compliment my 'Creative Space' site was very useful. Students could access this site to find specific resources e.g. definitions, information, Youtube clips etc to help them with their learning. This reduced precious time spent surfing online which is often a time-waster if students don't know what to search for. 

Next steps:

1. Design projects/tasks with shorter timeframes e.g. assess learning and understanding more often during the term.
2. Provide opportunities for students to share their learning and understanding in a way that is less time consuming. 
3. Minimise disruptions to teaching programme e.g. side projects and extra trips outside school
4. Develop a space on Creative Space site or Extension Inquiry site with resources to help students with time management, studying skills etc
5. Send group emails out more frequently to students with reminders about extension projects and tasks etc
6. Email parents with reminders about projects, tasks, resources, and ways that they can help their child etc

Timeframe: Above steps to be completed or underway within the next couple of weeks. 

SOLO & The PES Way

Inquiry - Using SOLO Maps

Inquiry focus - What does success look like?

Today our inquiry group met with Dorothy to refine our thinking around our inquiry focus. We talked about what success might look like regarding our inquiry focus. Then we went about creating a rubric for our inquiry focus. 

Teacher Only Day

To start with, all teachers were given the chance to split up into a few groups and share our inquiry learning. There were about 10 of us in our group. It was really interesting to listen to each presentation and learn more about where people were up to in their inquiry journey. Then we went to the staffroom where a few teachers were selected to share their inquiry with the whole staff.

This was my presentation. Basically I have a better understanding of SOLO and how it can be integrated into a classroom programme. PD around SOLO has been helpful, but there are also sites online e.g. http://pamhook.com/ which were really useful. The next step for me is to be more specific with my planning and integrate SOLO based activities more purposefully into the classroom programme.

Some thinking...

Here are just some notes recording where I am in my professional inquiry at the moment:

• Recreated Venn diagram - reworked an old one, hasn’t been tested on kids yet

• have not tweaked this terms rubric, but will keep SOLO in mind when creating next terms one
• a lot of time spent on skills based tasks/help for students across Teams 1-4
• busy with extn kids and time is limited because of other commitments e.g. videoconferencing, MTV creation for ambassadors, trip to Maritime Museum - impacts on time as students need to complete tasks for rubric to be marked on time.
• important for me to settle into new role as Creative Space/GATE teacher, so have not spent as much time as planned on integrating SOLO into programme.
• mindful that SOLO will be introduced more specifically as a thinking tool early in Term 2 with extension students.

SOLO - Now it makes sense!

Just recently as part of our staff PD, we were given an introduction to SOLO from one of our APs Juanita Garden. I gained a deeper understanding of what SOLO was and how it applied in a classroom setting. We were given clear examples of how a students level of thinking could move from simple (Prestructural/Unistructural) to more complex (Relational/Extended Abstract).

Here's a link to the slide show that Juanita shared with us.

Making Sense of SOLO

Some of the ideas that arose from the PD discussions was that scaffolding was essential and that the simpler ideas/levels of thinking (e.g. knowledge of basic facts) was just as important as the deeper/complex levels of thinking. You can't have one without the other, as the simpler ideas are necessary building blocks towards higher cognitive thinking and understanding. Plus our students need more opportunities to articulate their thinking, and richer tasks to extend and challenge them.