Inquiry in room 3 term 4

We are about to begin using our intersection for work on our focus of designing a healthy lunchbox under the title Crunch and Munch. Currently the children have been looking at food labels and the ingredients in those items of food and discussion around where sugar falls in that list and what are some of the other ingredients found on those lists.
I need to create some cars as we need to all start at the Explore car park and then the children will be able to move around as they become more involved with their inquiry.
I believe it is really important that the exploration is done as a whole class first because the discussion allows some of the children who have difficulty moving from the unistructural level to the multistrctural a chance to hear and think about ideas raised by others further down the thinking model.

Inquiry Development Update

Kia ora,

Just an update from me regarding the development of our Inquiry model and its subsequent implementation throughout our school. Pleasing recent developments include:
1) visual wall displays of Poroutawhao Inquiry Intersection model now in most classrooms. After discussions, these will be used with the children in a consistent way across the school,
2) presentation of Inquiry model guidelines which explain what each dimension of our model actually looks like in our class, ie what you may see when any of these areas becomes an Inquiry focus
3) progress has been made with revising the assessment matrix so that it more accurately represents the Inquiry work we are doing,
4) Further progress in the use of SOLO taxonomy as wa way that we can see what our lerarning looks like and what we can do to improve.

Reinforcement from our ICT cluster facilitator once again assures Fiona and myself that we are leading the school in the right direction. I am satisfied that everyone is also fully behind the direction we are taking. Our teachers are continuing to be challenged and in general, they are responding. Sometimes we just have to be patient and wait for them but they are in general, on board.

I once again acknowledge the lead teacher work that Fiona Mitchell is taking. She is very much a cutting edge teacher now and we are all learning from her.

Don't forget to blog often. It is a record of this professional development.

Kia ora

Neil Hirini
Principal

Inquiry Progress Update

We had a fantastic staff meeting yesterday where we made great progress with our matrix as our assessment tool for the inquiry process. Our model is now finalised and up and running in all classes. The children are responding to it really well. SOLO has also now been implemented into all classes, and teachers are finding that the children are catching on to the thinking easier than what we thought. We have used SOLO as the basis for a self assessment on our school value of participation, which was our focus from last term. The children in Room 2 first of all defined what participation was and then focused on their own participation in the school production. They self assessed this against the rubrics that we created as a staff for this purpose. As we get more confident ourselves we will involve the children more in the construction of the rubrics.
Above is our finalsed inquiry model, which is based on our learning theme of a journey along the highway (being situated on State Highway 1).
We have also created a handbook to work alongside our model so that as a staff we all know what each stage means.

Michael Pohl Day Seminar

As a staff we went and listened to Michael Pohl on Inquiry Learning at the Event Centre, in Levin. I found the seminar very interesting. Michael spoke about aspects of the Learning Inquiry process. He backed up our ideas of inquiry, which we are already thinking about and trying to incorprate into our classroom programmes.

The one thing that I did worry about with Michael's seminar is that he spoke about Bloom's Taxanomy which confused me as we are focussing on using Solo Taxonomy with our inquiry model. Both taxonomies are similar and can be applied in the same way of Inquiry Learning. I would have liked to hear more on other taxonomies rather than just the main taxonomy of Bloom's. I was hoping for ideas on the use of Solo with inquiry.

The one thing that I would like to find out more about as a result of the seminar are when to use the tools used beside the thinking skills of Inquiry Learning. The big question I have and would like to find out is whether you use a variety of tools at various levels, as mentioned by Michael or do you use one thinking tool such as De Bono's hats and use it until well used and then start introducing another tools such as Tony Ryan's keys?

Fabulous Room 4's Inquiry Journey

This term our focus has been on self assessment and linking that to solo. We used freeze frames to retell parts of the well known fairy tale "The Gingerbread Man". The children enjoyed being creative and using there bodies as a form of art. After introducing the idea of looking at our selves and talking about the idea of self assessment the children really enjoyed the opportunity to not only improve themselves but to have input in helping others.

From there we talked about solo and the journey of learning something new. We talked about where we would sit on the solo model in relation to self assessment. To my amazement the children got it and came up with some fab self assessments, used what they wrote to place themselves on the solo model and produce awesome freeze frames.

Term 3 Inquiry development

Kia ora,

With regard to our current ICT development goals my major thrust this term has been to recognise the fact that we have enough PD and internal capacity to achieve the goals that we set for the year. One of the primary focus areas has been the continued development of our Inquiry model. I was heartenend by the fact that the language of this model has been, to varying degrees and in varying ways, introduced to our students. The term inquiry and a basic understanding of this, has been slowly embedded in the school. To celebrate this I was very keen for teachers to share their current classroom practices in terms of delivery of Inquiry which now forms an integarl part of our curriculum. This has been happening in in school PD sessions with each teacher challenged to share their work in this area.

Through continued exposure to other schoolwide Inquiry models through the ICT development programme I am absolutely certain that path we have taken will meet our school's needs.

Further to the above, next term I do want to achieve a consistent presentation of the model in all our classes so that Inquiry can be easily referred to. We also need to make absolutely certain we all have a shared understanding of the different dimensions to our inquiry model and our set of assessment matrix indicators needs to be fine tuned.

Well done and many thanks to Fiona for stepping into the lead teacher role. She has embraced Inquiry and is now presenting a highly effective model in her class. She is truly leading the way for our school and other now turn to her for advice.

It is hoped that we can get everyone to a comparable stage by the end of the year.

Neil Hirini

Michael Pohl Seminar

Kia ora,

I refer to our day at Coley Street on the 11th Sept. 2008 with Michael Pohl. A wonderful opportunity to meet and then work with such a notable educational practioner. Thoroughly enjoyed his manner and the way he comminicated with us. This was highlighted by the fact that he wasn't promoting his beliefs as " the one and only way" but presented his ideas as one of many that educationalists could grasp. Having said that, his focus on Blooms Taxonomy suggests that he thinks this is the most powerful tool.

My first impression of the presentation was that it served to remind me of the many number of models that could be adopted in order to enhance the skill of thinking in the learning process. It took me back to my teacher's college days when many of these models were introduced and covered in depth. For me, they are all saying the same thing, only in differeent words. Learning is far more greatly enhanced if we actually do more in our minds with the information that unfolds.

I was very interested in his schoolwide thinking model whereby a number of different tools be used at diferent ages acroos a school. For a school that is still grappling to introduce one model effectively I didn't see us pursuing something like this for a while yet.

Disapppointed not to see the model we have adopted,ie SOLO taxonomy,metioned in the programme. We have made the committment to implementthis at our school in the first instance and although not promoted in the day, we are happy this is taking us where we want to go for now.

I once again feel privileged to have been part of this day and had exposure to an educational guru.

Neil Hirini