Inquiry Question 1 - An Inquiry Stocktake

Question 1

Use the ‘inquiry stocktake’ doc to reflect on and write about what you aim to learn about inquiry this year.

My main takeouts from doing this activity are :-

• What worked well - using the in-school and in cluster expertise.
• Challenges - finding relevant literature about what I was trying to do
• Additional support - more working together as CoL teachers, giving feedback about what each other is doing

If you want to read the full document, it is listed here below.

An inquiry stocktake

Aspects of inquiry	What worked well	Challenges	Additional support that would be helpful
Identifying valued learning outcomes (VLOs) to focus on	Having subject specific data going back years to see where the gaps are. Getting student voice from previous years. Looking at NZQA exemplars to see where gaps are in what I am preparing for the students.	Aligning want I want to do with the overall goals of the cluster, the school and the department.	Having CoL sessions where we focus on goals and how to approach them.
Profiling students’ learning in those VLOs	Using school data to see where the students are in relation to their achievement so far.  Getting support from “specialists” in order to understand the data coming out of the asTTle and PAT tests.	Not knowing more personal knowledge about students that may be affecting them. (i'm not talking about breaking any privacy here, but just knowing that there are issues that are affecting them would be very helpful)	Health centre, dean and tutor teacher support. Talking to the other teachers of the students.
Generating hypotheses (especially teaching)	Talking to other teachers - especially “experts” in their area. Talking to the students.	Not sure if what you are thinking about is going to make a difference.	More time during CoL PLG to discuss with each other what we are thinking about.
Testing hypotheses (investigating own teaching)	Trying new things and being honest about if they have “worked”	Not being sure if what I am trying is not working just for these students but it might still be a viable idea to try with others.	Have someone else looking over what I have done and giving input on what they think. Is it the idea, the situation, the teaching or the students?
Using research literature and other sources to identify more effective approaches	Reading online and downloaded books and pdf’s.	Finding literature that is relevant - a lot of time is spent searching. Access to academic literature.	A central “bank” that we could all add to so we can see a breadth of reading being done and dip in Access given to academic literature.
Implementing new approaches	The school being very open about trying anything new. I don’t have any worries about changing any part of what I am doing with my teaching.	Worrying about wasting valuable NCEA time on an “idea” that might not work.	Being able to talk over ideas with someone before trying them.
Monitoring (and tweaking) new approaches	The Causal Chain flow charts were really useful to see cause and effect - to look back on to see what the plan was and where changes to the plan happened along the way.	Ideas for changes to make. Ideas for monitoring what is happening and seeing if there is change that aren’t easily measurable.	Having another set of eyes - to coin a phrase from the class of Robyn anderson - a “critical friend”
Evaluate shifts in own teaching	Honesty. I am not shy about admitting something I am doing is not working.		I want to go back to videoing myself again as I did in Class OnAir as it gave me a really good insight.
Evaluate shifts in student learning	Honesty. I am not shy about admitting something I am doing is not working.	I need to do more student voice without boring the pants off them. Trying to get the truth in student voice. They put what they think you want to hear sometimes.	Ideas in different ways to get student voice would be really helpful so I am not shoving Google Forms at them all the time.
Keep a clear and detailed record of all stages of inquiry	Keeping an ongoing record on my blog, and not just at the prescribed points but during lots of other planning and activities. Getting support from Wolf Fisher (Aaron) about how to collect evidence that was not numerical data.	Getting honest feedback as I go from other teachers as to what they think is working or not. Getting any feedback at all sometimes is an issue.	Feedback from other CoL teachers on our blogs, as they are going through the same process as me and understand the challenges and what we are trying to do.