Room 2 Term 4 Inquiry

The initial planned theme was "How do we communicate". I had planned a couple of weeks of teaching and motivating sessions which would involve practical activities, research and problem-solving. I had then thought our wonderings might send us on an exploration about books, publishing, TV programme making, films and radio. We could have visited various places around Palmy and ended up publishing our own book, having our own TV or radio station or making a short film......... but that is not what happened!

All started well then at the wondering stage we had a wide range of questions the majority of which were quite closed and factual. Generally the wonderings were an improvement on previous units.
We looked at:

• What was the first language?
• Why do we speak different languages?
• How do we talk?
• How does a TV work?
• Who invented sign-language?

The children had lots of ideas about where we could look for information (mostly GOOGLE!)

We looked at the origins of sign language and how to say various things. We decided we could use more signs with Pono to help use communicate with her and maybe help her communicate with us...
The crunch came when they want to find the answer to "How does a TV work?" We looked at TVs in particular CRT screens, got a complicated answer we didn't really understand then said "Now what? What are we going to do with this knowledge?" No answers. We had a discussion about what is the use of 'knowing stuff'" if you don't need it!!!
The children decided they would like to know more about being blind and deaf and they would then like to do something to help blind and deaf people.

We used the internet to find more information and played more games.

Finally, we got ready for our EXPO to parents:

• We designed games to make people more aware of what it would be like to be blind, partially sighted, partially deaf and completely deaf.
  
• We designed and made posters and leaflets to inform people.
  
• We tested and made milkshakes which we sold at school.
• We made a book with an illustrated story "How Pukeko Turned Blue" that we wrote in literacy including animated movies, fact sheets, comicbooks and quizzes.
• We made Xmas cards to sell
• We made bookmarks to sell

Was our inquiry a success?

• Yes, all the children had a better understanding of the inquiry process and the purpose of inquiry.
• Yes, all the children had a better understanding of the potential risks that could cause blindness and deafness.
• Yes, there was a definite purpose to our writing and publishing which resulted in a higher standard of work.
• Yes, we raised over $100 for guide dogs for the blind.
• NO! Very few parents turned up to the EXPO but we did play the games with the rest of the school.
  

End of Year Celebration

We have had our end of year round-up where a few schools shared the 'Inquiry Journey NO! Adventure' so far. What came out of this?

• The cluster schools have obviously been working hard.
• The schools are developing their own 'vision' of their local curriculum and how inquiry will fit into this.
  
• All the school seem to be at different stages of the process depending on their infra-structure and the openness of their staff.
• It showed that we are all reflective practitioners who as Michael Pohl stated "...are too often too critical of ourselves but are actually doing a good job..!"

Issues directly applicable to Opiki school?

• We have made great progress and should be proud of our achievements...
• Other schools are also contemplating the depth and coverage issues.
• Quality higher order thinking and questioning is hard!
  
• Neil said "...the process should be visually evident and graphically presented to aid pupil understanding, inclusion and relevance.
• Reduce the number of stages but increase the steps within stages (more detail)
• Exemplars of the different stages
• Linked to the school vision and new local curriculum.
• Assessment of inquiry! Skills, process, knowledge, key competencies???

All in all, an interesting day. Finally a huge thank you to Jan Thomas for her hard work this year.

ICWC school tour

Last week we went on a tour of a few of our cluster schools.

All the school's have made great strides in setting up their ICT infrastructure, integrating ICTs into their curriculums and developing their own inquiry processes.

Features of note:

• Foxton school's thin-clients
  
• Koputoroa's inquiry model based on the kereru. It was also clear that they have worked hard to include all staff members in the development of the process

Looking at how these schools are developing it is encouraging to know we are on track and compare favourably...

We are having a debate about whether to get a couple of Apple Macs as most of the other schools have. We are arguing from ignorance- none of us have much experience with Apples!! So we are planning to get a couple as a trial...

ULEARN 2008

It was a great few days in Christchurch. Most of the breakouts Tony and I selected were very worthwhile. We started off with Tony Ryan's Transformational teachers which was very motivating. He spoke about the 4 roles being;
The Energiser
The Ethicist
The Entrepeneur
The Environmentalist
Lyn Ross delivered the Thinking Toolbox which was really useful in finding some great resources. Her "www.ebest.co.nz" website is well worth a look and has many practical ideas and resources.The Blooms framework is really easy to follow with a variety of planning templates too.
Decisions that Matter was a practical dialogue that gave an opportunity to share thoughts as to what schools willl look like in the next 10 years and investing in infrustructure. It was certainly thought provoking.
Tony Ryan's "thinking about thinking" was also practicle with 5 key ideas:
Self talk
Quality classroom thinking facilatating
Focus questions
Digital assessment tasks
Engaging thinking strategies
It was useful for Tony and I to attend the same breakouts to reinforce ideas and thinking. Next year I would like to take all staff if possible. We came away with some excellent practical ideas.

Developing a classroom culture of thinking

Last week we went to an ICWC day where Michael Pohl presented a session on thinking in the classroom.

The day covered many aspects of thinking to learn and learning to think...
He highlighted the point that; 3 of the top interventions that teachers can make are-

• Thinking
• Quality Feedback
• A Risk Taking Environment

Abandonment
He raised the point that our lives/ curriculum/ school day is so full already that to be able to innovate and introduce anything new we need to leave something behind (abandonment...)

• At Opiki school, what are we going to change/abandon to be able to move forward with a thinking curriculum?

Problems

• Problem-solving
• Problem-seeking!
  

School Culture of Thinking
We need an integrated pattern of thoughts and behaviours that bind us together...
Specific factors that work together to create productive thinking...

• Language (displayed, speaking, everyday activities)
• Planning and assessment
• Programmes

Scope and Sequence
Rather than trying to teach everything all the time. Explicitly teach different thinking skills at different year levels. Then use the skills/ strategies any time after ward...

All teachers need to be able to teach/ use all strategies

Thinking Strategies/ Thinkers Keys Acronyms
Attribute listing and Analytical thinking

• A technique to extend thinking and make connections
  

SCUMPS
Size, colour, uses, materials, parts, shape...

SWEATER- for characters
Strengths, weakness, emotions, appearance, temperament, evolution, relationships

TOMATOES- for artists
Tools, origins, media, artist experience, techniques, opportunities, emotions, subject

SCAMPER
Substitute, combine, adapt, modify, put to another use, eliminate, reverse or rearrange

CAMPER
Consequences, assumptions, meaning, prejudices, evidence, relevance

ICE
Investigation (surface/elicitation), Consequential (impact/ outcomes), Enriching (critical/creative/caring)

What if...
different size, different colour, diff use, diff material, diff parts, diff shape...

BLOOMS Taxonomy

• Remembering
• Understanding
• Applying
• Analysing
• Evaluating
• Creating

Question Chaining
From lower order to higher order...
what to when
where to who

Question Mapping (a process to get to questions?)

Inquiry meeting

The following day after our staff meeting with Jan, her and I met to discuss some goals etc and look at where we are at. This was a great meeting and I have since made some changes to our inquiry planning sheet to make it more relevant and teacher friendly. This included listing the thinking tools that might be used at each stage of our model during the inquiry. I have also modified our inquiry process model which I will take to the staff next meeting and see what they think. All is hmming along well, cheers Jan! TG

Inquiry Reflection Mindmap using Mindomo

Staff Meeting with Mrs Thomas

We had a great meeting yesterday with Jan. It was a good chance for the staff to go through the "Hats" and say how things were going. Our Junior teachers will benefit from a visit in Term 4 to Coley Street to see how they cope. We had a really useful round the table discussion.
We also went through various other things such as our model and the version 2 we have created. We also spoke about the Thinking Toolbox we had developed and how this is very much a starting point for us. We are looking forward to Michael Pohl's talk in a couple of weeks as well as ULEARN to firm up a few thoughts and ideas.
Assessment was something we are still coming to grips with and it was good to discuss this and how we will develop a matrix that will make this aspect easier as well as a shared understanding.
We also need to develop something for tracking and we liked Coley's MUSAC approach: nice and easy and very useful.
We have a long way to go but with Jan we sorted out some next steps. They do not look too onerous as long as we take them slowly. Jan was a real gem and we all appreciated the feedback we got from her and are excited about Inquiry and its future at Opiki School.

Inquiry Assessment Idea

I was discussing with my year 6-8 class how we would assess our current inquiry. Based on Muritai's 1-5 system, I gave them some options, eg, 1-5, A B C D, % etc. They all voted for an A B C D rating. Then I asked what an 'A' would look like and they came up with the criteria - they had some great ideas such as, excellent, relevant info and presentation , in depth answers to their wonderings, good evidence of some 'action', referencing etc... We then discussed a D and then filled in the B and C parts. Last time we peer assessed and this time they will self assess along with some feedback from me. We'll see how it goes!!

Muritai School- What an impact!

Tuis singing in the trees, blue sky and superb powhiri... What a great start to a great experience.

We had an overview of Muritai's 'Journey' into Inquiry/ Action Learning... There was a presentation by the children who answered questions and talked about their experiences, understanding and opinions. WOW!

Noted key points

• School Ecology/ Environment analogy...
• Do less but better in more detail
• Keep it simple- take small steps (for the staff and the children)
• Lead by example- model skills, behaviour and learning (for staff and children)

Other Inquiry Points:

• Start with a big picture then work smaller (Binoculars to microscope)
• eX... titles of stages- excite, experience, explore, examine, explain, express, extend...???
• Inquiry teaching at school- inquiry research... at home!!!
• Parental understanding and expectations
• Link to the wider world
• Current events/ issues
  
• Info-literacy skills
• Thinking tools
• Assessment!?
• Curriculum coverage
• Whole school/ syndicate- class units?
  

Children's Comments:

• Start of an inquiry unit is the hardest
• Questions a challenge
  
• What direction to take...
  
• Organising time and process
• Planning work- clear expectations and success criteria needed
• Next steps very helpful
  

A Blogging School?

• What we did/ found out/ learned today?
• Samples of work
• Photos of activities
• Teacher's Blog...
  

ACTIONS!

• Start a whole class blog as a record of our Room 2 inquiry process/ progress for our next unit
  
• Include as part of end of session plenary discussions
• Include the planning at the start- learning intentions, outcomes, links, resources...
• Use Voki/ Sound/ webcam movie... to enrich/ enliven
• Regular use should encourage regular visits

Inquiry Staff Meeting

Last Tuesday we has an inquiry staff meeting where we discussed a number of issues related to how we were going with Inquiry.
Inquiry Learning – Where are we at???

What is good
Internet access – instant feedback/information is accurate.
Good teaching skills/ framework
Good buy in by the kids; motivated to find stuff out.
Wonderings are child generated.
Questioning skills.

What is not?
Lack of knowledge
Low skill level of children when knowing how to access information and interpret this.
Time constraints with CRT days etc
More time needed for children to reflect.

What Does it look like in class?
Organised chaos
Wonder walls
Interactive
Independent
Collaborative
Noisy
Busy
Motivated

How do we assess Inquiry currently?
Tick sheets
Rubrics
Self Assessment

Where do Thinking Skills fit in?
Hats enable us to think form different viewpoints
Develop higher order thinking
As a tool to analyse findings/ideas

Ou Lady of Lourdes

On Thursday Nick and myself (Roger) went to Our Lady of Lourdes school in Palmy with the rest of the ICWC cluster. It was an interesting day looking at their Inquiry Journey and meeting some wonderful children and staff. There was a really great atmosphere around the school with all the children open, helpful and enthusiastic. What a great school!

Main points noted:

• Whole staff PD focus
• Computers as a tool for learning
• Restrict the range of software
• Paid someone to maintain the website (actively collect material from staff and upload)
• Digital camera/ MP3 as class consumables
• ICT aspect to all assemblies
• Inquiry Modelling Book like Maths and Literacy
• What happens when ICT Lead Teacher moves on?
• Internet Safety taught in context
• Curriculum Planning- Inquiry focus whole school units
• Strategic ICT Plan with benchmarks and linked to Literacy and Library plans
• Inquiry Newsletter to inform parents
• Teacher's documentation of planning (unit plan, daily plan, inquiry book, student inquiry books)
• Fantastic AppleBook!- Publish a book of photos and text as a hard back- approx $2 per page...)
  

Action:

• Purchase an MP3/webcam for voice/video recording for podcasts and blog/vlogs
  
• Blog and comment with people outside the school (Buddy Class)
• Look at the steps within our Inquiry stages... (see Coley St visit)
• Whole school inquiry units... or least syndicate/ buddy class units
• Planning shared and displayed
  
• Blog from camp with images- keep parents and school inform and happy! This might need mobile 3G internet broadband connection...

Creating The Thinking Classroom

On Thursday, 4 members of staff went to see Eric Fragenheim (Rodin Educational Consultancy) in Palmy. Nick and Kirsty went to one of his presentations previously. Eric's presentation was excellent being very practical and applicable to classroom action... Some key points included:

• RAS Alert- tell your pupils what they are learning, why it is relevant and what to look for.
• Perception Check- find out what pupils are thinking, understanding...
• Imprecise question leads to imprecise thinking.
• Intelligence is a behaviour...
• Reflection and transfer of new ideas is essential for better understanding.
• Multiple Intelligence Model and Learning Styles.
• Blooms Taxonomy and Higher Order Thinkings Skills.

Some Specific Tools:

• Scavenger Hunts- gets pupils involved and primes/ introduces ideas, texts...
• T-Chart
• PMI
• Extended PMI
• PMImprove
• SWOT
  
• KWL- learning log, teacher assessment
  
• CAF- Consider All Factors
• Extent Barometer
  
• Tournament Prioritiser
• Decision Making Matrix
• SeeSaw
• Y Chart
• Silent Card Shuffle

Thoughts, ideas and questions raised:

• Look at our Inquiry Model and align it to Blooms Taxonomy including; HOTs, thinking skill verbs, thinking strategies...
• Add "Create" to the end of our Inquiry Model- Create- action, inform, make, publish...
• When planning a unit- consider how Blooms and thinking strategies can be integrated...esp HOTs
  
• Linked to "Hooked on Thinking..." Deeper Questions leads to Deeper Thinking...
• Goal Setting using Tournament Prioritiser/ PMI/ SWOT
  

A great day and so much to think about... BUT I have some activities and ideas I want to use in my class tomorrow!!!!

ICT Cluster Day at Coley Street

What a cool morning. I am only sorry I was not able to stay for the afternoon. The Journey Coley street have been only was both interesting and impressive. I was particularly impressed by the level of knowledge the children had. They were very articulate and had obviously been immersed in the language for some time.
The pure version of Inquiry was a neat concept. I think we are a mile away from that at the moment but I guess we all need to start somewhere.
Next week we have a group of rural principals visiting our school and after the great show the Coley kids gave us yesterday I am a bit nervous. The knowledge our children have about their thinking toolboxes etc pales in comparison. We will give it our best shot.
The level of PD we are getting on this contract is top notch. Being ale to work with a school like Coley Street on an ongoing basis and having them as a benchmark is great. I am very positive about the direction Opiki is heading and look forward to the "Our Lady of Lourdes" vist next month.

Coley Street Inquiry Journey

What an interesting morning. We found out about the Coley Street journey...

Implications and thoughts that arise:

• Develop, review and adapt our Inquiry Model.
• Discuss and develop stages within the process of Inquiry
• Exemplars need to be developed for the stages and process
• Inquiry Rubrics
• Oral language assessment
  
• Frameworks for tasks: telephone interview, web search, outside visit, wonderings...
• Graphic organisers
• Thinking Tool Box: Six Hats, Fogherty's Intellectual Storeys
  
• Directed, Guided and Pure inquiry for different years/ individuals...
• Language of inquiry...
• Pupil Ownership of Learning
• Sharing and celebrating of work
• Opportunities for teachers to plan and work together
• Encourage Buddy Classes
• Action from inquiry?

A lot to think over...

Term 2

So far...
Last term we continued to work on our inquiry model and the integration of ICTs into everyday learning. Every staff meeting we share examples of our ICT use and integration.

Inquiry Model














We have developed this model based on some teachers experience with Action Learning. We have already thought about combining some of the steps but will continue with the present this term.

Thinking Tool Box
We also had discussions about a thinking toolbox. We discussed tools and graphic organisers we have used in our classrooms and came up with a list and agreed we needed a school wide set so that there was a continuity of use and language.

Term 2
We are undertaking an inquiry unit in our classrooms this term and using the thinking hats and a range of graphic organisers to organise and extend thinking. In week 6 Jan Thomas is coming in to school for a staff meeting to discuss our progress and help us develop ideas...

Integration
We have had discussions about integrating ICT into our units. Ideas included:

• Animated movies to tell stories
• Video/ photo records of trips
• Wikispaces for noting taking and reporting
• Online timelines
• Online MindMaps
• Comicstrip software
• Podcasting/blogging our findings
• Internet research...
• Email, telephone, fax...

Our Plan

This promises to be a really exciting year on the ICT contract. We are really looking forward to the Inquiry focus. We worked on a school model last year and are looking to refine this further. Jan is running a staff meeting with both ourselves and St Marys Foxton in a few weeks which will be great.
The Thinking tools aspect is also exciting. Having been to an Eric Fangenheim (Rodin Education -Australia) workshop recently and got a pretty cool framework to work from and are looking at making our own "toolkit" up for this.
We decked out each classroom with a projector this year which has been well worth the cost and have just purchased Mathletics for our 3 more senior rooms which will prove a hit. We trialled this for 2 weeks with our Year 3/4 class and the improvements and enthusiasm was well documented both at school and home. We also leased a few more computers to give each room 5 which has gone down well with staff.
We are continuing to strive with integration across the curriculum with some teachers doing really well and others needing a bit of support, but this is all par for the course.