Independent student inquiry

By Esther Casey, Teacher Librarian

One of the goals of our pakirehua process is to empower ākonga with skills that they can independently apply to learning for the rest of their lives. We decided to see how easily students would apply these skills by giving a selected group of Year 8 ākonga a term to follow their own curiosities towards an outcome of their choice. I had the privilege of facilitating and supporting this group while observing their confidence to apply the inquiry process and to assess the viability of doing this with bigger groups.

The hardest parts for the students were choosing a topic, managing themselves to stay on task and feeling left out when the rest of the class had their outcome celebration. They gained a much greater appreciation for the work teachers do to keep everyone engaged and moving in the right direction.

There were some absolute highlights - like connecting students with experts in their area of inquiry, such as the phone interview with Camilla Dallerup for the two girls wondering why dance is important and the visit to the power station for the boys learning about nuclear fusion. We tried some new ways of keeping track of our learning by using a workbook with explicit links to each stage of inquiry, and some of our evaluations produced some very honest reflections about our strengths as learners.

To do this well with a whole class would be a challenge as the support students need would be so varied but the affirmation for these Year 8 students about what pakirehua is, and what it really takes, was a great culmination of their years at Sylvia Park School and they all agreed that it was very rewarding. Years later, some of the students still said it was the inquiry they remember as their best.

For me, it was so interesting to see these students independently making decisions about their learning, applying inquiry skills they had and supporting each other academically and emotionally. Each student finished that term with confidence knowing that they can solve problems, self-motivate and be part of a team - and those are some of the attributes that will support life-long learning.