ODS Inquiry

Congratulations Staff!!

2010-11-21T17:15:00.000-08:00

Just a wee note to all members of the teaching staff at our fantastic little school.

Congratulations for challenging your skills, you are constantly aiming to increase your own understanding and therefore will ultimately create great thinkers in our students. I hope we continue to aim high and to be on the look out for ways to improve teaching and learning at ODS. You all impress me with your dedication and willingness to try new things!You ROCK!!!
We think way beyond our years! We have taken on a very challenging topic this term, it is a very hard concept for the children to grasp and really we are talking about high school art history!! Thanks for not being afraid to give things a go and for learning alongside the children - a credit to you all.

Keep on rockin people and enjoy the wearable art!!!

Zee

Room 4's Goal for Inquiry Term 4

2010-11-10T18:54:00.000-08:00

THIS TERM WE ARE STUDYING aN aRTISTS wORLD. oUR cLASS HAS TO DESIGN AND CREATE A PIECE OF WEARABLE ART THAT SHOWS THEIR UNDERSTANDING OF pOINTALLISM. mY GOAL IS TO INTRODUCE AND USE A HIGHER ORDER THINKING KEY: BAR. THIS WILL ENCOURAGE THE STUDENTS TO USE CREATIVE THINKING AND TO ADD, REMOVE AND MAKE AN ASPECT BIGGER ON ANY PARTICULAR ITEM. I AM LOOKING FORWARD TO THIS AS I HAVEN'T TRIED IT BEFORE WITH MY STUDENTS AND I THINK THE STUDENTS WILL ENJOY THE CHALLENGE.

Goal for Inquiry: Using the Higher Order Thinkers key-The Bar Key

2010-11-10T18:06:00.000-08:00

Our goal for this Inquiry, which has involved studying different Artists and their varied forms of art, is for the students to design and create a piece of Wearable Art reflecting Picasso's work. As part of this task/goal I am going to use the higher order thinking 'Bar Key' with the students, which will give them opportunities to think about the ways they can alter their creation. eg. making a part bigger, adding an extra part or object to the present design, and then, taking something away and replacing it with something else. We will practice this 'thinking key' using a variety of scenarios before we start 'making,' so that everyone is familiar with the strategies of B-bigger A-add R- replace.

Barbara Noaro
Year 2,3 and 4 class

Goals for our Inquiry

2010-10-19T16:24:00.000-07:00

After reflection, and then some questioning of students, my goal for this inquiry will be to emphasise the Stages of Inquiry. I will endevour to use specific language and reinforce what happens in each stage (expectations). I've noticed that the students are still waiting for 'the next step' to be directed from me but are confident, independent inquirers who just need the confidence to move forward independently. I want them to 'know' the expectations of each stage and to be able to confidently 'move' through them.
Tanya H in Rocking Rua

Zee - Inquiry Goal

2010-10-11T19:39:00.000-07:00

My goal for this unit is to ensure that the language of inquiry is visible and used in learning conversations.
Children know that we are doing inquiry but often find it difficult to verbalise the process, to specfically state what happens at each stage and why it happens.
I will aim to achieve this goal by displaying contextual language, displaying student voice, record ideas on charts and display, promote the use of thinking tools to develop understanding of inquiry and blog progress (whic is something that has fallen down this year.)
I will ask children why they are doing something, so they are able to explain the purpose and also their next learning steps in inquiry learning.
If all goes according to plan - like I said - that is the aim. :-)

A New Year!!!!

2010-10-11T18:40:00.000-07:00

The year is nearly over but inquiry is continuing at ODS. Lead Teachers has been on maternity leave so she is back and whip is being cracked.
For the final unit of the year the staff have decided to have an arts focus. An Aritists World - students are to inquire about various art movements and for their action, design and create a wearable art costume that shows their understanding of their classes art movement.

As a continuing learning development for the staff, I have asked each staff member to set themselves a goal for developing understanding of inquiry learning. This is a target for their teaching as well as refining understanding of inquiry for students. We have only just developed our inquiry model, and need time to practise to ensure this style of teaching and learning can be sustained in our school. Our assessment rubric has been revised earlier in the year and classroom displays have been updated.

This unit is a challenging one as it is new learning for not onlythe students buy also some of the staff - an exciting term is ahead of us.

2009-11-10T11:13:00.000-08:00

Reflections of how the model is working in Rocking Rua

How is the model working?
It has been working really well but my main concern is the amount of time spent
on Immersion/Organise. We spend two weeks on Immersion and then move to Organise but there seems to be a large overlap and organising our learning takes over half our time. Am I spending too long on this?
I don’t think this reflects the need for change but I need to have colleague discussions on this to see if others are finding the same.

Within each stage, are there any issues arising?
Each stage is easy to follow and we have clear guidelines on the expectations of each stage. It is more of the time factor that is an issue for me.

Do we need to make any changes to our Assessment rubric?
In the Communication of Results: The jump from stage 2 to 3 is large and on stage 2 the child can share the answer to one question but on stage 3 they are clearly and confidently reporting and providing supporting evidence. Could this be broken down further? It seems that students are confidently answering their questions but need a lot more guidance to go further and provide supporting evidence.

Can you suggest any ways to further our understanding of Inquiry?
I think that PD into other schools may help our understanding but I wonder if collegial discussions might provide further understanding. We seem to go off and complete the tasks but bring very little back to each other. Our facilitator checks in with all of us and we can ask questions etc but we don’t seem to have these discussions with each other. An understanding of how Inquiry is working in younger/older classes could be beneficial for us.

Discuss the use of ICT in Inquiry?
Where would Rocking Rua be without it!!!
The integration of ICT tools in Inquiry seems natural and provides further stimulating learning. The students are keen to use the tools for research and enjoy adding photographic evidence if able. They are becoming more confident users and the tools are used daily during our Inquiry.

How is supporting documentation going?
I think that the documentation is enough. It provides clear links on what is going to happen and how it is going to happen. I find our documentation thorough and easy to use.

What PD would you find useful for 2010?
I was thinking that visiting other schools could be useful but only if they are following a similar path of Inquiry.
Could PD on a particular stage be more useful? Do we use the same tools as others to get to the next stage?

Reflection on Inquiry

2009-11-09T15:10:00.000-08:00

How do you think our model is working? Are there any changes that need to be made?
I think the model is working OK, seems to be a natural flow on. The main aspect that isn’t really working too well is the knowledge if it by the students. Ideally it would be better to have it as a mnemonic but I think changing it at this stage would not be beneficial. I think that it is up to the teachers to use the language when teaching to the model and also for visuals to be evident in the classroom – there are visuals now but perhaps they need redesigning so they are more eye catching to the students, and not just in the classrooms but also down the corridor, on the website and in the staffroom – the higher the exposure the better it will be.
Within each stage, are there any issues that you have, what are they and do you have any suggestions for further development?
I still feel that the immersion stage is vitally important, this sets up the whole inquiry. However, I know for me that this can drag out a bit and perhaps we need to set some time limits for each stage – so the momentum continues – just something to think about.
Also I do think that action needs to drive the inquiry – there needs to be a purpose for the students. I feel that although our inventors unit was fun, it was hard to work through the stages due to the very nature of the unit, perhaps we need to do more strategic planning so that each stage is utilised the best.
The assessment rubric seems to be working thus far - do we need to make changes and are there any other aspects of assessment that need further discussions?
There seems to be large jumps from a few sections. There is a lot of skills needed to move form one stage to another and sometimes the lines are a bit blurred. I do think we need a whole stage at each skill for doing things with support, this is not in there yet. I still think that this needs to be coded more so the lines aren’t as blurred, one teachers opinion or judgement could be very different from anothers, if we used something like SOLO then there would be no confusions – this is a direction that the whole school would need to invest in and would be a new pathway to follow, perhaps an option for when we are more comfortable with the changes we are making now.
Can you suggest any ideas to further develop our understanding of inquiry?
I do believe that seeing inquiry in action would be beneficial, it is fine having lead teacher bring ideas back but each teacher sees tings differently, having first hand expereince has to be more valuable for the individuals. However, there needs to be a self motivation from each staff member to do their own research and learning. It can’t be left up to one person. My biggest worry is that since lead teacher wont be in the school for the first half of next year, that the momentum will slow, someone needs to continue to drive this, teachers need to be researching and trialling ideas for this to continue to develop.
Discuss the use of ICTs throughout the inquiry process.
ICTs are a vital component of inquiry, it is a mind shift that is needed. Once we are confident with applications we need to think creatively about how the can benefit learners and create authentic learning experiences. I would love to see our school continue to move forward with this, to get more on the global stage, but investment and the importance placed on ICT will need to change for this to happen. Our hardware lets us down, yes I realise that it is an expense, but it really comes do to priorities and also teacher skills level and the willing to continually push yourself out of your comfort zone.
How do you think our supporting documentation is going - are there any gaps that we need to fill?
It has taken a long time (believe me I know) but the documentation will be ready in the next couple of weeks.
Each staff member has received it in stages has they have been developed, but now it is collated and will be in a inquiry folder for each class.
What PD support would you find most beneficial in 2010 as far as ICT and inquiry goes?
Visiting other schools, teacher motivation and expectations lifted from the leader of the school to ensure there is still and importance placed on this change we are making.

2009-11-04T18:43:00.000-08:00

My reflections on how Oroua Downs Inquiry Model is working for me.

How do you think our model is working? Are there any changes that need to be made?

I like the model we are using. It is easy to follow, not too complicated.

Within each stage, are there any issues that you have, what are they and do you have any suggestions for further development?

I don’t use the specific words of the stages enough by saying that now we are working on the organising stage, or the immersion stage. So the kids are not really aware of the stages although some can remember some things we have done like the y charts and the tally charts. That’s my challenge for next time.

The assessment rubric seems to be working thus far - do we need to make changes and are there any other aspects of assessment that need further discussions?

I like the way the Assessment Rubric is set out. On the Questioning part of the Rubric, it would be helpful to have another level included between 2 and 3 which could be, can use a question map with teacher guidance.
Collection of information column – Stage 1 – should read with teacher guidance.
Just ideas to think about!

Can you suggest any ideas to further develop our understanding of inquiry?

I think the topics have to be chosen very carefully so tasks are hands on. Children respond really well to this. I know that my level of children like topics about things that live and grow. I have found some of the topics obscure for their level of thinking. I need to keep on with the practise of the delivery of inquiry. I would like to visit some other schools and see what they are doing for inquiry.

Discuss the use of ICTs throughout the inquiry process

My class have learnt to use different ICT tools during our journey and they do enjoy the visual side of producing and experimenting with the tools. It has been and will continue to be hard yacka with the new entrant kids who don’t have many skills to start with. I have learned along side the kids too. I would like time to consolidate all the tools learned this year, next year.

How do you think our supporting documentation is going - are there any gaps that we need to fill?

It will be great to have our own sourced document and I know you are working 100% on finishing for us.

What PD support would you find most beneficial in 2010 as far as ICT and inquiry goes?

Visit other schools as I have already mentioned.
Assessment tasks I find tricky.

Liz Sullivan Room 4

2009-11-01T19:54:00.000-08:00

Reflections on Our Inquiry Process

How do you think our model is working?

I think our model is straight forward and is working well, it is just a matter of me as a teacher ‘knowing’ it and being really familiar with what Thinking tools to use at each Stage. I still think about which one will serve ‘the purpose’ best.
The Invention and Heroes Inquiries, I felt, were very successful, the children being very motivated throughout. And learning how to develop specific questions using the Question Map and refining them will be ongoing. The Key Competencies, being owned by the children and referred to often, made the students aware of what is required of them when Thinking, Relating to Others and Participating and Contributing, developing the necessary skills for living in a challenging world, communicating with people. Also, our choices of Inquiry topics have been good – meaningful to the learner with many practical activities and an authentic Action at the end.

Issues within each stage and suggestions for further development

I can’t think of any issues or suggestions for further development.

Changes to the Assessment Rubric and other aspects of assessment that need further discussion

In the Questioning Rubric, I think it would be beneficial to include another level before the ‘can use a Question Map‘ – ‘can use a Question Map with teacher guidance’
Assessment - maybe each term’s assessment could be discussed by all the staff more, for shared imput, clarity and keeping everyone on the same wavelength.

Ideas to further develop our understanding of Inquiry

I think working closely with another staff member and sharing ideas helps one’s understanding of Inquiry and the children benefit. As a teacher, I just have to ensure that I quickly get to the point, where I understand the Stages implicitly.

The Use of ICT throughout the Inquiry Process

Using a camera, phone, fax and computer as tools, are happening in Inquiry. The children have used several different computer Websites and Programmes to find information and Present work. They like experimenting and being able to create a new look that’s their own, that can be edited and changed easily. They are always eager and excited when they go to get their work off the Printer.
Being able to make their own Photo Stories and presenting them to the school, makes the children feel successful and they still have a sense of wonderment of it.
The children like to go the Class Blog when they’ve done something they are very involved with, pleased with or proud of. They like to see photos accompanying their written work.
It would be good to get more parents making comments.

Supporting Documentation

The Planning document is very helpful and keeps you on track, and our assessments in the Roll book and children’s Portfolio,
with accompanied work, plus the storage of many photos, Photo stories, art and written language on the computer, are all worthwhile documentation. I can’t think of any gaps because I feel we’re very thorough.

ICT and Inquiry Professional Development for 2010

It would be good to consolidate what we we’ve learned, but we will need some P.D. to keep up to date and to continue upgrading our skills, but not so full on, perhaps one goal per term?

Barbara Noaro Teacher of Year 3 & 4 children Room 5

Summary - Inventions Term 3 Room Four

2009-10-28T18:55:00.000-07:00

Summary:

Use of the Question map:
I have had trouble getting my head around this thinking map, so I joined with a colleague and observed how it was done with older children. Once I had visually seen the map evolving over several modelling sessions I felt more competent in trying the map with my own class and it worked!!!!. Observing the older children in group situations, I realised that 3 or 4 heads of differing levels, enables them to bounce ideas off each other and that the young kids are learning from this “watching and listening”.
The young children are thinking about using the key word before asking a question and most of them are remembering the 7 servants to begin with.

Key Competency: Participation and Contributing:

Observations of mixed groups, differing levels of abilities and ages, to me was a valuable time in which to see how these groups of children could / couldn’t work together. That gave me the opportunity to encourage and teach those children who hadn’t developed the skills as yet to “get a turn” to share their own ideas, regardless of what it might be, and further extend their ideas with my help.

Stages of Sharing and Action:

This stage was highly successful with the “hands on activities”
Those children who have some difficulty with abstract oral explanations blossomed in the “making side” of the activities, where it’s actually the “doing and seeing” that they can talk about.

Cheers Room 4

Inquiry Review

2009-10-27T12:08:00.000-07:00

The staff at Oroua Downs School are using this blog to review INQUIRY and to see where our next step is.
Each member of staff is asked to reflect on the following questions and write responses, this is to refine our teaching, the learning children do and the monitoring of this. This is also being used as a tool to develop on going professional development once our ICT contract is completed at the end of the year.

As lead teacher I am asking that staff reflect upon and suggest ideas for further development under the following headings:

How do you thnk our model is working? Are there any changes that need to be made?
Within each stage, are there any issues that you have, what are they and do you have any suggestions for further development?
The assessment rubric seems to be working thus far - do we need to make changes and are there any other aspects of assessment that need further discussions?
Can you suggest any ideas to further develop our understanding of inquiry?
Discuss the use of ICTs throughout the inquiry process.
How do you hink our supporting documentation is going - are there any gaps that we need to fill?
What PD support would you find most beneficial in 2010 as far as ICT and inquiry goes?

Thanks for your time and input.

Tarnz

Reflections on Inventions

2009-10-22T01:00:00.000-07:00

Immersion/Organise
This was a really good Inquiry as it catered well for both genders but particularly saw our boys achieve success throughout the stages.
Reflection:
I have been reflecting on the fact that a lot of the time is spent on these stages and I am finding that Immersion continues through to the Organising stage and I'm wondering if I am not providing enough time for the Discovery stage?
My other thought though, is whether this contributes to more focussed participation/motivation for the Discovery stage (which I do see with majority of students) and this may contribute to the students working quickly through it.
Do teachers work to a time frame for each stage?
Immersion/Organising
We discovered, within the first few days, that we had the knowledge of Inventions and could brainstorm excessively various types of inventions. One of the true successes through this, was the discussion that the students instigated about all types of products/machinery... and were debating whether this and that were inventions. They concluded that everything was invented at some stage! I listened tentatively as more and more students volunteered their opinion and watched others take it on-board. The Contributing and Participation in the discussion was great and it continued for 15/20 minutes.
Our brainstorms lead us to look more closely at who the inventors were. Through the use of an Alphaladder on Inventors, the students were focused into discovering what was invented and when. Thus the gap in knowledge began to close. From here we went on to create our Wonderings wall. This involves the students writing a question or two (using our seven servants and higher order questioning skills - these are on permanent display) based on what they want to find out. The students needed more modelling of the skills required and so more teaching time was required than anticipated. However, I discovered later on that this would be beneficial when we went on to use our question map as we went through the teaching process quicker than I thought. The constant use of Graphic Organisers and the questioning skills display is what I really enjoy about our entry into our specific Inquiry. The students are still thinking about their task but it appears more focused as the emphasis on recording is lifted. (ie: pressure to write lots is off and most recording is more succinct).
The purpose of the Inquiry was set very early during this one and the motivation to become inventors and retailers! lead to a very successful Inquiry for Rockin Rua.

2009-10-21T16:53:00.000-07:00

Inquiry - Inventions Room Five - Yr 3 & 4

SUMMARY

Successes

Immersion
The idea of ‘Invention’ is huge so the children had to think about what they knew already, about inventions and their purposes. These ideas were recorded on a Fishbone G.O. They worked in pairs, learning from one another, then shared their ideas in groups of six. Some students debated whether something was an invention or not. eg. carrot seeds. I asked them to find out. The children worked in pairs filling in an Alpha Ladder, thinking about how many inventions they could think of in 15 minutes. FUN

Making another person’s invention and experimenting with them [origami peeking crows and sailboats] made the children think about the process of making someone else’s design. They learned that you needed to follow instructions carefully to succeed but also, that there was always someone in your group to help you, a benefit of participating together. They found out that inventing was creating.

Guess what I am? talks about an Invention where the students had to describe the Invention and it’s action, was fun and made everyone listen carefully to the clues before they gave a calculated guess. Then the invention was shown to everybody and handled. The children gained a lot of knowledge from each other. They also had to think about a previous or similar invention which had the same purpose or a later adapted invention, these class discussions took place after each talk.

During instructional reading, two groups read about Inventors and their unusual Inventions. They had to read a short passage of information, then choose their answer from 4 multiple choice possibilities and then substantiate their answers. The children had to think carefully, assimilating information from the text and the diagrams. The children gave very valid explanations for their answers having made informed judgements.
Participating and Contributing
Working in teams with the Year Ones and Twos, from the ORGANISING Stage to EVALUATION gave the Year Three and Four students an opportunity to be leaders. They learned to accommodate the younger children, and the younger children watched and listened, and were encouraged to participate and contribute to their team activities, learning all the time from the older children. The younger children were supported in activities eg using Graphic Organisers. The teacher’s role was to encourage.
The Participating and Contributing Rubric which the classes ‘owned,’ was referred to often – how do we work successfully together? And the children knew. The biggest benefit to the children in Teams was the pooling of ideas and shared expertise. They analysed possibilities together, agreeing or disagreeing – reasoning, looking at Data- finding out what information it was giving them etc. Everyone listened to each other and asked questions.

Graphic Organisers

Question Map –Organise Stage - Difficulties and Successes

This has been modelled by the teacher more than once, with the children contributing their ideas for them. The KEY WORDS became obvious to most children eg. Chocolate Sailboats need to be TASTY. How can we make them TASTY? I still find that a few children have the greatest difficulty working out what the verb should be. For example, Snake pencils NEED pipe cleaners, Snake pencils MUST be attractive. Also when this part has been done, the odd child forgets to write the question and just writes the answer. They need to look at the question starters - Kiplings Seven Servants down the side of the page to help them. I give these children examples of verbs you can use and a model to check on.
When each team did a question map for their product, a large model was displayed on the wall for them to refer to. Each part was done in a different colour to make it stand out clearly. All the teams completed theirs successfully with lots of discussion, and they found out that they’d gained some very useful information that would help them with the next Stage, the planning and design of their product. They learned ‘where to go next.’

Chain of Events-Discover Stage

Using the Chain of Events G.O. made the children think about the practical aspects required, before making their chosen invention
eg. when, where, how, what, etc This G.O. clearly illustrated ‘discovery’ the children learning from it, what was needed to be done before they could begin the Sharing Stage of Making.

Tools, competencies and Stage reflections

2009-10-20T19:52:00.000-07:00

DISCOVER STAGE:
A hands on stage where children really had to think outside the square, the information that they were searching for wasn't necessarily found in conventional areas. Children were required to design, create and market a product - it was the gathering of information that really saw the use of ICT and competencies in action.
Children worked together in groups to locate materials, it was amazing to see the children so confidently bargin with suppliers, to make deals that suited them and to use technologies to help them. Children sourced materials, made deals as far as sponsorship goes and managed to negotiate their way into making a considerable profit. Each group had an intial budget of five dollars but by the time the 'selling day' was upon us, six groups had made over $270.00 profit! Groups managed to contact merchants, negotiate and compare items and prices and get things shipped from various parts of the north island free of charge. They became true entrepreneurs and were so confident to do so - very impressive.
KEY COMPETENCIES
Throughout this unti the competencies were a key focus. Children showcased the competencies and the skills involved throughout the unit in practical ways. This reinforced their importance to learning. The children could see how the competencies assist their learning and their language of reflection was developed throughout.
Children became more honest about setting themselves goals and although the all competencies were threaded throughout the unit, they could see what ones were used more frequently and for which purposes - very powerful learning.
Tony Ryans thinkers keys
These were fantastic tools fr this unit - it forced creative and critical thinking.....
The BAT key was used directly for inventions and the children quickly let their imagination go wild but then had to turn around and justify their ideas and wether or not they would be practical, this tuned in their critical thinking. Children could analyse ideas quickly and then take a step back and be honest with their thought and were more accepting of criticism than at other times. Children became more confident to experiment with ideas but also look at others ideas with a greater sense of maturity.

Inventions and Inventors - Tremendous Tahi

2009-10-20T19:42:00.000-07:00

Creativity was key for this unit. Rather than focussing on inventors as such we looked at the qualities of inventors and linked these to the virtues and key competencies. This allowed the children to think on a broader scale. Yes they had the chance to focus on a specifc inventor but we didn't use inquiry time to do this. Children gained a better understanding of the processes involved when inventing, the process of modification, or trial and error, no longer are the children satisfied with the final product, they needed to look deeper into the idea. Children were not distracted by the 'bells and whistles' of inventions, rather, they focussed on the competencies and processes that inventors showed/took.
This gave the children a wider angle to look at the topic, I think this is why the unit was so successful, the children really took charge of their learning and the pathway of that learning. I do think that if we had of focussed on specific inventors or inventions then the unit may have just been a research project. This way the children felt more confident to experiment, to take risks and make mistakes because they realised that nothing ever works first time (only if you are truly lucky)hehehe - I guess the next step is to encourage them to transfer this thinking into their everyday learning.

"An overview of how the implementation of the Inquiry Process has gone at Oroua Downs School."

2009-10-15T19:57:00.000-07:00

The inquiry process has had a significant schoolwide impact on the way our students are learning, how our teachers are teaching (or as is the case with inquiry, more a role of facilitation), and how we now go about organising classroom programmes. Gone are the days where a narrow topic of focus is chosen and adhered to stringently with no input (or interest at times) from our students. Now an overarching and broad topic is chosen that allows all in sundry to explore different tangents, and also gives the opportunity for individuals to find answers to questions that are pertinent to the individual.
Here at Oroua Downs School, Tanya Zander took on the role of facilitating the immersion of the inquiry processes with regards to school practice and staff development and it has gone exceedingly well. Children are becoming familiar with the processes to the point where they are becoming second nature and our teaching staff have willingly made alterations to accomodate the new style of teaching that inquiry demands.
We are still 'learning on the job' so to speak with regards to the 'perfect' inquiry approach, but through blogging and professional discussion between staff members, we are gradually fine tuning our practices and they are becoming more and more effective.

Inquiry-Organising Stage-Inventions

2009-09-14T20:58:00.000-07:00

We have to say, that having the slightly older children in groups, sharing their knowledge with the younger children and readily accepting their ideas, at the organising stage of our inquiry, has been so, so awesome because the older children had an opportunity to lead and model the skills needed for recording on graphic organisers and the leaders role was to encourage participation from their group members. Both classes had already completed a rubric for Participating and Contributing and knew what their foci were.
Their cooperative learning within the groups, has shown us there are only a few children that have not learned this skill yet. So as the teachers we were “on the spot “ to give specific encouragement.
The question map, carefully modelled several times, encouraged the groups to ask those “useful questions “ pertaining to their product, The groups of kids gained confidence at completing their own question maps with the chosen product, and then answered their own questions. A couple of groups answered some questions with short phrases or one word, so that again led to the specific skill teaching of answering a question in a sentence, using a keyword.

Inquiry-Organising Stage- Inventions

2009-09-14T20:50:00.000-07:00

Immersion - Inquiry - Inventions - Origami Sailboats

2009-08-24T15:08:00.000-07:00

Making the waxed sailboats and sailing them against another Country was a great way of exciting the class. Afterwards we had to think about suitable modifications as some boats caught the wind and others didn't, and some sunk while others sailed to otherside. Great fun anyway!

A Hero in the home...

2009-08-02T19:00:00.000-07:00

After all our visitors to share their ideas about what a hero is, the children realised that a hero is someone that impacts on your life.
A touching report .......

My Hero report
This term for inquiry we have been researching heroes and the qualities they display, wether they're life savers or just ordinary people with extraordinary hearts.I have selected you (my mum) as my hero because you display these qualities: Understanding, patience, hugs and kisses, listening, teaching, gentleness, providing, kindness, respectfulness, courage, humbleness, thoughtfulness, truthfulness, believing, and forgiving.I interviewed a few people that are close to you and this is what they said: You show the virtue of love to many people in your life, thats because besides being a mother of two, you are a wife, a daughter, daughter-in-law, sister, aunty, and a friend. You are always kind to the people that you meet and the people that surround you and you never think bad of anyone.You show determination by never giving up despite how hard things get. If you get a knock back or a rejection, you just bounce back up, ready for the next opportunity that comes your way. I admire you for your true bravery and gutsy determination, and the way you portray this is by always trying again, and always having a wonderful attitude.You are a role model to me and I thank-you for that. You are always there for me when I am down and always help me through any situation. Thank-you for everything, and mostly, thank-you for being my hero.
For my mum,By Sarah

2009-08-02T18:59:00.000-07:00

Welcome back you lovely room 4 kids

I hope you all had a great holiday

Welcome also to Miss Tong who is going to be teaching in our room for 3 weeks. Aren’t you so lucky to have two teachers helping you to learn.

In our inquiry time this term, we are learning about inventors and inventions. For the next couple of weeks the children will be immersed in knowledge about this topic. Already they have a little knowledge about what they think inventors do.

In the photos the children know that they have to design or plan something first before they can be inventors.

.

The children have now reflected on their designs and their finished products [thank you cards ] and have interesting thoughts on why they changed their original designs. I wonder if inventors have to change their designs to make them finish with a better product???? [ This is ? is on our Wonder Wall ]

The trip to see Mr Sketcher at Cheltenham Wrought Iron was another way of immersing the kids in the process of what an inventor does to make a product that he can sell to the public.

The power of the ACTION!

2009-08-02T18:43:00.000-07:00

An inquiry is so much more than a research project.
The words the Trevor Bonds said still stick in my mind - it we end inquiry at a sharing or communicating stage then it is just a glorified research assignment.
The use of the task was key to our action this inquiry. Children knew right from the start, that there was going to be a consequence of their inquiry, something was going to have to happen and they had control over it.
It was great to see the children thinking carefully about how they could celebrate their local heroes - rather than a thank you afternoon tea, the children decided that it would become more of a treasure to the hero to have something concrete presented to them. As an action the children wrote a report as to why that particular person was a hero and created a certificate of appreciation or them. Not the most ideal, and they would have liked to create something further, but we simply ran out of time.
However, our heroes had no idea that this was happening, they were posted to the heroes and they recieved a nice surprise in the mail. Some heroes were quite shocked that the children held them in such high regard and we quick to minimise their actions and shine the light onto others.
Children found it quite difficult to use the information they got from their interviews, to convert it to information in a report was qute tricky for some, this will become a major teaching focus next term, not only for inquiry but also literacy.
Children received phone calls, heroes came into our last school assembly to thank them and official letters of thanks were received. This all made the action so powerful for the children, it made them realise that their learning meant something to someone, they were really chuffed. This in turn has made the children more motivated about shairng their learning and ideas.
Inquiry is simply getting more exciting as we move along our journey.

To follow is a sample of a report sent to one of our local heroes.

Our Hero – Mr Dear
This term for our inquiry we had to research what it means to be a hero and the qualities that heroes display.

I have selected you as my hero because you have shown
· Commitment
· Courage
· Bravery
· Loyalty
· Helpfulness
· Participation
· Caring
· Determination

We interviewed a few people about you and this is what they had to say…….
· You have to have determination when putting out a fire
· You have to use courage when you go into a burning building
· You have to be on call all hours of the day
· They have to do their best to save people from danger
· You have to have determination and courage to go into a burning building and save people in danger
· You have to use self management being on call and to be ready on time
· You have to sacrifice your time to save others

Thank you Mr Dear for being the best you can be and saving peoples lives and showing all of those heroic qualities.

Thank you

the final outcome..

2009-07-28T19:23:00.000-07:00

Well, happily I can add that our questioning and interveiwing of our heroes was very successful. Not only were the students still motivated learners in completing this part of the inquiry but more importantly they couldn't wait to share their results. We only had one parent who felt that it was 'unnecessary' homework (we love the support!) but after a short phonecall and explanation that her son had chosen her as his ultimate Hero, the interveiw was completed. We shared and compared answers within the class and spent an afternoon discussing why some students had more complete answers and looked closely at their questions. There was a lot of class discussion on this and the students shared thoughts and ideas on what they would change next time and how they could have been more specific to gain better answers. All of this discussion will lend itself to better teaching and learning for next term. We continued on our journey and had lots of fun presenting their power-point presentations and their Hero sheilds to their selected Hero. This was a great inquiry topic and provided many many discussions on teaching and learning. Now we are into Term 3 and beginning a new inquiry on being an Inventor!!!!.....
ka Kite
Tanya H

Reflection - Heroes - Racing Rima

2009-07-14T17:32:00.000-07:00

Reflections about Questioning, Sharing and Evaluating Heroes

The children put their talks together, [after I orally modelled several ways you could do it] using the information they discovered when they asked their Heroes their questions. Most children had developed questions which required more than a one or two word answer which resulted in informative talks.
Next time when we use the question map or are defining our questions for our own questions in our Inventor Inquiry, I will group the children, in order to help them at the Stage they’re at, and to give them an awarenesss of what Stage they’re aiming for.
I found it wasn’t a good idea having an able child helping a less able child with questions, as the less able child didn’t think for him/herself. But maybe I will pair children next term, a few times, as a practice exercise eg. in Reading to, I’ll read passages about an Inventor/invention and the children can have turns composing a question, so that they can help and learn from each other. Then they can define their questions, looking at what they specifically want to find out. More teacher modelling with student participation is needed too. Everyone needs more practice with developing specific questions.

The children practiced their talks with a buddy in order to become really familiar with the content, endeavouring to use our Oral Language goals. They gave their talk in conjunction with our Photo Story, “Heroes in Our Eyes,” where the photo of themselves holding their Hero Art and their talk were displayed on the big screen. Apart from one student, all the children seriously did their best. Our audience was the New Entrant, Year 1 and 2 class who were appreciative. The children had to Self Assess their presentation to well known and practised goals in order to ascertain Where To Next.
My next goal is for the children to work in pairs and make their own Photo Story, using photos they’ve taken of making our own inventions, and speak to them, so that the Oral language and ICT focuses continue to flourish.

Barbara Noaro Racing Rima Year 3 & 4

Newspaper celebration

2009-06-25T18:42:00.001-07:00

interviewing

2009-06-25T17:24:00.001-07:00

Tremendous Tahi - what has been happening.....

For this inquiry, we have focussed in interviews as our main avenue to gather information. This in itself proved rather tricky. The children had formulated questions using the question map but had real difficulty converting these into questions that you could ask someone. It is a lot harder to word a question correctly to ask a person, instead of finding answers fromt he net or a book.

To make this more successful we had mock interviews using these questions. The children tested the quality of their questions as they asked peers. This proved to be a valuable activitity as it gave the children an instant gauge of the quality of the question. The interviewee was directed to only answer the question asked, not to contribute any prior knowledge or to read between the lines. This was very frustrating for some as they had to think harder about how the question was worded. Now the children are comparing the quality of the answer against the quality of the question, for some, quite challenging. It was great to see those children that made the connection quickly, tutoring others so their question and interview techniques also improved, some very powerful learning.

This has made the children realise that they can learn so much more by taking risks and supporting their peers through those risks. Really meaningful learning, in more ways than one.

Heroes in Room4

2009-06-24T01:31:00.000-07:00

The children had some ideas on what a hero was so immersing in Traditional stories and
Fairy tales, articals and pictures from the newspaper and listening to our numerous wonderful visitors has enabled the children now to talk more freely about what key competencies these heroes have. We have used Y charts as a class and in groups to let them voice their own opinions on what a hero looks sounds and feels like. We are continually referring to the 7 servants on display not just for inquiry but for any questioning at any time and especially during our" oral language time" when making sure the children are using key words in their questions. Doing this orally appears to be working really well and much easier at this early level, for them to understand. The children were able to choose their heroes quickly of course being their mums, dads, and grandads. those being important in their lives. Again referring to the 7 servants, in pairs the children shared their ideas for questions to ask their hero. 3 main starters were How, What and Why.

Questioning skills are not easy to teach!!

2009-06-23T00:08:00.000-07:00

Well Rockingrua have moved through the questioning map and we've done lots of work on 'what makes a good question'? This was not as straight forward as I may have initially thought and has taken more time than I first anticipated...but was it worth it? Absolutely!
We knew the layout of the question map so this was not new to the students and we've used it before so there was prior experience BUT did we really know what components create a good question? After feed-back from lead teacher of ICT, we were given resources to enhance our questioning skills. We began by identifying the Seven Servants: who what where etc. Great we all knew those! Then we looked (lots of displays needed here) at the 'criteria' of writing a good question. We practised and practised so our questions were relevent to the topic, contained more than one Seven Servant and contained Keywords. We discovered just how important the contextual language is and how we incorporate it in our questions as Keywords. O'kay so now we have the tools and we've practised the process....where to from here? We used the question map to practise our skills and each student shared their questions to the class. The class then fed-back ideas on improvements or agreed a good question had been written. This was such a useful (although time-consuming) task as it allowed me to observe and listen to the students and identify those that still needed guideance. One of the key points that the students fed-back to each other was to stop using 'they' and 'their' and to be specific throughout the entire question. As their teacher, I was so pleased to hear the learning they had taken on-board and to listen to these wonderful questions they had written. Once our 'practise' was over, we moved onto identifying our own personal Hero. Each student brainstormed possible Heroes to them and wrote statements to justify each person. This ensured they were not randomly selecting but actually thinking about the person and their characteristics. Once this was complete they then chose one person that they believe to be their Hero. Then they brainstormed this Hero and included Keywords (from our display of contextual language) to describe the character of their Hero. Next came our Question Map. The students worked through this with confidence and wrote a good selection of questions to use for interviewing their Hero.
One point to note: It was decided (by the students) that if you use more than one Seven Serpent then you have two pieces of information to gather to answer the question and this must make it better!
And one other: Throughout the teaching of questioning skills there were many times that I reflected upon a lesson and was satisfied that the majority of students had understood and demonstrated successfully their skills but then we'd revisit and I found myself re-teaching/reinforcing the same skills. I mention this because the skills are life-long and not as easy for students to grasp and transfer without the time being put in.

We are now in the process of interviewing our Heroes so I'll update soon to let you know how our Inquiry goes and the outcomes of our interviews..

Racing Rima - Heroes

2009-06-21T20:45:00.000-07:00

What has gone well in our Topic—Heroes in Room Five

Firstly and very importantly, having visitors – heroes in our school, who shared their experiences first hand and answered the children’s questions. This was much more beneficial than finding answers in books , Google, etc but in saying that, books and other resources provided very useful background information, rather than being the information

Before Brigadier Torrance came, the children became enthused through the ‘Whisky 3’ website where they viewed photos and became familiar with the environment in Vietnam and could recognise the Brigadier. They had some very specific questions which he answered in full, and so much was learnt. The children loved seeing his medals, uniform and sword etc. which added meaning. Many of the Year 3 and 4’s had a real feel for what the Brigadier went through in the War.

Danyon Loader was another success, relating so well to the children. The children had a good background of his life so they had other things they wanted to find out, another opportunity to have their questions answered. Most children understood that there was a sacrifice made over years, hours and kilometres of training, leading to success.

We looked at our visitors ‘attributes’ which reflected the Key Competencies which we’ve been looking at quite closely. Eg. Thinking on the spot and making decisions which were hopefully the best for all concerned, working alongside others to succeed, being part of a team and cooperating with others and contributing to the group and managing self in regards to time and looking after/using the tools of the job.

The question Map

2009-06-16T16:24:00.000-07:00

This is a tool that we use to set up our inquiry.

In past inquiry units, this hasn't worked as well as it should have, this time we used a task to start our inquiry. The question map was much more useful, it became a tool or learning and thinking rather that a sheet we needed to fill out.

Once the children had unpacked the task, found the purpose for their inquiry, the question map was the next logical step.

The children found it a lot easier to write questions, having a bank of contextual language definately helped. The question map forces the children to look at a topic from a variety of angles, rather than staying focussed on a singluar aspect. It promotes questioning by encouraging deeper thinking and deeper exploration of a single subject.

Our next step is to design an interview, questions taken directly from the map will be the main body of the interview.

check out the children reflections http://www.tremendoustahi.blogspot.com/

The questions have a purpose, the assist the inquiry path - which was the whole aim of using the question map.

We now have to decide - if we keep the task and only use the QM with tasks or do we have a choice between question and task - also, do we need to alter the steps in the discover stage for each option.

The journey continues.

Poems are published

2009-06-16T16:22:00.001-07:00

Check out poems from the senior children as a result of their inquiry.

Go to this website www.w3vietnam.org.nz - click on the news page and scroll down, it also provides a link to the classes poems - which are on their own page.

Congratulations Tremendos Tahi - You Rock

Celebration of ideas!!!!

2009-06-08T18:49:00.000-07:00

Please check out http://www.tremendoustahi.blogspot.com/ for details of how childrens thinking about heroes in wartime is going to be celebrated on the global stage after a local hero visited our school.

Brigadier Torrance a Vietnam Veteran visited our school, he was impressed with the childrens questioning skills.

Danyon Loader came and shared with the children of ODS how they could become a hero through determination and believing in themselves. A very inspirational presentation.

Children have been working on using contextual language in their questioning, this has made a huge impact, both in quality of questioning and the childrens confidence. Danyon Loader was also impressed with the quality of questions, he said they really had to make him think of his replies - great work students and teachers!!!

Staff Reflections

2009-05-21T13:40:00.000-07:00

Staff were asked to reflect on their understanding of inquiry. One for each letter of the word.
I is for....
Immersion is crucial for sparking interest in a new Inquiry topic.
Immersion is probably the most important stage for all children but especially for the young children as they often haven’t had the same experiences yet.
Immersion to capture the student’s motivation into the Inquiry and to record their ‘wonderings’/questions that they initially think about. These are displayed and revisited throughout their learning as they gain further understanding within the Inquiry process.
IMMERSIONThe key to this information is to inspire the learner, to spark curiosity, to engage the children with the topic on a broad sense. This stage is vitally important to set up the inquiry – this is where skills are directly taught and students exposed to information and ideas that will lead them through a successful inquiry pathway. This is the stage that the spark of curiosity is shared and valued through wonderings – it is important that time is given to these wondering so the students curiosities are valued.

N is for....
New information builds on known, in Immersion.
New thinking, learning and questioning emerges from the immersion stage. Curiosity to find out more.
New thinking tools and new learning for the students. Introducing and using new thinking tools – could be keys, hats, MI, Blooms or Habits of the Mind etc. The new learning refers to Immersion and then the Inquiry focus.
New Tools and TechnologyThe integration of technology is a key aspect to inquiry, tools of technology allow the learner to take control of their pathway, to develop critical thinking skills for the effectiveness of the technology for the task. Thinking tools and the direct teaching of how to best use these tools is another important aspect throughout the inquiry process.

Q is for....

Questioning is a skill and a tool by which we discover what we want to know.
Questioning is paramount to the children’s thinking and learning. I have to teach the children how to ask questions first and then improve their quality of questioning. Really enjoyed Trevor Bond and questioning rubrics should be in our policy Lots of practise at this .
Questioning skills that are directly taught to encourage Higher Order Thinking. Students are becoming aware of their own level of questioning and are beginning to gain confidence in using a Questioning Map (G.O) which enables all students to ‘push’ further than they have originally gone. This is a good tool because teachers can add to it in order to deepen the questioning used.
Questioning is an important life skill and a major learning and thinking skill.Questioning is a central core skill that is explicitly or implicitly woven through all of the new curriculum.” All students experience a curriculum that enables them to become active, confident, creative, and innovative learners and thinkers. All students experience a curriculum that enables them to become active, confident, creative, and innovative learners and thinkers.” (NZC)

U is for...

Use Graphic Organisers as tools to record ideas and thoughts concisely and meaningfully.
Understanding
Understanding the Inquiry and its process. As students progress past the Immersion stage, they need to be made aware where (within the process) they are working so they gain clarity of understanding about Inquiry. They need to be able to expect their learning to lead to an action and to understand how to gather relevant information to lead to this.
Understanding – “Useful application of inquiry learning involves several factors: a context for questions, a framework for questions, a focus for questions and different levels of questions. Well designed inquiry learning produces knowledge formation that can be widely applied.” (icwcclusterblog.blogspot.com)Children understanding themselves as learners develop throughout the inquiry process, they set their own goals, reflect on their pathway, evaluate their efforts, learn new skills that they can continually build on as they progress through their inquiry learning. Understanding how tools for learning can impact on their experiences, how different tools can provide a variety of angles on the one aspect. Children develop into self motivated learners as they understand how to use these skills and tools to follow their interests and how their thinking and actions can impact beyond the traditional four classroom walls.

I is for....
It is important to know that WALT ………for a reason or purpose.
Interest
Ideas and Impressions from the students. Throughout the Inquiry it is important from the onset to accept all ideas from the students whether relevant or not and these can be sorted through the use of G.O’s and thinking tools. The impressions refer to the ‘wonderings’ that students have and these need to be displayed so they can be integrated throughout the Inquiry process and students feel ideas are valued.
INVOLVEMENT:“Inquiry implies involvement that leads to understanding. Involvement in learning implies processing skills and attitudes that permit you to seek resolutions to questions and issues while you construct new knowledge.” Icwcclusterblog.blogspot.com

R is for.....
“Responding and Reacting” are positives outcome in all the stages of Inquiry.
Real-life experiences. Inquiry should be full of real experiences so the learning remains meaningful and relevant to the students. This will ensure motivation is maintained throughout the Inquiry.
Reflections Throughout the whole inquiry process it is important to reflect on where you have come as a learner, to reflect on the skills that you have developed and need to develop further. You need to reflect and analyse the whole process to ensure the best learning has occurred, to ensure that the inquiry has been successful.

Y is for...
You celebrate everyone’s effort and creativity at the end of an Inquiry.
Yahoo! Celebration of the children’s learning.
YES…The action! All of the hard work and learning can be celebrated with the action that finalises the Inquiry. This is relevant and meaningful to the students so they are involved until the very end.
You, the learner, takes control – create an action
The power and meaningful aspect of inquiry and to move it beyond a simple research project is to put the new information learnt into and action, an authentic purpose, creating impact with the knowledge. This is a time where learning is celebrated and shared on a local, national and international stage if possible.

2009-05-20T20:55:00.000-07:00

Immersion Racing Rima Weeks 1-3, Term 2

Displaying Learning Intention - this was important because children were learning the purpose of what they’re doing at this stage of our Inquiry. The children knew that there were always new questions to ask and answer.

Information was shared about Heroes from articles and books, and deeper thinking was developed when considering how the hero achieved what they did. Apart from class discussions, this was achieved by using the ‘Chain of Events’ G.O. Working in pairs, the children had to use/read the information in front of them and think about the WHO, HOW, WHERE, WHAT etc. This was important because it gave the children, the understanding, that there was often more than one event or circumstance that contributed to an outcome.

Clarifying the concept of a hero. Thinking of / discussing who are/is the hero and what did the hero do?
The children didn’t have any difficulty grasping the idea of a hero because they worked on the criteria of: Are they doing something good and worthwhile? Are they kind and helpful people? Are they doing something brave?

Teacher asked specific questions in context, pertaining to person’s actions/situation and what ‘it took’ to do what was needed. This required the children to think of all the different attributes and underlying strengths the person had, using factual knowledge and making inferences. The children got to know their hero in a more personal way and could put themselves in their shoes, in their world.

Discussion on K.Comp: Participating and Contributing-What does P.and C look like to us as a class? - ideas recorded and displayed for referring to. Eg. Tom, you agreed we would speak nicely to each other and work as team. Are you speaking nicely and working well with your group? NO. So what could you do to achieve this? Etc. This was great for encouraging this student to be responsible for his own actions because he was part of the class when this K.C. was composed by the class, he shares ownership of it and he understands and relates it .The responsibility was his.

Visitors contribute a hugely to IMMERSION, especially when children have deep thinking questions where so much more is revealed of the “HERO” – their feelings, emotions, thoughts, thinking, creativity etc. This is HOW the visitor/s impacted on the students understanding:The specific questions the children asked eg. How can you get a person out of a burning house and how do you feel? required complex answers, and feelings revealed through facial expressions, voice and body language told a story of their own. And when a demonstration ensued, the students understanding further increased. And because the Visitor had had first hand experiences and skills to share, the situation was genuine for the students and they were learning at first hand. Questions, also generated questions, so children were scaffolding each others learning.

Wondering Wall - many questions about Heroes were too broad and didn’t have any keywords. So the children had to make their questions more specific, so that information could be accessed on the Internet more easily. I had to work with some children 1-1 on their questions. Not all the children are at the stage where they can clearly see the purpose of deeper thinking questions. These questions were very important for seeking relevant information, and finding out exactly what they wanted to know, as the children were learning to be skilled, informed researchers, saving a lot of time. I now need to help the children to see where they’re at on the Question Rubric and how they can work on their question skills.

Classifying Heroes- Encouraged children to think about differences. Are they heroes by occupation, circumstance, chance, setting a goal and achieving it, displaying certain Virtues or using certain Key Competencies? The challenge for the children was to think about: Why don’t heroes have to be famous? – Round Robin Brainstorm
Discussion followed – consensus was, a hero could be someone you know who has helped someone in need, or someone working hard towards a goal. Used T chart G.O. with 4 of the above for headings.
In groups of three, children listed heroes who they felt belonged under each category. Children then to decided which category of people was the most important, because of the impact/affect they had people. It was very important to show that the children’s reasonings and decisions were valued, and when reporting back, for others to listen, and agree to disagree. Also, understanding that people are heroes for different reasons and could be the person sitting next to us.

Conclusion

I think, because I realise Immersion is so crucial to the success of Inquiry, I’ve tried to give the children a wide range of activities and experiences to learn about Heroes. I’ve used several G.O.s and encouraged the children to generate their own deeper thinking questions, which in turn give them more knowledge and understanding and control of their own learning. In other successful Inquiry Units we’ve done, I don’t think I had, as
a teacher, as much insight into what I was doing. So as a result, I hope the children have really benefited, especially in questioning. These reflections make you think about your own understanding and practice, which can only be good.

2009-05-20T16:58:00.000-07:00

THE PROCESS OF IMMERSION DURING INQUIRY:

We have explored both, ‘super’ and ‘real’ heroes and this provided some good insight into the student’s initial thinking. It also went on to provide clarity for those students who were having difficulty recognising a different type of hero other than superheroes. (eg: Sir E. Hilary). Almost immediately the students began debating the qualities that determine a hero and this lead well into creating our ‘wonderings’ wall. Having the students’ curiosities, in the form of questions, displayed in the classroom has lead to extra researching and learning which the students have taken on-board independently. A great step towards self-management! With the debating still going on, we brainstormed the qualities and attributes that heroes possess. So we now have a large visual display of powerful contextual language that students are starting use when discussing heroes, however it needed to be sorted further as both ‘types’ of heroes were intertwined. This is where the introduction of The Define Map has been so beneficial. It allowed the students to ‘sort’ out the different qualities and attributes of both types of heroes and to prioritise the relevant and not so relevant. A lot of discussion amongst themselves eventuated. For me, as the teacher, I was able to quickly observe students who participated and contributed confidently and to gain an insight into the language being used and by whom. The students then demonstrated higher order thinking as they initiated a class discussion on ‘who determines who a hero is and what makes one hero better than another (or are they?) and why? This was real evidence that the Immersion into the topic had raised their level of thinking and questioning skills. Even better were the justifications of their thoughts and their confidence to share this with their peers whether they agreed or not.
We are now beginning to explore our questioning skills and have been trialling writing deeper questions to broaden the skills the students already possess.
Tanya Hunter@ Rocking Rua

Room 4 Inquiry - Heroes

2009-05-20T13:23:00.000-07:00

More concentrated effort put into this stage of Immersion by myself resulting in all children [even the very young] able to use the key competency language when discussing heroes. Having “Thinking” and what it means on display makes me refer to the sign constantly. This, I hope, will begin to impact on making the children put more thought into their own ideas when having discussions. I have realised that I have to be the strong model of effective questioning to guide the children’s learning of how two ask a good question because through observations this is not happening. By trialling the use of Drama in this Immersion stage the children are developing a much stronger understanding of thinking what it must be really like to be blind, deaf or have no legs.

Immersion complete

2009-05-14T17:50:00.000-07:00

For this unit, I have tried to focus on the skills needed to set up inquiry - immersion has been much more successful this time.
Focussing on the tools that the children use to clarify their understanding has been more beneficial than I realised it could be.
The Define Map - created excellent discussion in whole class and small groups, children are challenging their own thinking as well as developing the confidence to challenge others. This tool meant that understanding of concepts could be confirmed, working in goups of three demanded that everone in the group was required to showsome level of understanding and the support the students gave eachother was fantastic. The biggest benefit from this tool in Immersion is the justification of thoughts, all thinking is accepted, but now there is the expectation that students need to justify their thinking - this was not so evident in this stage before. Immersion, in previous units, has been exposure to information, it lacked the directed teaching of skills and tools. The changes made in this stage are going to have such a positive impact on the remainder of the inquiry - well thats the hope.
Questioning skills taught at this stage in context has also been very powerful. Creating meaningful and authentic thinking and learning through questioning. This being completed at this stage is providing the expectations and scaffolding for the inquiry. Children not knowing the task also means they are more open to ideas, the tools learnt at this stage will now be extended throughout the inquiry. much more powerful than previous inquiry units.
IMMERSION is one of the most important stages - it is really exciting to think about where we are going to be heading with this inquiry!!!!

Questioning

2009-05-14T17:44:00.000-07:00

After studying a few heroes, children were asked for a question that would give more information about a hero.
We had a variety of responses - using the questioning rubric (Trevor Bond) we even had some at level 2!!!!
Simply by showing the rubric and analysing our repsonses, the children made huge changes to their questions and were very surprised as to how simple it was, now that they knew what they were doing.

One students response:
1: How did she get experience form jobs?
after questioning lesson
2: How did Amelia Earhart get experience from her volunteer nursing and flight instructor jobs?

Children made the connection straight away, that with a better question, the information or answer is going to be of a higher quality too.
Providing the students with the scaffolding to support their thinking and learning is vitally important and has such positive and powerful results.

Hero vs Superhero

2009-05-14T17:30:00.000-07:00

When introducing the topic in IMMERSION stage, there was a lot of confusion about heroes - children automatically aligned their thinking with superheroes (at this stage they do not know the task).
We used the DEFINE MAP to help clarrify ideas. Using the children original thinking on this topic, we defined a hero and superhero. The DEFINE MAP, challenged the childrens thinking as they had to justify their decisions. It made children consider different aspects of heroism, something that hadn't really happened before. The children studied a variety of heroes and use contextual language form their studies to help them when compiling the DEFINE MAP.

To follow are examples of defintions written after using the MAP.
A hero is someone that saves the day and is modest about the things they do.

A hero is an everyday person who does heroic acts and is a role model that inspores others to do good things.

A hero is a modest person who never gives up, has the courage to risk their lives for people in desperate need.

A hero is a courageous person who is kind to people and willing to save people in danger.

The define map is a great strategy, it encourages powerful thinking and great discussions.

Inquiry term two - heroes

2009-05-14T17:24:00.000-07:00

This term we have decided to change our inquiry model slightly.
We are using the tool - the question map - however, it wasn't working as well as it should be. After attending the Trevor Bond workshop, it was decided that instead of having a leading question, our question will be embedded into a task. This should (hopefully) set up the thinking for the question map so it is used more effectively.

This is our task for the unit:
Research what it means to be a hero.
Investigate the qualities that heroes display.

Using the information you have discovered, locate a hero in our local community.
Share their heroic qualities and plan an action to celebrate the heroes in our community.

Children will have questions about this task and those are going to lead into the question map.
Something else that we are trialling, so will keep you informed about how it is going.

Programme Blurb

2009-04-28T21:16:00.000-07:00

Dance for Disney
Oroua Downs School Production 2008

We have been focussing on Inquiry learning this year as part of our ICT PD cluster.
This term we tried something quite unique, something quite scary, but something we knew that our wonderful children could handle.
We investigated components that it takes to “make an entertaining show”, children followed the inquiry process to discover this information. We had a fantastic whole school presentation afternoon, which showcased the excellent effort that everyone had put in.
We then broke into house group and selected the character groups that we wanted to be, organised our costumes, created our dances, decided who was going to have the speaking roles, what props we needed, the backdrops, designed the programme, the advertising, the tickets, found a stage manager, had MC auditions, organised out ICT crew, gathered our stage hands, a huge effort from each and everyone of our dedicated students.
Tonights show is owned by your children, they created it, practised in, and are going to put on an amazing performance for you. We know you will enjoy it!
I totally take my hat off to all of the cast in this production and the wonderful staff for their commitment and support throughout the process.
Zee

What is it all about you may ask…
This production is about learning how to accept each other for who you are and working together towards a common goal.
It is about people being who they want to be and developing the courage to be confident and assertive.
You will giggle, you may be shocked, hopefully you wont cry but we know you will be entertained.
Please celebrate your childrens success with us, and allow for any hiccups we may experiences, sit back and enjoy.
We thank you for you support throughout this process.

Narrators and the midget

2009-04-28T21:08:00.000-07:00

We had auditions for the narrators, this is an extra role on top of their house character. It was great to see so many juniors come to the auditions, they were really supportive of eachother and very excitied to have this special role.

It was planned that narrators would pre record their speech, but as it turned out, they wanted to 'do it live' on the night.

Each narrator was given their part and time to practise was their responsibilty.

A great effort was made, it was a chance to showcase their confidence and oral language skills.

We had one last special role to fill, that of the midget. This character is noticed on stage throughout the production, but does not say anything until the last scene, this midget pulls the whole message of the production together.

Props, ICT and stage manager

2009-04-28T21:04:00.000-07:00

being in the spotlight is not everyones favourite past time, so some children were given the chance to work behind the scenes. This took the pressure off those that didn't want to be up on stage, it also gave leadership opportunities for the stage manager and a chance to showcase skills for the ICT crew.

This group of children ran the sound system worked all equipment needed, organised the props and made sure things were going to right on the night.

Dances and music

2009-04-28T20:50:00.000-07:00

Children worked in their house groups to create their dance and find their music.

We practised at various times for a week and then had a shared dancing session in the sunshine. This was amazing and nearly brought tears to the teachers eyes. An amazing collection of moves, every single child in the school was involved and proud of what they did as well as others efforts. The playground was alive with cheering and children trying to copy dance moves. Parents came down and were amazed by the childrens efforts.
The screams of delight echoed through the corridors - this is really going to work!

One child says "this is so awesome, we get to have our own music, it makes it so much more fun for us and not boring like other times"

Sharing our discoveries

2009-04-28T19:09:00.000-07:00

Oops - has been a while since I have updated this so here we go........

After a very intensive few weeks researching 'what it takes to put on a good show' the students had a shairng day in our library.
This was a fantastic afternoon of celebrations! It was impressive to see the children using ICTs with confidence to share what they had learnt. Nothing was the same, even though we had group studying the same aspect, their reporting were different - this was most noticed by the students, the were making comparisons of their information to groups that had the same.
Children took great pride in their presentations and this also created another boost of momentum for the second half of the inquiry.

This is a movie made by a junior class that shows their inquiry learning.
This really impressed me with the dedication to develop ICT skills from a less confident teacher - hats off to you!

The children have really owned this unit, there is much excitement, a real change for them to hold the power and for the expectations to be there for them to achieve success. For me, this unit has provided the opportunity for the children to really showcase their skills, it is something that in previous year they haven't been able to do - the production was too big for the children to take on. A real credit to the staff - for throwing caution to the wind and creating a truly meaningful learning experiences for the children.

From here, Miss Z presented the script to the school, this created even more excitement and children went back to house group to vote on the roles they wanted.

Children then had 3 days to get their costume organised for the show and to be shared at a parade at a special assembly.

We had geeks, jock, bogans, emos, pretty girls and ganstas.

The story line for the production was a mixed between high school musical and grease, with the happy ending that we all wish for, in the end, differences are celebrated and unity is found in the playground.

The children made a fantastic effort and really showed their character through their costumes. This created even more ownership and determination to do a great job.

Cluster Visit

2008-11-27T14:50:00.000-08:00

What a great day we had visiting our wonderful schools in the cluster to share their ICT journey. Thank you all for the open doors and welcoming smiles.

North - love the inquiry model and the target is a great image. Did like talking tothe children, they all knew what direction they were travelling and were busy and excited aobut planning their holiday. Loved the eye toy in on of the classrooms - an innovative idea! What great strength you have in leadership and the ICt team - vey impressive ad a real credit to your school culture.
Koputaroa - what a gorgeous school. Was great to see all the language of thinking evident throughout theschool. Again the children were really hooked into learning and the use of ICT was seemless - most impressed with the junior end of the school - a great role model for many other junior teachers to see that it can be done. Was very impressed with the quality of questioning that came from the little people - they were really focussed on their question, and very determined to answer it - one little fellow invited us back so he could prove that he knew how to answer his question - A fantastic example of a self motivated learner!!! WOW!!!! Really impressed with the KERERU model - thought is was fantastic how it was linked to the school culture and how the staff worked collaboratively to reach that model - it was refreshing to see that you have taken the time to develop this - bet you are looking forward to your first inquiry next year - best of luck
Foxton - Something that stunned me was the passion and drive that Miss Ani has - with a tricky school situation - it would be easy to put development on the back burner - hats of to you Ani - you have made a massive impact with ICT and inquiry and the kids are buzzing! Did likethe idea of te 'host' computer and will be investigating that further, to see if it could be possible inour school.

Once again thatnk you all for a gret day
Celebrate your successes -you deserve it

A big shift!!!!

2008-11-03T15:22:00.000-08:00

Yesterday we had a quick meeting on how our inquiry is going this term.
We did a PMI and was most impressed about the amount and quality of the positive comments! We are beginning to see the benefits of inquiry learning and how we can see it impacting on the learning of our students.

The Positives!!!!!

We are taking more risks as teachers
Using ICT as a tool more than before
Children have indepth thinking and actions
We have the common language throughout the school
Questions and model on display throughout the schoolWe are thinking outside the internet
Exploring ICT resources to support our inquiry
Using other technologies – fax and email
Using graphic organisers more freely – also they integrate into other topics
The childrens critical thinking is increasing in both use and quality
Explicit teaching of thinking tools not needed as much as children know how to use these tools
Definite improvement on group dynamics – able to work effectively with a bigger variety of children
Children are leading the inquiry more and with confidenceThere are more reflections made by the learner throughout the inquiry

The Negatives!!!

Time constraints, getting outside the classroom
Accessing materials – not so hands onTapping into the motivation of the students can be tricky

Interesting - where to next!!!!

Verbalising the language and stages of the model as we progress through the inquiry
Making sure teachers think creatively about how to immerse children and motivate them throughout the inquiry

This reminded us that we need to spend time reflecting and celebrating our successes - it isn't until we have it down in front of us that we sit back and realise just what a positive impact inquiry is having on our teaching and learning.

Congratulations ODS - what a fantastic effort you have and are continuing to make!!!!

Where To Start - Where To Next?

2008-10-27T23:06:00.000-07:00

Conference Ch-ch 08 was great. The previous conferences and visits to other schools introduced the concept of a whole year investigation, breaking the theme into Social, Science, local and perhaps international avenues for further investigation. GREAT, and I got some ideas what it might look like.
One of the developing moments for me was that the presenters are now not only introducing ideas, but many seem to be further down the road than I thought. Yes, there are those on a similar journey to us and we can match them, but there are others who have come through the tunnel, who are well prepared for not only for what they are doing but also future changes. We all knew we are on an educational escalator but thought that we would stop and pause when we reached the next level, however things happen quicker than that. When you reach the ‘next level’ your head is tilted up to the next level yet again, IT DOESN’T STOP!!!! And neither should it??!!
“Don’t look for pause, look for passion!!” Thomson 2008.
We have all heard how our students will be re-training through out their employment life lines, then I guess it shouldn’t come as a surprise that retraining-rethinking must happen even in our own profession. Even if we stay in the teaching profession we will still need to re-train/rethink what we are doing and who we are doing it for.
Finally one of the most poignant moments for me was the comment….
“…forget about the NZ dragging achievement tail. We should be focussing on the under- achievement of our students.” Hattie

I like this, not only because it’s true, but because it is more encompassing!!!
It includes the STA level 5 student who should be on level 7+, or, heaven forbid the stanine 7 student who should be level 9 but who are off the ‘radar’ because s/he is doing well anyway.

Term Four - SHOWTIME!!!!!!

2008-10-19T16:25:00.000-07:00

The staff at Oroua Downs have really impressed me with their dedication to change. We have definitely hit the ground running and everyone is willing to try something new and take the experience as part of our journey with inquiry.

This term we have decided to have an inquiry theme “Showtime!” with a focus question of ‘what does it take to put on an entertaining show?’
When I first took this idea to the staff, there was definitely a few nerves about how all this was going to happen. But after a few discussions – we were all on the same page and really looking forward to this terms inquiry.

As part of my goals form my last meeting with Jan, it was decided to create a support booklet to be used along side the model. This is slightly different at this stage. As part of developing a new (fifth trial now – hehe) unit planner, I decided to combine the booklet with this. The planning is now more organised into stages, and has full explanation at each stage as to what is required. As we are still getting to grips with inquiry, I didn’t want to give another pile of paper to be filed, I do think that with this format, it would be more useful. Information that is needed for each stage is right there, next to the planning, so instead of having to search for another booklet, it is right there where we need it. This doesn’t mean that the booklet wont be compiled, but as we are still in trial, as a staff we can compose that together, when we reflect on our journey this year, in preparation for next year.

So….. let’s get back to showtime!
As our immersion stage, we have given the children three different live performances to evaluate. “What makes a good show?” – so not only have they had great experiences, those experiences are very relevant to out topic – the children saw two last term and one this term – they are constantly reflecting on what they have seen and making the connections to what they are required to do in this inquiry. The children are developing their critical thinking skills and are already generating ownership!
As a staff we made a list of the magnitude of jobs that we do towards a production. We then decided that we will direct our classes to specific areas to investigate. This left a list of 3-4 events to inquire about for the production. We also decided that a senior and junior class could focus on the same things so the support will be there and also a varying degree of knowledge gathered. We are having a report back session as a whole school where each class will present their findings to the school. So exposure to much information and ideas will be had by all and specific in depth details about one area for each person.
So far, it has been really exciting, we have groups going to theatres to interview people, creating surveys, designing questionnaires, taking videos, going to Manawatu College and working with the drama and media departments and the list goes on!

Creative thinking has definitely developed, we are thinking outside the box as to how we can help this inquiry, very impressive! From initial apprehension from the staff about this topic, there is now an excited buzz.

Children are going to run this production – that is our action – the motivation is already there, the children are already thinking ahead, making plans, designing ideas, really taking ownership!
I do think breaking it down into manageable chunks has really helped the promotion of change – we have developed so much already and it is really exciting to think about where we are off to next.

Michael Pohl

2008-09-24T20:56:00.000-07:00

We have been fans of Michael Pohl for some time now, this day just reaffirmed what we are doing.

The Question Map
This is a fantastic strategy that we use in the organise stage of our inquiry. It is a strategy that does help the children organise their wonderings and thoughts. It helps them structure their questions and right form the start of the inquiry, challenges their thinking. No longer do the children just accept questions that they or their peers pose, this strategy insists that there is an element of critical thinking, they have to justify why that question should be included. From there, they know the inquiry path, can organise their investigations and it is a great visual to refer back to throughout the process.

This strategy works really well when conducting a whole class directed inquiry (from our experience anyway) - each area of the question map become the focus of a small group. This way, the children get indepth knowledge of one area, while being exposed to other areas when groups present their findings. For our children, at the start of the inquiry journey, they find the whole process a little less dawnting, see the whole picture without feeling overwhelmed with trying to tackle the whole inquiry focus.

S.C.A.M.P.E.R and other such techniques

We have used SCAMPER for some time now - mostly in the creative writing area. It is a great way to engage 'non writers' and give them a lot more control over their ideas. Using this strategy gives them an easy pathway to structure their ideas. It encourages creative thinking and brings the fun back into writing for those students.

We have used 'tomatoes' to assess art. We have also designed our own. When we first trialled them, the responses from the children were - 'its easy', 'you dont have to write much'. At first we were a bit concerned, thinking that we were not challenging them enough, however with repeated use, the quality of responses increased. It was 'easy' for the children to focus their thinking on specific areas rather than commenting on the whole aspect of their art work (as previously done), sometimes children didn't know what kind of comments were required, this provided a solid structure. It has been an excellent tool to transfer to other areas, especially self evaluations, we used I ROCK for self management, STITCHERY for another art topic, SWEET for a junior art assessment, the possiblities are endless when you put your green hat on!

Tony Ryans thinker Keys are also a fantastic tool, would highly recommend purchasing the CD shown on the day - really good value for a fantastic resource!

We were extremely lucky to have such a day with Michael Pohl, thank you to Jan for organising it and thanks to Julie for providing an opportunity for other staff memebers and schools in our region.

Participating and Contributing rubric

2008-09-24T20:33:00.000-07:00

This staff meeting was taken by the lead teacher. As part of our inquiry development, we needed to think about the skills involved. Previously the children had used essential skills to self assess and as a staff we developed out own success criteria to use for assessment. It is the aim that with the development of school wide understanding of inquiry learning, that skills would be assessed with a focus on the key competencies. This really promoted ownership from the children as they developed an understanding of the skills and attitudes required for their learning. However, it was limited as it didn’t really give the children their next learning step, they could create a learning step themselves but they weren’t sure what they needed to do as a learner to progress to the next step, most of these skills were used and assessed in isolation.
As part of developing our inquiry model, rubrics are now included. This continues to develop the system we already had in place, and it was aimed that we would develop a rubric that could be uniformed throughout the school, again showing continuity of language and systems throughout the school.
To follow is the structure that was used to design the first rubric for participating and contributing.
· Define what the key competency is about
· Connect it to the old essential skill
· Make a list of things that fit under this umbrella
· Get old assessment sheets out and record what the children think are important for the related essential skills
· In pairs write 3 virtues that are vitally important to this competency
· Decide as a staff – 3 or 4 key elements to this competency
· Introduce the rubric
· Start from the best, then worst, then in between

The staff created a rubric. However, we decided that we needed more work on this as the rubric was frequency based and not skill development based. We went back to our classes and tried the same process with our children. We all designed rubrics for our classes with the children ideas. We decided to use these as the childrens self assessments, these proved to be really powerful, the children are very critical of themselves but said that this way, they knew exactly what they needed to do to move to the next level.
Lead teacher then investigated other schools that use rubrics. From our cluster day with Jan-Marie Kellow, looking at the planning template, and from notes taken, decided to use rubistar to help design our first rubric, we needed a model to bounce our own ideas off. Next, under the umbrella of ‘collaborative working’ found skills/attitudes that matched what we were doing. Lead teacher then took a sample to the staff and discussed it. Having that model in front of us seemed to make the whole concept more concrete. We decided to select four areas to use for our rubric this term to assess our focus key competency. We now have something to think critically about and have decided to readdress this next term.
All staff have been given ‘key competency case-study’ from Karori, Central, Hillcrest, Kelburn Normal Schools, sourced from TKI. This is holiday reading and we plan to come back and address the rubric idea for next term.
It has been really great to see everyone on board, with great commitment to this development. We have all been impressed with the childrens understandings of the skills needed to work through an inquiry and put this down to them ‘buying’ into the inquiry way and their ownership of the whole process.
Well done teachers, you are doing a great job!!!!!

Ta Team

2008-09-22T17:34:00.000-07:00

I have read your blogs and thanks heaps for taking the time to reflect about what we are doing in Inquiry and how we can best serve our students.
Yes, Inquiry is an interesting and at times challenging way to go about things. No, there does not seem to be a prescribed way to go about this, there will be times when the approach seems more fluid than rigid., but that's the enigma of teaching.
Your reflections will help clarify what the highlights are and where we can go to next.
Thank you again for your contributions. We are definitely working towards common goals.
T.

What does Inquiry mean to Tanya H????

2008-09-22T03:02:00.000-07:00

I think Inquiry is fantastic! I love the hands-on approach and the student's ownership of their learning. Here are some more of my thoughts......
Immersion:
I've come to realise the absolute importance of getting the student's motivated and excited from the very beginning of the Inquiry. This is where it is vital to provide opportunities to engross our learners.
New learning:
The scene for the new learning is set in Immersion and should allow student's to actively contribute/participate and own their learning. Student's need to feel valued and safe so they can take risks.
Questioning:
I really think that student's need to be actively encouraged to pose questions that are meaningful and relevant to them. Those initial curiosities/questions are like pieces of gold and for some students can be the total motivation throughout the Inquiry.
Understanding:
This begins at the initial start of the learning to ensure that student's know what the Inquiry is actually asking and they continue to develop deeper understandings as they question/analyse and reflect on their journey.
Involvement:
For me, this has got to be the essential ingredient for taking an Inquiry approach. I really love the opportunities for student-centered learning and a more personal hands-on.
Relevance:
The Inquiry needs to be relevant and meaningful with a real-life context so that the learning approach is motivating and 'captures' the students from the onset. This also applies to resources and opportunities that I provide to enhance and encourage the learning.
Yes!
This is where actions are being decided. We've acquired/analysed and assessed throughout the Inquiry. We've had direct teaching of questioning skills/use of graphic organisers-thinking tools and reflected on our findings...NOW we are ready to take ACTION!

So these are some of my own thoughts on the new learning that I've been participating in!!!!
Tanya Hunter @O.D.S

2008-09-05T17:08:00.000-07:00

what inquiry means to liz.........

Developing childrens independence and confidence to think for themselves, share own ideas and feelings without put downs. To explore and problem solve, question themselves and be reflective of what they have done or found out. This may need to be teacher directive but not necessarily. Hands on is great!

What inquiry means to me......By Naomi

2008-09-03T16:19:00.004-07:00

It has been a bit of a roller coaster ride through discovering what inquiry actually is. This has not been a bad thing as it has meant that my understanding has become deeper and clearer as to what we need to do.
Inquiry means to me... well first and foremost it is child owed and driven. It is from their questions and ideas that we base our focus and direction. This creates the interest and makes it more meaningful for the children as it is something they want to find out or do.

Inquiry is hands on, doing, developing, and moving through a process to an end product or idea. It shows the children ways in which they can solve problems, order and organise ideas and clarify their thinking.

Inquiry is giving the children skills to locate-use multiple skills and resources , analyse-what is important, what information helps me to move on to the next step, and finaly an ACTION, in which they can put there ideas and findings into a doing activity.

With inquiry I can combine a lot of learning areas and competencies. Like for our gardens we have been using a lot of maths to design, measure and test our structures. There is a hive of activity through group discussions, reporting back to the class and organising their time. Writing up investigations or predictions. Art and presentations of ideas through ICT or posters. The list goes on!!!

I am finding inquiry organised chaos at times. Kids working at so many different levels and at times on totaly different activities. This means to me that I have to be a relaxed and go with the flow, not expecting structure in all areas. I love this part but at times it also feels so all over the place. If the kids have taken ownership of the inquiry then this chaos should mean that there is also action and involvement by all.

Naomi

A View From The Top

2008-09-02T19:24:00.000-07:00

Perhaps the title is a little misleading as I feel that we are working from the grass roots. The efforts the staff and Tarnz in particular has been outstanding. Their dedication to the kids to get it right, to take them on their learning journey has has been fantastic to watch, share and be part of.
As a principal I feel that the experiences of the teachers as they go through the Inquiry process with the kids gives them the first glance of what is going on and what is working well. Therefore my role is to support what is going on and question and ensure best practice.
For me one of the more interesting aspects of the process we are going through is how much influence the Inquiry process has as it impacts not on just the 'topic' but the whole programme and the culture of the school and what is considered important to the school.

Room 1-- Their process to discovery

2008-09-02T18:05:00.000-07:00

In room 1 we have been conducting an inquiry into how and what to make as a structure that goes over our garden for protection.
This has been a real hands on, experimentation, trail and error investigation. All the class has been actively involved and really excited about sharing ideas and challenging their own thoughts and designs.
After some initial immersion into structures the class was split into 5 groups and they drew and made mini models of their ideas. Then they presented their ideas to the class. We did a PMQ on each of them to help look at design faults and good aspects of each structure.
From there we decided on criteria for our structure and used a decision matrix to rank each idea. This gave us the top scores for each criteria and using this we combined designs for a best overall one.
Each group then created another model with the combined properties for the structure. Here is their idea
They then looked at what knowledge they needed to constructed this idea and they cam up with 1) how to attach bamboo sticks together, 2) how to attach the plastic, 3) how and what to use to keep the side flaps up,
4) how to keep the V shape stable on the roof, 5) measurements and costing
Each group researched through using books, internet, making and trailing designs, and lots of discussion amongst themselves.

Now it is time to finish the product-buy, put together and make the final garden protector. Phew!!! Its been a great journey and it will continue to grow as we come across new ideas or problems with our gardens. I have noticed a huge shift in the way that they children work through a problem or idea. Their level of language and ability to discuss and critique each others work has grown. And I think the biggest shift is that there is no one in the class who is not participating in some way or form, less off task behaviour and some amazing group cooperative work.

What inquiry means to me

2008-08-31T13:19:00.000-07:00

What Inquiry Means To Me Barbara Noaro

Inquiry means to seek information by asking questions.
Inquiry means to organise one’s self.
Inquiry means to ask questions and investigate further.
Inquiry means to make discoveries.
Inquiry means to present and share outcomes.
Inquiry means to ask ‘how did I do?’

Inquiry is a means to an end, which at the beginning, you cannot for see.

Inquiry means there’s ‘a big important to us’ question to answer.

Inquiry means students will learn in a powerful way – being meaningfully involved, while learning about themselves and their strengths and abilities, using, improving, and sharing them.

Inquiry means there is a system, a simple format, a set of procedures, that enable the inquirer to find answers to the things they wonder about, and then answers to the questions that need investigating and exploring in a variety of chosen ways, maybe with others, by one’s self or with the class. The inquirer gains meaningful knowledge and useful new skills in the process.

Inquiry in the classroom means the teacher needs to model and guide.

Inquiry means that the process becomes well known and seamless over time to the user.

Inquiry means the outcome is celebrated and shared with others.

Inquiry means that there is an evaluative process at the end for ‘taking stock’ and for further learning.

Inquiry is thought provoking, caring, active and purposeful in the world.

By Barbara

vegie time

2008-08-26T17:06:00.000-07:00

Look at the kids immersed in finding out about seeds, what they look like, comparing sizes and discussing their finds with each other.

Staff Meeting - whats going well

2008-08-25T18:46:00.000-07:00

We had a catch-up for inquiry this week. We talked about how things were going with inquiry and where to next……..

What is going well with immersion – what difference have we seen since the last inquiry?
· Hands on experiences
· Exposure to a variety of concepts/ideas
· It is important to be specific enough to ‘guide’ – point the inquiry in the right direction
· One teacher says -“Really have to be specific in the immersion to make that meaningful link with children – if they don’t make connections at this stage – the inquiry is lost – if there no natural curiosity – where does the inquiring mind come from? Will place more emphasis on this stage in the next inquiry.”
· Children make more contributions to this stage (compared to last inquiry), they have made their own connections to the real world – meaningful concepts really help drive the inquiry – something that children can really get involved with.
· This stage really motivated the children – they are eager to go further
· Immersion is a crucial aspect to set up the inquiry
· Lots of resources – equipment – materials for the children to work with creates authenticity and ownership.
· Immersion is easier to manage as whole class activities – sets up working relationships for co-operative learning and developing communication skills, have a great class buzz when all are eager to investigate.
· Questioning is coming through at this stage – seen a huge difference from last inquiry as children weren’t really engaged. It is a lot easier and more fun to grow veges from seed to spark interest rather than watching a video or some such thing –(which is where we came from) – This highlighted the importance of the delivery a focus of the inquiry – really have to think about the concept rather than the topic.

We then discussed - what do we do with these questions or the wonderings?
A huge discussion was had about the importance of these questions or wonderings. Discussed how these questions should/could drive the inquiry – these are the questions that will capture our students, will be their motivation, their ownership of the whole inquiry.
We set another inquiry meeting to further discuss the continued refining of our thinking about questioning in preparation for term four.
This also brought us to the realisation that we didn’t have an over-riding question ourselves – this is because we tackled this inquiry from the back end.
We had these vege boxes etc, we wanted to promote healthy eating, so we did ‘edible gardens’ – we have forced this inquiry down the road we wanted it.
We have kind of ‘done’ inquiry and kind of haven’t – we know where we went astray, have reflected on this and have discussed further refinements for next term – it has allowed us a great chance to take ownership of the whole inquiry buzz – together – to continue refining and strengthening our understanding of what we need to develop to ensure we make inquiry work in our school. We are so on the right track – just had a slight detour but what a great journey we now have.

What is going well with DISCOVER?
· Hands on
· Visual aspect
· Increase of vocab and language
· Sharing of skills
· Experimenting of hands on curiosities
· More involvement through learning
· There is an expectation and requirement of self management
· Not on the computer researching
· Children are investigating
· Children are debating their findings
· Learning continuing beyond classroom and time constraints
· Learning tools (thinking maps) are being used more effectively and confidently
· Groups are focussed by questions
· Makes it easier for the juniors to do as a class
· Increased communication skills
Confidence to express opinions
Meaningful involvement promotes listening skills
Children have the confidence to challenge ideas

What isn’t going so well or what are our troubles?
· There is a danger of it dragging out a bit due to having student teachers with their own requirements, the weather, time and interruptions. We need to think about the length of time we are spending on each stage – we have spent quite a while on immersion – this is the danger as it could lean us towards integration rather than inquiry – something we have to watch.
· One teacher was wondering how they can monitor the whole class input – how do I make sure that everyone is contributing?
· At times lack of materials eg wood etc can hinder our path – just means that the teacher has to be more organised and the children can make the sourcing of these materials part of their inquiry.

Where to next?
We discussed the importance of scaffolding.
For this inquiry (what’s left of it) we will focus on our scaffolding – what we need as facilitators and what the children need to successfully complete the inquiry process.
· What we need – we will come together to discuss questioning in immersion and scaffolding.

We are coming together in two weeks to set our rubrics for inquiry.
This is a new task for us as rubrics are currently not used – we set learning intentions and success criteria but not in rubric form.

The staff are going to create a rubric for managing self and participating & contributing, We need to solidify our own understanding before we take it to the children. We discussed the importance of knowing skills involved and what the learners needs to do before reaching the next level – providing the learner with goals and next learning steps.

Two meetings on inquiry before the end of the term.
PHEW!!!!!!!!

Facilitator Meeting

2008-08-14T17:17:00.000-07:00

Tried to bribe Jan with my birthday morning tea, so I wouldn't have to heaps of work - but alas - my cunning plan failed - hahaha - thanks for all the help Jan (really mean that)

Looked at model, new format is too complicated. After review of the last one, teachers wanted more information about each aspect, so tried to put it on the model. This made it very scary looking and didn’t really help the cause. So have decided to simplify the model and put the required details into the support booklet. The staff have all the bits and pieces they need for the inquiry journey but it is scattered, I need to compile a booklet of support so that all scaffolding for the staff and their students is in one easily accessible place.

Discussed the importance of the focus question – something that this term we skipped over (put that one down to experience) – we had our theme and our direction but skimmed of the questioning part too quickly – this need to be more detailed and thorough as it sets up our inquiry – it is the key to our inquiry – kind of got a bit lost on the journey – trying to move too quickly I think and forgot about the key ideas of inquiry. We are using this unit as an inquiry process, I got a bit overwhelmed by the whole thing and lost the big idea. We will still reflect on what is working well, looking at each stage of our inquiry and together as a staff problem solve any issue and keep reworking on our ideas and refining our inquiry process.

We are looking at key competencies and how we can use these in assessment. We have completed some ground work on assessment and key competencies – we are now looking at moving to our next step and designing rubrics for these. This unit our key competency focus is managing self and participating and contributing – we are going to have a staff meeting (or two) on what these mean and look like to us as a staff. Once our rubric is designed, we are going to include in the organise stage – the children designing their own rubric for the specific competency – this means the children can assess themselves at the beginning and also know the steps they need to take to make improvements – which in turn will be very powerful. We will keep you up to date with the progress. Once we have completed the first couple of rubrics, then we can link them to other areas of the inquiry processing – information processing skills, communication skills etc – or we may just decide to use the key competencies – further research and development is needed here. Also it needs to be a process completed together as a staff and not just one staff member – this will also encourage ownership of the whole thing too.
We are thinking about including our production as our inquiry next term – could be a challenge, could be a disaster, we will keep you informed

Muratai Visit

2008-08-14T17:16:00.000-07:00

What a great atmosphere the school has. The Principal is a ‘real’ person, he doesn’t mince words or window dress efforts within the school. The transperancy of things that happen within the school and classrooms was admirable – it makes a pleasant change.

I was really inspired by the systems that are in place and being used throughout the school. In every classroom the same thing was evident, just in slightly different forms. Just reinforced the importance of the common language throughout the learning spaces. Reinforced for me the importance of scaffolding, not only for the kids but also for the staff – if we are going to take control of inquiry, it is no use wondering around in the dark – we must have a clear direction and to torch (supporting materials) in our hand to defuse the darkness.

I also really liked the idea of the theme throughout the year, POWER, with such a broad and powerful theme, the tangents are endless, we are thinking of doing something similar next year. However in say that, I’m sure that we have to consult with the children as to what they wonder about and see if as a staff we can come up with a rich concept that can be applied to many areas – just thinking about it at this stage.

A huge thanks to Muratai School, their Principal, the wonderful Kapa Haka group, the friendly and open staff for letting us invade their classrooms on mass. It was a great school to finish our school visits on, every time we visit, we always take something away with us. Thanks Jan for all the organisation.

Changing for inquiry

2008-08-07T14:15:00.000-07:00

We had a huge staff meeting on inquiry. Really had a lot of solid discussions on the unit we had planned to do and if it would be a true inquiry unit.
After a lot of discussion and clarrification, we decided that it wouldn't. YEY!!!!!
We were planning on doing a unit on the Olympics - what it takes to get gold - but we realised that the children wouldn't get the practical opportunities to 'work' for or with information, it would still be a research type unit with no 'hands on' or opportunities to fully engage.
We changed it to 'Who dares wins' - and edible garden project to promote participation in developing and maintaining edible vegetable gardens.
The staff got really excited really fast about the opportunities that they children could take ownership over.
We also focussed our learning intentions to the key competencies - this ensured that the children would take ownership and made us look at planning in a different light.
We developed a new planning format (again hehe) and tweeked the visual model (still think this needs further development - this is on going and will be so for quite some time yet I guess)
We discussed the importance of providing scaffolding for our learners and again refined the thinking tools that we will be using throughout this unit.
Our next step is to go through our second trial unit, focuss on the scaffolding and key competencies and continue to refine our thinking and opportunities.
The staff are coming to grips with the inquiry way, there will still be bumps and hiccups - to be expected when change is happening.
Congratulations to our staff for the open mindedness and commitment to providing great learning experiences for our children.

Our Lady of Lourdes Visit

2008-06-22T16:35:00.000-07:00

Thank you to all the staff of Lourdes for opening their classrooms to a rather large group of people. It was an enjoyable day and was fantastic to see the excitement of the children.

For me I got three things from this day that I wish to 'creatively swipe' and bring back to our learning environment.

Inquiry Newsletters
Thought this was a great way to keep the community informed. It would provide a platform for discussions at home and also will keep the language of learning and inquiry in use after the childrn leave the classroom. I can see this idea being transferred to other areas as a useful tool of communication. A great idea.
Learning Wall & Sharing booklets
It was great to see the journey recorded with such pride and on display for the children and parents to see. This would promote ownership and will keep the inquiry on track also.
We did the journals once, but staff did it under protest, so were scrapped, however can't help but thinking that this would be a great tool to ensure staff understand the process of inquiry and would also become a valuable reflection tool aswell. Will definately be discussion this with the staff at one of our many meetings - hehehe:-)
Templates
This is all about providing scaffolding for the learner. This reaffirmed the importance of having schoolwide scaffolding for the learners as they progress through inquiry, the more children practise with these, the more proficient they will become. We are developing a set of thinking tools to use with inquiry but also need to think about those areas that are not covered with these tools.

Once again thank you for a great day

Fantastic thinking about Inquiry

2008-06-22T16:05:00.000-07:00

After asking our fantastic staff to do some pre-meeting readings (as outlined in our action plan), we were all set to investigate inquiry further and develop a common understanding.
The meeting was a huge success with changes of thinking and teaching evident in discussions. everyone was encouraged to challenge their own ideas, we discussed successes and failures to date as far as our inquiry model goes.
We discovered, through guided questioning, that our model is still very focussed on Action Learning. This was intentional on my part, when designing the model, just so our staff can have ownership of changes made and not just wait to be told. As discussed in cluster days, inquiry goes so much better when students own it, so why not apply that to the staff. We have planned another meeting just to discuss and redesign the model, this is great, as the whole staff are on board and now have a better understanding of what inquiry is.

During the meeting, we discussed the following:

“Inquiry implies involvement that leads to understanding. Furthermore, involvement in learning implies possessing skills and attitudes that permit you to seek resolutions to questions and issues while you construct new knowledge.”
· What are the key ideas of this statement?
· What does this mean for the way we teach and the opportunities that we provide?
· What skills are needed from the learner?How do the key competencies fit in here?

"Memorising facts and information is not the most important skill in today’s world. Facts change, and information is readily available – that is needed is an understanding of how to get and make sense of the mass of data"
· How does this impact on the classroom and the skills we teach?

"For educators, inquiry implies emphasis on the development of inquiry skills and the nurturing of inquiring attitudes or habit of mind that will enable individuals to continue the quest for knowledge throughout life.
The knowledge base for disciplines is constantly expanding and changing. No one can ever learn everything, but everyone can better develop their skills and nurture the inquiring attitudes necessary to continue the generation and examination of knowledge throughout their lives."

How does this impact on curriculum?
How do we show students how to better develop their skills? What is their measure – do they know their next step?

We had lengthy discussions, ideas were challenged and we all saw the comparisons to what we are doing currently, which is more information based, and to examples of inquiry taken from our many school visits on cluster days. We applied our vision and understanding of inquiry to our terms topic - this really allowed us to critically evaluate the opprtunities we are providing for the children and how we need to carefully select topics that allow us and the children to take part in true inquiry, rather than information gathering.

We have set another meeting to further discuss inquiry, we are having a 'model tweeking' session aswell and also are planning rubric design meetings to address ideas assessment and feedback to and for the children.

Our staff now own inquiry, the lights have been turned on and now the momentum is really picking up.

Congratulations to our wonderfully dedicated staff for their open minds and commitment to the cause.

Action Plan

2008-06-17T18:24:00.000-07:00

Now that we have developed our vision, we need to relate this to inquiry. We need to ensure our belief system matches with what we are aiming to do with inquiry. We have developed an action plan, focussing on inquiry, once this has been completed, we will work on our next step.

Goal 1:Identify key elements of inquiry
Staff to prepare for next meeting by engaging with reading on the subject of inquiry based learning
What is inquiry? (reference: Wells, Gordon (2001).Action, talk & text: learning & Teaching through inquiry. New York, NY: Teachers college Press ;Taken from the Galileo site

Guided Inquiry: six characteristics of guided inquiry Dr Carol C. Kuhlthau & Dr. Ross J Todd ; Taken from CISSL site

What is inquiry-based learning Taken from concept to classroom site

From information discovered/reinforced in readings, each staff member to write statements as to what inquiry based learning is.
Outcome: Create a deeper understanding of inquiry

Goal 2: Compare understanding of inquiry with ODS vision
Identify key elements of inquiry
Compare these key elements to the ‘traditional’ approach to teaching
Question the similaritiesCompare key elements to vision, discuss and state how inquiry fits into vision
Outcome:
Reaffirm beliefs behind vision statement
Create understanding of inquiry and the key elements of approach

Goal 3: Know what inquiry-based learning will look like in classrooms
Discuss what would be seen in an inquiry-based classroom
Discuss how this would compare to a traditional approach classrooms
Discuss and define what the teachers role in within this kind of approach
Reinforce ideas with further reading ‘The learning environment for guided inquiry’ Kuhlthau&Todd
Outcome: Create visual understanding of how classrooms will facilitate inquiry-based learningDeepen understanding of the role of the teacher and how it will change compared to traditional approach

Goal 4: Discuss how inquiry based learning impacts on student outcomes.
Brainstorm the student achievement outcomes and how these connect to our vision
Discuss what are improved student outcomes as a result of engaging with inquiry learning – how will these be achieved, what will the facilitators role be and how will this impact on outcomes.
Outcome: Have a clear understanding of the impact the inquiry will have on classroom environments, teacher roles and increased student outcomes

Looking ahead…
Develop a common understanding of our vision
Develop a common understanding of the elements of inquiry
Develop a key set of thinking tools
Look at assessment and developing rubrics

Another busy and exciting chapter in our inquiry journey has begun.

keeping our eyes open

2008-06-15T16:56:00.000-07:00

Our vision journey has been an exciting one and full acknowledgement to Tanya Zander. Her leadership, passion and drive have resulted in directed and focused staff meetings with great professional discussions taking place. Tanya has facilitated in a non-threatening (change can lead to anxiety!) manner and has challenged our beliefs and attitudes. I really look forward to our next step and particularly love the way our staff are working together as the dynamic team we are!!!

We have created our vision

2008-06-11T16:36:00.000-07:00

After another very focussed staff meeting, we have developed our vision.
We reviewed our key skills that we think are important to our children and then broke most of them down to further detail and recorded the key elements:
Confidence
To be individuals
To make mistakes and learn from them
To express ideas and opinions
To have an acceptance of mistakes
Thinking Tools
Making connections and seeing relationships
Organisation of tools and strategies
Taking ideas and thinking to the next level
Digital Literacies
To be able to gather and communicate in the future
Need to know how to cope with change
Use technology as a tool for and to enhance learning
Creativity
Lead interesting lives – more excitement, colourful experiences
Able to be individuals and different
To promote abilities and experiences
To have active, thinking minds
To brighten own and others lives
To be able to think beyond the square and experiment (risk takers)
Numeracy and Literacy
The foundations of learning
Flexibility
To be able to adapt to and cope with change
Leadership
Build skills and attitudes
Working with and relating to others
Setting goals and having aspirations
Teamwork
Cooperation and compromise
Be responsible for a task within a group
Feeling of belonging and caring – empathy and compassion
Able to manage self to get to a group goal
Global awareness and citizenship
Self Management
Meeting deadlines with effective time management
Challenging oneself
Organisation

It was important for the staff to ‘own’ our vision. We challenged ideas, reinforced belief, understood the foundations of our vision, together we came to a common vision that will underpin our curriculum development and the learning opportunities that we will provide at our school.
“ At Oroua Downs School our students will be responsible, creative and active thinkers that have the skills to confidently succeed in and adapt with an ever changing world.”

WOW - we have come a long way already

2008-05-28T15:29:00.000-07:00

This year has been crazy busy already!

We have developed an action plan and have hit it full on.

This term is our first trial of the new model, we have made it our goal to ensure the language is common throughout the school as are the thinking strategies we a focussing on.

We are having a meeting shortly, once everyone has completed the 'organise' stage, to discuss successed and troubles and to ensure everyone knows exactly where they are and what to do for the next stage.

This trial has really opened up the lines of communication, and we are constantly discussing our own learning and the skill development of the children.

We have already discovered that the use of the thinking tool 'question map' has made the inquiry more focussed than before, children are learning how to ask quality questions, learning how to ask questions that will support their inquiry, really thinking about how they have to structure their questioning to make their inquiry a success. We have yet to develop rubrics but already the children are seeing their own development and are support eachothers learning journey.

Children discuss their inquiry in the playground, with the common language throughout the school, this has ensured that children from various levels in the school can make valuable contributions to these discussions, it also opens the pathway for leadership and peer support.

One of the ideas that I saw a Jan-Marie Kellows workshop, the visual tracking of the childrens journey has been used in my class. The children created it, and get a buzz when they can manipulate their little person along the road - a really simple idea - but I guess it just promotes ownership of the inquiry process - I do believe it has achieved this. Although we are on our first tiral I can already see the excitement and forward thinking developing in some of the children.

It is really exciting to hear this in and out of the classrooms, we are showing more unity on our journey and really creating a leanring community.

Coley Street - inquiry journey

2008-05-28T15:05:00.000-07:00

Firstly, thank you to the team at Coley Street for opening their doors to use and sharing their journey, it was a valuable and impressive day. :-)

Time
Giving ourselves time to change and develop was one of the key ideas for me, this also backed up my own thoughts. Change does not happen over night, especially not quality change, we have to allow time for thought and mistakes, reflection and further modifications. The idea that we can try something new and not fully succeed instantly is a sigh of relief for many of us out there. We always want what is best for the children, and when things don't go according to plan, it can be frustrating. But with positive change there is always going to be the battles, the resistance and those challenges, we need to be constantly thinking of the outcome, knowing that we will get there eventually, but it is a journey to be taken.
Consistency of language
It was fantastic to see the consistency throughout the school, the model, the rubric, the language. This is one thing that we are trying hard to do at our school, I think it has a massive impact ont he students. If we expose them to the language of inquiry and thinking form a very young age, it will become second nature, as was seen at Coley Street. Junior we using the language of thinking, students knew how to use the tools, great scaffolding for learning!
All staff on board
The expectation that all staff were to be 'on board' with inquiry was huge. Of course you will get the resistance from some, but it has to be easier when the expectation is there, the staff know what is required and the support is there to back them up. This would have a positive impact on consistency,, collegual duscussion and support etc. I do feel the our school is much better at this than before. It was like Ross said 'the movement from classroom as islands', I do believe that this journey has to be a team trip.

Other thoughts from the day
* Language throughout the school, consistency, exposure to language at a young age, not using ‘juniors’ as an excuse for modification
* HoM repeatedly mention throughout conferences and course
* Quality learning environments impact on learning, can’t really succeed with a ‘make do’ mentality
* Budgets change due to the way we access information, lessens that need to buy resource packs
* Teachers must buy into it, have to own it otherwise it wont work
* Different levels of inquiry – some staff still have the idea that inquiry means 50 topics happening in one class
* Not to rush, not to be afraid to experiment, to be innovative, have the expectation that there will be support for those that want to ‘fly’ but also willing to share
* Children motivate themselves with the ownership of the topic – if they don’t have an emotional hook into the inquiry, it will fall apart, the power of inquiry is the power of the learner
* Children could articulate the process, the tools they were using, their next step, how they have to analyse the information, rate it, use different learning strategies

College Street Normal - thinking skills
Firstly, WOW - what an amazingly dynamic leader Ross is, it was inspiring to see him bounce round with excitement about their journey and staff. A huge wealth of knowledge and I would be really interested in visiting his school to further explore habit of the mind.
This session was we useful to show practical applications for thinking skills and tools.
We have alread set to trial our think scope and this reaffirmed the need for scaffolding for our learners and well as not overwhelming them with a multitude of tools. As part of our inquiry, we a trialling a selection of strategies and tools in the hope to refine them into a schoolwide tool box. Teachers are not onlky trialling them in inquiry but also throughtout other learning areas, which inturn reinforces the strategy and using the tools in meaninful context.

Teacher Only Day - Developing our new vision

2008-05-28T14:24:00.000-07:00

A teacher only day to continue our vision development was a fantastic day.......

1: What is LEARNING?
This was a great start, staff came with no preconceived ideas and didn’t really know what angle I was coming from. Some staff did misinterpret the task, but to their credit quickly modified their response to suit. We came up with an extensive list of attributes, already some staff were making connections between the attributes and key ideas for our learning community.
Next we looked at the thinking curriculum framework and converted our ideas into verbs for learning. At times this proved to be rather tricky so we decided to use our knowledge of the virtues to become descriptors of these attributes.
We categorised ideas and grouped them into similar areas. Next we discussed and decided which of these verbs fir into the following:
skills/knowledge
skills/behaviours
attitudes and values
This provided a great point for in depth discussion, it was great to listen to the justifications for decisions, staff challenging each others ideas, but also willing to listen and being confident enough to express their point of view. The whole day was really non threatening and definitely a team effort.

2: Attributes
Next I suggested that we could further group these ideas into the following categories.
Foundations of learning
Participating with learning
Life long learners
This was aimed to further clarify our beliefs as to what learning is and what aspects of that are important to our school.. This also provided a great avenue for discussion, really challenging our existing belief systems and requiring us to provide supporting evidence to show why we believe this, or not. We ended up with a fantastic list of skills, attitudes, behaviours, values and knowledge requirements. We also came to the conclusion, that in most cases:
· the foundation was the knowledge – the literacy, numeracy, digital literacies, all the knowledge that is needed to successfully participate in learning.
· Participating with learning – inquiry, thinking, interacting, justifying, challenging, questioning etc – really engagement with the learning experiences
· Life long learners mainly expressed the attitudes and values that the children take with them, the tools needed to contribute to the wider community, the notion of having the means to make decisions, take risks, knowing how to make adaptations in life. These skills taught through their schooling life that remain with them, that foster continuous learning, that develop the student into an active life long learner.

Previously we had our initial vision meeting, we came up with a list of knowledge, skills and attitudes that we thought were important. It was the aim of this exercise to reinforce our belief systems. Without knowing where I was going, we came up with a list that was similar to our original, it included the same content, it was just further refined. Once I brought out the original list, there was great satisfaction from all to see that we were all on the same page, we were forming our belief system, it may have been hidden behind ‘attributes’, but in the end, the same ideas/beliefs were exposed.

This was fantastic, all went according to plan, although if the ideas didn’t match up, it would have been a great starting point for an intense discussion.

It was very satisfying for me to see, that our team worked so well together, we supported each other, shared ideas with confidence, spoke up, challenged, discussed further, basically owned the whole process, rather than looking to me for all the answers. This is really exciting for me.

We then used a fishbone diagram, the reason why I am using thinking tools is to ensure exposure and show versatility of these strategies, so the staff can make connections with our inquiry tools.

We used the fish bone to collate ideas about what is important for our learning community. The headings were:

For the learner
Skills & knowledge
Attitudes & behaviours
Values
Life long learner
Scaffolding for the Learner
Classroom environment
Learning community environment
Wider community

Visual representation of our vision
The final task of the day is to create a visual representation of our thoughts of the day.
Took the staff into the ICT suite and looked at digital stories of schools in developing their curriculum, from the NZ Curriculum website. We experienced a few difficulties but eventually the short digital story was a great tools to culminate our work of the day. I asked the staff to create a visual representation of what they see as our vision, amazing results! This ended the session on a high note, the motivation was sparked, not exhausted, we are already forward planning as to our next workshop. It is very satisfying for me that all the hard work is paying off. It was interesting how the staff interpreted the task, images of key ideas, symbolism, analogies, environment was represented, unique things to our learning community were created in some amazing scribbles.

We discussed the key question:
Does our school have a vision, how widely known and shared is it?
I deliberately asked that question, simply to gage how many knew what our current mission statement was, how old it was, and where it was promoting the school, what do those children walking up the road mean to our school?
One staff member could give a vague definition, but that was better than not knowing. This has to change, we have to get our belief system out to the wider community.

The connections that I was leading to were seen, everything linked. It reaffirmed the opportunity we have to create our vision, create a learning community that best suits our children, to provide opportunities that inspire children to become lifelong learners. It reaffirmed the importance of our belief system that is the foundation of our new vision.
Opportunities

The idea is to make statements about these areas, confirming our beliefs. These statements will be sent to our community for consultation, the community will state their opinion and also rank these statements in order of importance.
I think this is extremely important, without a supportive community, there are barriers to development and change, ultimately change and progress is what we are aiming for. It may require education of our community, to get past the nostalgic mindset of education, but consultation is needed if we are to encourage support and create a partnership.

I was extremely proud of our small staff. Everyone was engaged and motivated. We discussed ideas freely and are all working towards a common goal, a really exciting start to our journey.

We have scheduled further vison meeting for the remainder of the term, the motivation is high so we want to keep the momentum going. We have plastered the staffroom with all our work we did on this day, teacher aides and parents are commenting on the great ideas they can see on display.

We are all reflecting on our thought and coming back to the next meeting with a vision in mind. I do feel it is important to give timefor reflection because if we rush into it, them a solid belief system wont be behind it. We ned to be able to challenge our own thoughts and ideas, and be able to justfiy out beliefs.

I would like to congratulate our team for their dedication and support - You guys ROCK!

Inquiry Learning - Jan-Marie Kellow

2008-05-26T13:58:00.000-07:00

INQUIRY LEARNING is asking questions about authentic contexts…student-centred learning about contexts that are relevant to them…the process of finding out stuff…developing skills to assist in investigating authentic issues, to gain a deeper understanding of the ‘real world’ and the society that we live in.
For me, the most powerful idea that will have lasting impact on our inquiry model, is the real world context. This will completely change curriculum development and in turn our delivery. We have to think hard about the topics selected, so they can actually provide real context rather than being restricted to research topic (traditional thinking). We will need to educate our community aswell as ourselves, as we have heard many times this year, often our communities have nostalgic views of education. I do also think that for our staff, getting outside the boundaries of our own school will open pathways to deeper thinking, we need to get out and see inquiry in action, so we can change our thinking.
DISCUSSION POINT – Are ‘Inquiry based learning’ and ‘Information literacy’ the same thing?
Information literacy is really just the tools…just a part of…they go together…you cannot do inquiry learning without the tools and skills…many confuse information literacy as inquiry learning…consider the HOTS as inquiry…RICH Q?s as inquiry…low-level questioning does not fit as well, except that it may be considered ‘low level’ inquiry…
This is my worry for our inquiry topic, the rich question is not so rich - but I guess we have to start somewhere - hopefully connections with this can be seen through further discussions at the reflection stage
LOOK LIKE? *School-wide Pictorial Model displayed, rubric displayed for students referral, other models as prompts, Key question clearly displayed, displayed progress (not always beautiful), levels of organisation = organised chaos, related resources (ICT and other), creative tangents, , groups doing different things, focused activity
For me this is about consistency throughout the school - we need to saturate the children with 'inquiry language', we have developed a visual aide, which is now visible in all classrooms. Teachers are more aware of using the language of thinking and inquiry to support the childrens journey. I think it is important to hav this consistency, so children moving throughout the school can see our mission, our goals, our learning intentions etc. This will have to be a major focus as we move along our journey, something that will be continually refined. we have started to look at our assessments, however, one step at a time huh, we are still developing mode for these.

Tides are turning - Yey!

2008-05-26T13:51:00.000-07:00

Two teachers came to me and queried our topic question:
They were finding it difficult for them to find an angle for their classes.
I was so excited that they are thinking about our topic, challenging it and making their own pathways.
My response: Make it your own, create the changes, we are in trial but make sure you reflect on it!
I can sense a change in the staff, we are all working for improvements in our thinking and teaching to increase the achievement of our students!

Thinking Skills

2008-05-26T13:24:00.000-07:00

As scaffolding to our new inquiry model, taken form feedback of the first trial, also from research that I have completed, I decided to create a list of specific thinking tools to trial at various stages of the inquiry.

It is aimed that eventually we will have a standard set of tools that students can use in not only inquiry but other areas of their learning.

It has meant some up skilling of teachers in how to use these tools, however it has been accepted with great motiovation. All templates and resources are available for student and teachers on our network.

The reflection upon the use of these tools would be very valuable for our curriculum development.

New Inquiry Model

2008-05-25T17:03:00.000-07:00

I took our new model to the staff. It was accepted with quiet nods and murmers. I explained the changes, due to our feedback at the end of the last trial. I had tried to develop a visual model, one that we can use in the classroom, I also wanted to show more reflection and the fact that while still linear of sorts, there is more scope to move throughout the model.
One of the most important additions is the "SO WHAT" at the end, really giving some power to the model, taking action, developing global citizenship (well, thats the aim anyway)
We decided to start with a whole school trial, in the second term. We also decided to focus on the inquiry and not the assessment outcomes. We thought it was more important to focus on getting the model in our heads and as a tool for ICT and key competencies than any knowledge outcomes.
It was hard at first to get the staff to discuss any issues about the model, I suppose we need to trial it first, but there was no challenge, no resistance either, but no challenge from the staff, was accepted as the way we will do it.
Our main question - "How/Why do animals adapt to change"
This raised issues for me, we are still thinking that inquiry is information gathering, which it is, but we are still in the 'traditional' way of tackling a topic - I couldn't really see how we could get our teeth into this, but I guess that this will come out in reflection. It is a very low end question, but wanted to start somewhere, once we have the model in our heads then we can go back and discuss the delivery. Before this discussion can happen, we need to trial and everyone needs to take ownership of inquiry. Looking forward to a great time sorting it in our heads.

First Vision Meeting

2008-03-31T15:57:00.000-07:00

Our first vision meeting has been really exciting!!!
We talked about the skills that we want our children to leave our school with. We grouped them, analysed them, discussed each in depth. Next we put them into the following categories

Skills
Knowledge
values and attitudes

It was incredible surprising to our staff that there were non of our ideas for skills that fit into the knowledge category. We decided that this was due toinformation of any kind being so instant and changeable, that the whole notion of knowledge is taking a back seat to the skills required to work with that knowledge. To be an on going learner, a life longer learner, we need the skills to select, analyse, intepret, make decisions about, compare, question, challenge etc the knowledge we gain.

So what do you think about that?

We have decided to go away and challenge our own thoughts on this....... we will keep you posted. :-)

Where we are at with inquiry

2008-02-26T11:28:00.000-08:00

ICT-PD07 – as part of my action plan, I set a goal to design an inquiry model for the middle school to trial. This model was based on Action Learning which was already used in the school during integrated topic.
The aim was to use this model to introduce a greater focus on the processes involved in ‘action research’ but also involve a focus on the essential skills (eventually developing to the key competencies). Through this focus was the introduction of ICT and thinking skills. The aim was for ICT learning to run throughout the inquiry as well as developing a core stock of thinking maps to assist with information gathering skills etc

Organise
At this stage the children organise their learning, what they already know, through to what they want to find out and how they are going to do this.
We decided to trial specific thinking tools to assist this stage, the model required specific information at each step.
Once trialled we found that this stage was too prescribed and too many aspects were closely linked and we were just recording for the sake of recording - this stage was important to set up the inquiry but needed a lot of refining.
Discover
Locate information using specific thinking tools and ICT applications
Interpret the information found
Answer answer your questions and providd evidence of impact or consequences
This stage flowed a lot better, the children are well practised at this type of analysing. However, once the information was discovered, it was redundant, there was little place to showcase, this needs to be refined also. Basically we had the information but other than presenting it their was no avenue to take action with it.
Share
Create the presentation of information found
Communicate this information to a selected audience - however, as previously said, there was no real context for this information to mean anything, it was just like presenting an essay sort of thing.
Critique - look at the process, evaluate it and think about the learning that has taken place and the success or weakness of the processes.
Due to the trial topic of young entrepreneurs, this was specific to the audience at our mini market day. We are unsure how this would work with a different, less practical topic, this also needs refining.

Throughout the whole process, ICT's and thinking tools were specifically taught and used, this proved to be the most benefically aspect of the model. It encourage teachers to exit their comfort zones and exposed the children to a variety of strategies that they could transfer to other areas of their learning.

Each teacher was provided with a handbook, in both digital and paper form. This required specific teaching of information illiteracies and specific goals for ICT integration and goal setting. The whole school opted to trial the first draft with a young entrepreneurs topic - probably, most definitely not the best topic to begin and inquiry on, but we all gave it a go anyway.

Reflections
Yellow Hat
Specific planning ensure teaching and learning is focussed and meaningful
Use of graphic organisers, ideas flow, transferring skills to other areas
You can see the steps clearly
Having a good immersion stage really motivated the children
Went like clockwork
Changing habits and ways of learning
Learning more skills – especially with ICT
Worked well with groups
Good model
Focussed guided learning
Excellent social and cooperative skill development

Black Hat
Too segmented
Ordering of steps not needed
Some steps too closely related
Rich question needs to be earlier
Need time to evaluate – some parts were rushed
We didn’t revisit the learning in the following term
Actions question – eliminate – use question map
Can we integrate it onto other areas so teaching is even more focussed and in context

Where to next?
We really went in blind and hadn’t put the time into researching inquiry correctly
We need to work as a team, so it is not just one person driving this but rather a journey together
Research inquiry more, discover what suits our own learning community
Create visuals to create a common language throughout the school
Make it simple and effective so it will be sustainable
Since our first trial, we haven’t revisited it, this needs to be an ongoing document with more commitment to develop it further
Getting time to develop these ideas further would also be a bonus

So this is where we are at the moment, from Learning at Schools I have been given more direction on where to begin the process of developing our local school curriculum, a long but exciting process is ahead of us. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Learning at Schools

2008-02-24T15:49:00.000-08:00

After a huge week of very inspiring information overload, I have begun to think about where our school wants to go with inquiry.
The first place to start is to sort out our VISION - Trevor Bond is an amazing wealth of knowledge, and has given me a great place to start.
Here's looking forward to a fantastic learning journey!!!!