Whats On Your Mind

4-5-6 August 2014

Presenter: Kath Murdoch
Are You An Inquiry Teacher Or A Teacher Who Does Inquiry?
And whats The Difference?
How can we use an inquiry based approach on a day to day basis?
How do we build learning through inquiry? How can we power up
learners? And create a classroom culture of inquiry?
What are the best contexts for inquiry those which give students
more agency through inquiry.
Frameworks and strategies to support inquiry
Flip the WALTs into inquiry questions. Reframe the learning
intentions into questions can you?
Listening: How can we listen effectively to the viewpoints of
others?
Speaking: How can we speak to others in a way that helps them
understand?
Thinking Skills: How can we use visual organisers (Pegasus Flyer
Thinking Maps) to show our thinking?
Social Studies: observe things carefully to find out new
information.
Self Management: How can we make informed choices based on
facts/opinions?
Here are some questions we will explore together.

Getting into the right mindset: Inquiry is an approach.
- not a subject
- not something that only happens during unit time
- not just about how to plan, its about how to teach



Tuning into our inquiry
C : what colour is inquiry? (green)
S : what symbol represents your idea of inquiry (spiral shell)
I: what image represents your idea of inquiry

Think/Pair/Share Seek connections beneath the surface. What
resonates? Expand on? Symbolically speaking.
Images to represent thinking.

Using CSI as a visual planner, document ideas on a T chart: at the
conference teachers did this about Inquiry:

Inquiry As An Approach
Our first thinking 2
nd
Thoughts
Dialogue
Talk
Active
Questioning
Growth (from where learner is at)



What comes to mind when you think about history?
CSI grey/ consequences / cloud with soldiers

Are wars the most significant events in history? Gallery walk- symbols of
war. Look at connections war/history

What comes to mind when you think about conflict? CSI









How do animals change as they
grow?

Think 1 Think 2
Child showed frog
life cycle

Meerkats


How to move on from Think 1 to Think 2?

Conceptual diversity - take the word village (from an inquiry into
village life so what picture do you have in your head? Make
drawings.
Then, who could we talk to?
Think/Pair/Share Where do our ideas converge? Conflict? Or are
they just different?

Share Wonderings
Olivia wondered What do hippos eat?
(Colour code pink for ones we know) (green for ones we know)
Mud
pond weeds people ?
watch a clip
what did it confirm? What can we add to our thinking/
Look into and peer into early thinking. Make their thinking explicit show it
and document it theyll stay with that thinking otherwise.
Use a concept map for a maths inquiry (How does money work?)Use post its.
Multiplication
When you see what does it mean to you?
If we want to find out more, who should we ask?
Using a simple T chart to reveal
early thinking/ prior knowledge.
Whats in your head?

*A Key process in the classroom
Its important to inquire throughout the learning:


















Climate Change:
Knowledge I am less confident
about. (tentative)
I think I know this.
I mostly get it but Im not entirely
sure.
Climate Change:
Knowledge I am sure about.
I know, I understand.

I wonder [and what to do with the
wonderings]
What are you wondering about?
Inquiry wall: Over a week or two learners record
their wondering.

THINK (Put thought to question)
INK (Write it down)
LINK (Now link it higher order thinking)
Stand in a circle are others thinking about a question that
connects with this thinking? Who did you connect with?
What was their question?
Teaching strategy = where is the dominant thinking and
interest?
Get the students to make categories and groupings.
Shared Inquiry (Guided Inquiry)
How are people connected to places?
Look for hotspots where do we have most
interest? How are the questions similar or are they
different?
Strategy : how to manage questioning in inquiry -
group, classify and sort those questions to make it
manageable. Look for commonality and reduce the
inquiry questions to a manageable set. What about
the ones that miss out??? They can be given the
opportunity to pursue their individual questions at a
later time.

Introduce categorisation of questions:

Shallow Quite deep Deep Really deep questions

I wonder where your question would go?
Students need to justify.

They will need to think about the kind of answer.
Easy, medium, hard some easy qs are closed.
Consider easy if it is google-able. Hard not
google-able.
We are wondering about

Put up the questions. Give the students
the highlighters and let them make
connections and find patterns. So a
group could present the themes or
focus.
See Pg 5 Kath Murdoch Curiosity and questioning in
the classroom.
We need to grow the curiosity and questioning.
(Example library lesson. Ask the class
How are NF books organised in the library? How do
you find an NF book? Multiple theories. Be
detectives. Yellow post-its for discoveries and blue
for questions.
Now were wondering blue
I think I know about NF books yellow

How to work with kids questions Checking in on
thinking Strategies to use Pg 24-26

Building Learning Capacity
Through inquiry: We are growing learning capacity
and what it is that the class is investigating.
Knowledge can be found on the
tablet/ipad/smartphone/laptop but it is the skills
that they need to access it, understand it, use it,
create something new with it, critique it.

What have you done in this session that is
helpful to you as a learner? [Did you listen
actively/ask good questions?]
What has been challenging for you/ or is
getting in your way?
How do you do good learning? Or good
teaching?
What learning habits/behaviours might
maximise your learning in this context?
What skills/dispositions are needed to do
good learning?
How can we help ourselves learn?
Build metacognition. What do you know about your
learning?
Anne Davies
http://blog.annedavies.com (Canadian, Assessment
for Learning focus, NZ references)
My Learning Goals:
Intention on the wall put name up and names of
support group.


Switch on to learning
I need to focus on: explaining my work
avoiding distraction
staying focussed
What do I know about myself as a learner?
Could now Create something that will help the rest
of us see you as a learner, e.g. a mask. Reinterpret
this through the arts.


Animal Analogy When I work in a group I am a snake. I strike when
Of Josh by Josh When I work independently I am a
Where am I going?
How am I going? Progress
Where to next?
How can I use this learning in another context?
What questions do I have?
Why am I doing this?
What am I noticing about myself as a learner?

Guy Claxton www.buildinglearningpower.co.uk

How do your students inquire into themselves as learners?
Do they know themselves as learners?
Can they speak learnish (Claxton)
Do they regularly set goals as learners? and work towards them?
Do they see you as a learner?