Teaching as inquiry

Focusing inquiry | Teaching inquiry | Learning inquiry

Focusing inquiry

Which key competencies?

• The key competencies my students are most included to use in their learning are ...
• The key competencies that have been most emphasised in our learning to date are ...

Which aspects of learning?

• The learning attitudes that are most important to improve for this group of students are ...
• The units of work that my students have been least engaged in have been ...

Which students?

• The students who are most likely to be ready and willing to seek new learning are ...
• The students who are least likely to apply their learning beyond the formal activity are ...

For example, you might notice that students:

• are more likely to suggest that they find out more information, than they are to suggest getting involved in real learning
• have a positive attitude towards some parts of the programme, but not to others
• are more inclined to seek community involvement in some learning areas than others
• show much more curiosity during one topic than another
• demonstrate awareness of values and attitudes that reflect sustainability in contexts beyond school, but less so within school.

In relation to the priority established in the focusing inquiry, teachers then consider:

Teaching inquiry

My approach

• I could consider different ways of ...
• I'd like to find out how to more effectively ...
• The part of my approach that has been most successful is ...
• When designing the learning sequence, I involve students by ...

The activities I use

• The activities I typically use that have probably been least helpful for my students are ...
• Students were most able to participate in authentic context in the activities that ...

The relationships I establish

• The key competency that is most supported by the kind of relationships I have is ...

The approach to feedback

• When I give feedback to students I think it usually focuses on the key competency of ...
• If I think about the dispositions involved in key competencies (being ready, willing, and able), I think my feedback to students emphasises ...

Learning inquiry

Which key competencies?

• The key competency that was most developed during this learning was ...
• I could tell that students developed the key competency of .... because ...
• When considering the learning opportunities overall, the key competency students had the least opportunity to develop was ...
• To strengthen the opportunities students have to show their competencies, I will need to ...

Which aspects of learning?

• Examples of how attitudes to the learning shifted were ...
• Examples of how attitudes and values developed during the learning were ...
• New ideas that students grasped and applied in a meaningful way were ...

Which students?

• Some individual students who showed development in relating to others during this learning were ...
• Students who made little progress in demonstrating competencies were ...