Inquiry as connection

Concepts are abstract and therefore cannot be seen or touched. It is crucial that students have concrete experiences, and/or reflect upon events, places, people and objects in their own lives to connect to these concepts. Inquiry as connection helps students see the significance and relevance of these big ideas that are part of their lives. The Grade 1 team (two teachers and two assistants) feel strongly about this and were united in our views on learning and relationships with the students.

During remote learning, Grade 1 students took part in scavenger hunts to search for examples of concepts such as fractions. They played with toys to connect to the concepts of force and motion. They could also use photographs, literature and timelines to connect to the concepts of memories and personal histories.

Face-to-face, students have taken part in a simulation with each student being given different objects in a bag to connect to the concept of trade, a production line to connect to the concept of systems, team ball games to connect to the idea of interdependence, a treasure hunt to connect to the concepts of exploration and discovery and the use of artefects to connect to the concept of identity.

Inquiry as provocation

Provocations are not neutral. They aim to stir the mind, trigger a reaction, challenge students' thinking, intrigue and surprise the learner, cause confusion and observe something in a new way. In recent months, the plethora of free professional development provided through webinars, tweets and documentation by colleagues of student learning has inspired and provoked my thinking.

During remote learning, Grade 1 students were given challenges as part of the daily morning message to provoke their thinking. These included using loose parts to spell their name and recreating a work of art. Inquiring into living things, students photographed examples of what they thought was living, then later classified photographs into living and non-living. These photographs included some working theories and misconceptions to provoke deeper levels of thinking. Students were also asked how they knew if something was living. We collected the students' current thinking and then each student was then asked to consider if those ideas were true for all living things, some living things or no living things.

Face-to-face, students have explored unknown parts of the school to reflect on the emotions linked to exploration and discovery, engaged in open-ended investigations linked to motion, observed currencies from around the world, tackled complex questions such as "Are you older than 1 million seconds?", taken field trips to be immersed in nature, played with different machines connected to forces, debated about if things they have seen are performances or not, and were challenged to navigate their way back to school from a park to provoke interest in places and landmarks.

Inquiry as critical wondering

Inquiry can often be reduced to asking questions. Although questions may be a way an inquiry is articulated, it may also be a student's actions, theories and wonderings that reveal the intent and scope of an inquiry. In recent months, my main inquiry was about how to maintain rigour and conceptual understanding through remote learning. I wondered a lot about how to find (and then how to use!) purposeful technology to support clear and engaging tasks. I also thought a lot about how to maintain strong relationships with students and parents.

During remote learning, we actively sought evidence of students engaged in critical wondering. A culture of inquiry was already established in the classroom, so many students naturally responded with surprise, curiosity, uncertainty, awe and wonder as they posted audios, photos, videos, drawings and writing. We also crafted questions to elicit their thinking, which at times were as simple as "What do you notice? What do you wonder?". Students were encouraged to use the class blog and look at videos of their friends experimenting with different forces and form "What if...?" questions. Other times, we gave sentence starters such as "I don't get..." and "I want to find out...".

Face-to-face, students engage in similar ways. Documentation of these wonderings on walls and windows make it easier to refer back to and prompt students to dialogue with one another, reflect on how their thinking has shifted and make use of tentative language such as 'perhaps', 'maybe' and 'what if' to entertain possibilities that go beyond fact finding.

Inquiry as investigation

Investing time in investigation allows learners to go deeper in their learning. Inquiry (and therefore the process of investigation) might have been initiated by the student or the teacher. Both are valued, so time is given to both. It might be an investigation of a concept drawn from more of a knowledge base (such as forces, place value, character, beauty...) or more of a process base (such as the writing process, reading strategies, the habits of mind of an artist or the process skills in a science experiment). The work of Dr Lynn Erickson (Structure of Knowledge) and Dr Lois Lanning (Structure of Process) are invaluable models here. During lockdown, I had time to investigate the interactive features of Zoom, the set of tools within Seesaw and play with new Chrome extensions and apps such as Loom, InShot and Adobe Spark. This was only possible through the generous support and time of the school's eLearning Facilitator. This connects to the importance of demonstration within inquiry, as explicit teaching is mistakenly argued as not having a place in inquiry!

During remote learning, the students were actively encouraged to pursue their own interests and investigate new tools, resources and interests they might not have made time for. They were also asked to consider things they had always been curious about that they could now investigate. Linked to a unit of inquiry based on the interdependence of living things, Grade 1 were introduced to MISO (an approach developed by Cathryn Berger Kaye, and explained to Grade 1 by me in the video below) to find out more about a chosen living thing and become an "expert" in this, explaining how it depends on other living things and how other living things depend on it. Students were also investigating what they (and others) identified as critical wonderings.

Face-to-face, students investigate in similar ways, but there is more flexibility to collaborate in interest groups. It is also important to remember play is inquiry! Daily, Grade 1 students are making choices between texts, Lego, hand lenses, puzzles, 2D and 3D materials, loose parts, things that move... Earlier this year, students were exploring the concept of division and started to develop theories about what happens when odd and even numbers are divided by one another. These theories became the catalysts for investigation as students understood more about equal sharing and remainders as well as adopting many mathematical processes such as logic, reasoning and testing and revising conjectures.

Inquiry as reflection

“Learning is a process of action and reflection.” This quote from John Dewey reminds us that deeper learning comes from regular opportunities to reflect and resist the temptation to skip from inquiry to inquiry. It is important to put the pause button on to look back and consider what has (and hasn't) been learned to make more informed choices about the best steps to take next (based on evidence) and work towards defined goals and clear success criteria. During the confinement period, I posted reflections several times on Facebook and Twitter, but it was a request from my school to participate in a podcast about inquiry that forced me to pause for longer and reflect more deeply. Should you be interested, listen here:

For both remote and face-to-face learning, it is important that reflection is not something that is only done at the end of a unit of learning, and something that is not only done in writing. More creative reflection opportunities include interview role plays, the use of visuals (such as the CSI Visible Thinking Routine), audios, videos and comic strips. Assessment tools such as rubrics and checklists should be used in a formative manner to identify both strengths and areas for growth within units of learning. Reflection prompts should be varied to target different aspects of learning (including what has been learned and how) and develop strong skills in metacognition. Students can also be involved in reflecting on their friends' learning to offer constructive feedback. They can be involved in unpacking what it means to offer "helpful" and "unhelpful" feedback and feedforward.

Inquiry as representation

Representation allows learners to pull together their learning and showcase the most salient points for an audience that the learning might be shared with. This process within the web of inquiry celebrates new understandings and shifts in thinking alongside the journey undertaken. This blog (or is it the beginnings of a book?) captures much of my thinking about concepts and inquiry, mainly illustrated with examples from recent months for an online audience on social media.

During remote learning, Grade 1 students were able to use a variety of media to represent their learning given the multiple functions within Seesaw, the school's online learning platform. Examples include TV commercials and 2D posters evidencing the concept of persuasion.

Face-to-face, Grade 1 students brainstormed the concepts explored in the current unit of inquiry. Promoting an inductive approach, they then wrote generalisations using at least two of the identified concepts. The extent to which students can form conceptual relationships, represent their learning and explain their thinking always amazes me! Grade 1 also shared their expertise about their chosen living things using a range of media including 3D models, drawings and slideshow presentations. Earlier in the year, Grade 1 engaged in the creative process to develop a performance of their choice to an audience they also chose. Performances included dance, music, magic, mime, storytelling and a musical!

Inquiry as transformation

Inquiry brings with it change! This change might be in a learner's attitude, behaviour, actions or level of understanding about a concept. Sometimes the transformation is ever so subtle; other times it is more marked. Sometimes the shift is evident immediately; other times it is evident some time later. Often, these transformations are surprises, doubts and tensions and, therefore, the process of inquiry continues! Due to time constraints and perhaps an assumption no transformation has occurred, it is tempting to ignore this process within inquiry. I still do, sometimes, and I hope stating it here will be a push for me to transform my own practice! In other inquiry cycles, this stage might be seen as the action/transfer/application stage.

For both remote and face-to-face learning, adaptations of Visible Thinking routines such as "I used to think... Now I think" were used to support students in articulating shifts in their learning. Grade 1 students were exploring different strategies to add pairs of 2-digit numbers including the use of manipulatives, the 100 square, a number line and a range of mental algorithms. The students then chose the strategy they were most confident with and applied their thinking to new contexts.

Based on a prompt that Kathy Short is an advocate of: "How has this unit changed you?", a successful Grade 2 unit of inquiry framed around the concepts of exploration and discovery comes to mind. Connecting and provoking students to these concepts through personal timelines, treasure hunts and choosing an unknown place in school to explore and document any discoveries, the students were quickly in awe of outer space and how much we, as humankind, did not understand. Somewhat reluctantly, I asked Kathy's question, "How has this unit changed you?"

I was not expecting the following response: One student, who was rather social and had playdates in his own home, was too afraid to have a sleepover at a friend's home. He explained that as a result of this unit on exploration and discovery, and the emotions that one might experience, he was less afraid of the unknown and, in fact, excited about what he might discover in a new place. As a result, he had arranged (and went through with!) sleepovers at two different friends' homes!

The power and potential of conceptual inquiry!

Back to my purpose

I hope to have offered an insight into each process while honouring the bigger picture of a culture of inquiry. The processes are not necessarily linear and are not always present in all inquiries. A typical unit of inquiry explores more than one concept, so provocations can be planned at any time. There is an interplay between these processes. Representations may become media with which students make new connections. Investigations may trigger deeper or more significant wonderings. A newspaper used when investigating might evoke such a strong reaction, it acts as a provocation etc. Adopting an inquiry stance means that these processes may be in single lessons, one-off events or longer units of learning. Covid-19, social distancing and masks all sparked so much inquiry in their own right! Like concepts, inquiry transcends time, place and events.

How do you plan for and respond to students as natural inquirers?