The road to Milestone 4

TEACHING AS INQUIRY

Halfway into our contract, it's time to look at how we can start moving each teacher forward from the point they are at now. One way of doing this is by setting up a structure of individual teacher inquiries - and where applicable, grouping like needs for PD.

How we do that as principals and lead teachers?

http://englishonline.tki.org.nz/English-Online/Teaching-as-inquiry2

“Effective Pedagogy,”

page 35, NZ

Curriculum

“Assessment,” page 40,

NZ Curriculum

Assessment data and collation

photosVideo of student

voice……of teacher voice

reflection on blogs

Voicethread

wikis

Easispeaks and podcasts

ePortfolios

Nick Rate, eFellow, ULearn08, “ePortfolios”

Why blend eLearning?

Why collect assessment using digital and Web 2.0 tools?

• http://www.edtalks.org/video/using-teaching-inquiry-guide-elearning-action-plan

USING TEACHING AS INQUIRY TO GUIDE AN ELEARNING ACTION PLAN

THE PROCESS

1. Decide on the focusing inquiry – what do my/our students need to learn?

• E.g. schoolwide assessment data shows a need to raise writing ability.

2. Decide on the teaching inquiry – what have I seen at a course/researched that works that I am going to try?

e.g. using a variety of web 2.0 tools to motivate students; e.g. scaffolding writing on ietherpad.com and getting students to help edit each other’s work online; publishing on a blog so that parents can comment and student has access to a world-wide audience.

3. Set time frames.

4. Reflect – the learning inquiry – what happened as a result? What implications are there for future teaching and learning?

e.g use of teacher blogs for a log of new learning and reflective comments. A way of “feeding forward” for other teachers ( why not use the VLN?).

5. Ensure that reflection and evidence collection is collected at regular intervals.

WHERE TO START? WONDERINGS…

1. Find out more about the process – see our wiki page for links to professional readings, videos.

2. Do we need more input – trips to other schools, look at what RELLCO schools (our contributing schools) have done in their cluster?

3. Are we open to allowing teachers to choose their own inquiries?

4. Will they be linked into the school appraisal process?

5. Would it help to contract a facilitator to manage this process?