Teaching as Inquiry: Learning to Inquire

Teaching as Inquiry is considered an essential component of a teacher's professional competence.  As such, it forms part of a teacher's appraisal and is embedded in the current PTC's:

Professional Learning - Use inquiry, collaborative problem solving and professional learning to improve professional capability to impact on the learning and achievement of all learners (Education Council, 2017).

Therefore it is the personal both a  personal professional and institutional responsibility to ensure it is taking place in a meaningful and purposeful manner.  It can be used to not only for, "personalising professional development " (Wood, 2005, p.9) but can be used to bring about school transformation in its most fully realised form (Timperley, Kaser & Halbert, 2014).

Teaching as Inquiry is a challenging and complex process because it requires a considerable investment of time, energy and resources as it is planned, implemented and reviewed.  In this respect it is not unlike the scientific process in that it involves:

• Observations of the world around us
• Consideration of the important variables within the environment
• Data gathering of the status quo
• Analysis of that data
• Hypothesising as to the existing data
• Formation of new ideas/thinking around that hypothesis
• Researching that new thinking
• The formulation of an action plan (experiment) to test that hypothesis
• Ongoing data collection throughout the experiment
• Reflecting on the data (not just that which supports the hypothesis)
• Drawing conclusions as to the effectiveness of the experiment
• Forming new hypotheses in response to those conclusions

This can be summarised in the following flowchart:

We can align this process against the the Spiral of Inquiry model (for example) - or any other Teaching as Inquiry model - and see the similarities. 

If you have been involved in the scientific inquiry process you will know it takes a lot of time and work to finally come to those conclusions at the end.  Learning to operate within scientific inquiry is a skill that has to be learned.  So it is with Teaching as Inquiry.

My question is:

If we have to do Teaching as Inquiry, how do we learn to inquire?

If we want to do Teaching as Inquiry in a meaningful way to bring about improved outcomes for our learners, how do we avoid merely working at the superficial levels of reflection as we make our way through the various stages.  We know teachers are time poor and as such will tend to operate at the lower iterative and vertical levels of reflection.  The issue is the inquiry process may not provide the rich information and outcomes we would otherwise expect.  In this case, inquiry becomes a "tick box" activity to be moved through quickly to get it out of the way.

Senior leadership must make the expectations clear with respect to Teaching as Inquiry to create, "a learning culture to support, celebrate and challenge teachers to engage in a professional inquiry process" (Driver, 2017, p.116).  Simply providing information will likely not be sufficient.  Concerted staff-wide PLD and modelling is required stressing the importance of deep rather than superficial inquiry.

I believe tightly focused inquiries (obviously based in student learning and outcomes) are one way to address to likelihood of having deeper inquiries.  Broad and or vague inquiries tend to generate too much information and the teacher struggles to discern what is and is not valuable, therefore was is and is not a good use of time.  We know time is a perennial issue with teachers and time to inquire is no different (Wood, 2015; Driver, 2017).

Secondly, I believe that since one of the objectives of Teaching as Inquiry is a building of personal practice capacity, that the inquiry should also have personal meaning.  I have mentioned this idea in a different context in a previous blog but I will restate it here - research suggests that choosing a topic which has personal meaning/interest to us is more likely to lead to increased engagement and sustained motivation as the inquiry develops  because our “lived world” is engaging with the “theoretical world”.  Having autonomy and authenticity with the inquiry is important.

I suppose like any skill that needs to be learned and developed, it is a question of making our way through the various stages of learning.  Firstly we have to understanding what is required, see it modeled or in action, ask questions, try it out, receive feedback and guidance, make mistakes and learn from those mistakes.  Over time, and with practice, we develop a better understanding, we make less mistakes, we become more independent, but we still require feedback (but not to the same extent).

Authentic professional learning is the, “lived experience of continuing to learn as a professional”  (Webster Wright, 2009 p. 715)

Keep learning to learn how to inquire.

References:

Driver, J. (2017). Teaching as Inquiry: Understandings and Challenges Towards a Professional Way of Being. Retrieved from http://unitec.researchbank.ac.nz/bitstream/handle/10652/1828/Justine Driver MEdL%26M.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y

Our Code, Our Standards | Education Council. (2018). Educationcouncil.org.nz. Retrieved 16 January 2018, from https://educationcouncil.org.nz/content/our-code-our-standards

Steps of the Scientific Method. (2018). Science Buddies. Retrieved 16 January 2018, from https://www.sciencebuddies.org/science-fair-projects/science-fair/steps-of-the-scientific-method

Timperley, H., Kaser, L., & Halbert, J. (2014). A framework for transforming learning in schools: Innovation and the spiral of inquiry. Centre for Strategic Education, Seminar Se(April), 1–24.

Webster Wright, A. (2009). Reframing professional development through understanding authentic professional learning. Review of Educational Research. 79, 702 – 739.

Wood, C. (2015). Teaching as Inquiry: form, purpose and application in New Zealand Secondary Schools. Retrieved from http://unitec.researchbank.ac.nz/bitstream/handle/10652/3277/Chris WOOD.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y