Ask Don't Tell.

I hear a lot of questions from teachers about how they can develop learner agency and also how to foster an inquiry disposition in students. On the flipside, and surprisingly sometimes from the same teachers, I hear questions along the lines of:
What should I call my reading groups?
Our big topic next term is change. What should I do around this?
We're doing inquiry next term, what are some topic ideas?

I find myself saying 3 words: "Ask the kids." and those who know me won't be surprised to hear that this is quickly followed (or sometimes preceded) by "What's your purpose?"

Before going further I'd like to say something about the teachers who are asking questions such as these. These teachers are learners (as are we all), they are asking questions that show they have a need to further develop their skills and understandings around learner agency and student inquiry and we should be supporting them on that journey.

Now let's look at those examples:

What should I call my reading groups?
Why are you giving them a name? How about supporting them to come up with something meaningful to them? How about having them get together and negotiate a name for themselves? Sure it will take a bit more class time but isn't 'Managing Self' a Key Competency you are trying to develop? Aren't things like being able to negotiate, make decisions and compromise, important skills that are best learned in authentic contexts? We won't develop agentic learners if we make all the decisions for them.



Our big topic next term is change. What should I do around this?
What's your purpose for having them learn about change?  Which aspect (s) of change are you wanting them to learn about? E.g. 'Change can be permanent or temporary' is quite different to 'living things change over time' or "coping with changes in our lives', 'changes to the environment can be be caused by inanimate things like wind and water or animate things like people, plants and animals' or 'we can change our minds based on new evidence'.  Does it matter what the context is so long as it meets the purpose? Why not share that purpose with them and ask them for some contexts that have meaning and relevance to them? How about giving them some provocations to stimulate their curiosity and seeing what questions arise?

We're doing inquiry next term, what are some topic ideas?
First up, you don't "do" inquiry. You use an inquiry approach or you inquire into a question, problem etc. I'd be asking what the purpose of the inquiry was? Once that is clear, Iook for some authentic contexts that you know are relevant to your learners. You could share some provocations to stimulate questions, then follow their lead into areas that meet the purpose but are relevant to them. Or straight out share the purpose with them and ask them to suggest some contexts.

So next time a teacher asks what they should name their maths group or what their inquiry topic should be, let's not jump in with an answer but instead support them to grow in their understanding of developing agentic learners with inquiring dispositions.

I'll just finish with this great sketchnote from the marvellous @sylviaduckworth.

Education for the Future

Thanks to Leigh Hyne's recent blog post  I viewed the video of an interview with the OECD’s Director for Education and Skills Andreas Schleicher. The video is an hour long but worth watching as there are many interesting points raised that are relevant to New Zealand (and indeed worldwide) education.



Schleicher was asked (35:39) what was the most important thing a teacher could do to prepare students for their future?  His reply was to stop thinking about preparing students for jobs, jobs will look totally different in the future. In science, for example, we spend too much time on teaching content and too little time teaching students to design experiments and think like a scientist.

This fits really well with my views around the need for an inquiry approach and the use of authentic contexts for learning. Students need to do the work that would be done by those working in the discipline in the community, in science they need to do what scientists do, in art they need to do what artists do.

Schleicher went on to say that coding, for example, will look totally different when younger students leave school. This fits with my view that the coding itself is not the important part. The problem-solving and computational thinking will still be relevant, the ability to think logically, to break tasks down into parts and see patterns, to design solutions, to de-bug when things don't work and to re-design, these skills will still be useful and valuable. This is especially important to keep in mind as we consider the draft of the new Digital technologies area of the curriculum.

Schleicher believes that education systems need to have core values and everything that is in or added to the curriculum needs to be examined against those core values. This works at both a government level and an individual school level.

Schools in New Zealand have to develop their own school curriculum and their core values need to be a the heart of this. This is not always the case. Most schools have worked on developing these sets of core values as part of developing their vision and mission statements but there are still some that have not applied these when developing their school curriculum. Schools that have done this well, Te Kowhai Primary for example, have seen the benefits for their students

Schleicher also talked about early childhood education (49:34) and how formalisation of learning is doing more harm than good and that we need to let children play and socialise,  which proponents of play-based learning would be heartened to hear.

It was interesting to hear the question (51:47) from Mark Treadwell, a New Zealand educator, on how we overcome the lack of understanding around what is the difference between knowledge, an idea, a concept and a concept framework. There is a definite need to develop common understandings around what these terms mean as it impacts on both curriculum design and implementation.

Schleicher emphasised that we need to teach fewer things at greater depth, to get to the root of the discipline, to foster students' talents. Japan, for example took 30% of material out of their curriculum and it resulted in an increase in creative skills and creative problem solving. He  remarked on the tendency of schools to prioritise the urgent over the important. Just having more learning time does not equate to better outcomes (Pisa data shows a negative correlation).  He asserts that we need to help students find their passions, what they are good at, what is going to serve a social purpose.

Inquiry in the Real World

I was inspired to write this post after reading the article "What Does Inquiry Look Like?" written by Stephanie on her Teaching the Teacher Blog. I totally agree with her premise that inquiry is by no means linear and i like the analogy to a painter's palette where you dip in and out of stages using the colours you want when you need them and maybe even ignoring some colours altogether. I also like her representation of inquiry in the real world as a Jackson Pollock Painting. 

I think however that she has missed an important point. I believe the key lies in knowing the purpose of the inquiry and that should be the guide. As I wrote in my post Play, Passion and Purpose, the purpose of the inquiry needs to be very clear to both teacher and students right from the start. When I see inquiries that have gone off the rails it is most often because the purpose was unclear or sometimes not known at all.

If the purpose is the focus, then the inquiry simply proceeds to achieve that purpose dipping in and out of stages as the need arises and always checking in to see what else is needed to achieve that purpose. The more authentic this inquiry is and the more relevant it is to the students, the easier this will be. 

In this inquiry, for example, the students in Fraser Quinn's class at Putaruru Primary wanted to make a ki-o-rahi field and set about doing just that. The students led the process under the guidance of their teacher and the purpose guided the inquiry from start to finish. This is what inquiry in the real world looks like.

Play, Passion and Purpose

Play, Passion and Purpose

Tony Wagner's video on creating innovators looks at 5 key factors in creating innovators. These include and my personal favourite: Play, Passion and Purpose. We need to give students time to play and explore the world around them, with guidance so they can get the most from their experiences. We need to encourage play and passion in ways like Stonefields School is doing in their Break Through time, and companies like Google do with their 20% time or Genius Time. 

We need to value creativity, innovation, problem-solving and iteration. As Wagner says it is not what students know that matters, " What the world cares about is what they can do with what they know." So what is it that we assess and therefore show we value? Edutopia describes some ideas on Building Creative Confidence.

One of the questions I find myself asking teachers most often is "What is the purpose of this lesson/activity/inquiry...?" Sometimes teachers find this easy to answer, others struggle, eventually giving answers like "It is in the test", "We have always done this" or "I was told to".

The purpose of everything we do in the classroom needs to be really clear to both us and our students. If we are clear on the purpose it will make choices surrounding the lesson/activity/inquiry much clearer for the teacher and the student. The purpose of the inquiry will provide clear guidance on what we do as a result of an activity or inquiry. Which also means that often we may not know at the start of an inquiry exactly what we will do as a result as our findings and our purpose will guide that action.