Teaching as Inquiry

I have been an enthusiast about Teaching as Inquiry ever since it was introduced to me 8 or so years ago as part of my Middle Leadership training. It makes perfect sense that teachers would engage in reflection about their own teaching and the impact that they are having on the outcomes of students in their class.
As is stated in the New Zealand Curriculum:

NZC pg. 35

Einstein's definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting the same results. It is the same thinking for Teaching as Inquiry. By focusing on an aspect of our teaching and its effectiveness, it stands to reason that by trying something new, thinking about it, doing some research to support that trial, adapting and re trialling, then it must cause positive outcome for the target students. 

NZC pg. 35

It also makes sense that Leadership and Teaching as Inquiries would benefit from the collective wisdom obtained through professional dialogue. My first experience with Teaching as Inquiry was an extremely structured and prescriptive approach that was based on the then 'in vogue' Ariki project. 

What has emerged over time and is still very effective is Teaching as Inquiry combined with in - school Professional Learning Groups. It is quite confusing at first because added to the mix over the past few years, we have collaborative teams working on a Teaching as Inquiry together. So we have Collaborative teams collecting data in order to decide on a target area and group to focus an Inquiry on. Add an across - the - school Professional Learning Group and there is initially a recipe for confusion!

 I am impressed with how well our current staff has picked up the threads and woven them together. 

The PLG's meet twice a term and have professional conversations about the Teaching as Inquiries. They share research that supports and informs the Inquiry and they use the Inquiry / Advocacy approach to question and help the presenter probe deeper into their thinking. The members of the across school PLG's then go back to their collaborative groups with new thinking to share and ideas to try for their collaborative Teaching as Inquiry.

The Team leaders are contributing to the collaborative Inquiry of their team, but their focus is on their Leadership of the team by enabling and facilitating the professional dialogue around data that in turn informs the teaching as Inquiry. This involves the production of a team data board.  I have had several very productive sessions with a couple of the team leaders about what these data meetings look like. As I discussed with one leader today, we discuss our children and their needs every day, the data just focuses us more closely on exactly who needs what?

 The CPPA Middle Leaders course has been the catalyst that has moved our team leaders away from the traditional role of administrators and has given them more of a student centred focus. I gained hugely from first participating in, then facilitating this course over the past few years and am now a proud coach of the current facilitators.