Stephen Katz emphasizes that the adult learning that takes place in a school should

be directly connected to student need – “Given that we have evidence to suggest X

is the most urgent student learning need, what does that suggest is the most urgent

teacher learning need? And from there, what is the most urgent leader learning

need?” (Leaders in Educational Thought, 2013). Student learning is the catalyst for

educator learning and “forms the essential material” of professional inquiry (Capacity

Building Series – Collaborative Teacher Inquiry).

Capacity Building Series :  Dynamic Learning

Our triad teams – three schools – St. Daniel, St. Gregory and St. Monica are starting on our second round of inquiries.  My goal this term is to do a better job of documenting the work that the triads do.  Each group was given a half day last week to review the inquiry from the first term and come up with a new inquiry for the second half of the year.

The videos here are my attempt to capture some of the learning that is happening within the groups.  I am hoping to record the work of some of the groups as the term progresses.

“If we teach social skills to a target group then will we see an increase in self-regulation and positive social interactions outside of the classroom, within the target group (s).”

special education inquiry

What is most important to the teachers and principals of the triad schools is that we are in charge of the learning.  When teachers are able to create their own inquiries, they are the ones setting the agenda, they are the ones who develop the ideas for inquiry.  As principals, our job is to facilitate this learning process and make sure that a good record is kept of the results of these inquiries. These inquiries and the findings of the teachers then become the basis for our school improvement plan.

“If we use a graphic organizer to introduce descriptive writing, then the students will be able to write short descriptive paragraphs related to various different areas of the curriculum.”

grade 1-2 inquiry – term two 

Reflect / Discern  Analysis / Assess

How does this change our teaching practice?   What have we learned and discovered? Where to next?  Now what?

It taught us to take our time and move at the students’ pace. It also made us allow time for reflection on new concepts before moving on to something else.  Allows for time to consolidate student learning in more depth than the standard 3 part math lessons.  Looking at the “proof” and “reflection” sections really shows which students are ready to move on and which are not. We are also taking the time to produce quality work with the students rather than simply quantity to get  through the curriculum.

taken from ‘evidence of learning document’ created by grade 4,5,6 teachers’ math inquiry

Over time, we have been able to reach some conclusions:

• teachers who set their own learning goals are much more motivated to learn
• teachers are able to clearly indicate inquiry goals and key learnings based on these inquiries
• over time, a much wider variety of evidence is being used to document learning
• communication tools like Google Drive and Google+ are indispensable tools that drive deeper collaboration
• as principals, we have a much better understanding of what learning is going on in our schools

This is an important process to document, as a firm believer in this process I will devote more time this term to keeping a good, visual record here on this blog of the work that will be going on.

It will be an exciting journey!

Research shows that teachers working together to support children’s

learning is an effective means of teacher professional development.7,8,9

Professional learning communities (PLCs) facilitate knowledge sharing

and collaboration – often with experts in the area – to support teacher

professional learning.10 Features of effective PLCs include job-embedded

learning, group meetings held during the workweek and use of technology.11

What Works?  Research into practice Research monograph #46

students working on math journals – part of the grade 4-5-6 math inquiry

 

Related articles

• Teacher Collaboration – the best way to learn
• How collaborative inquiry supports teacher leadership
• What does it mean to dig deeper?