Week Two: Big Plans

Today's special mention goes to Anna Zhu and Pim Arora. Anna and Pim are always asking for my input on their brilliant ideas for all sorts of projects and creative unit-planning ideas, big and small. I don't want to share all of them, because I don't want to ruin the surprise, but it's exciting work.

It's exciting because both of them think about the authenticity of their work: how their projects and products reflect the real world and what goes on it. I'd suggest we all think a bit more about how all of our teaching activities, routines and summative assessments manifest themselves in the real world. As teachers, we are all learning designers: do our designs only live in the classroom? What do we want our students to be able to do in the real world? Are they practicing that doing in our classes?

It's also exciting because there is lots of room in Anna's and Pim's learning design for inquiry. This inquiry in art and design can often take the form of tinkering and doodling. But tinkering and doodling happen in classrooms other than art and design. How do students brainstorm and troubleshoot and wonder in all our classrooms? What does it look like? Do we give them enough space? Do we give them enough time? Are we frontloading and consistently practicing the ATLs and the Learner Profile attributes that speak to this kind of exploratory critical and creative thinking?

While you're thinking of tinkering and doodling and inquiry and authenticity, let me share something with you: Right now, as some of you know, I am training to do school accreditation visits. In a recent activity, we were asked to provide examples for evidence of inquiry in school documents, by observation and through interviews. Let me share several of the responses:

• Unit plans that are not prescriptive, ones that leave time and space for open exploration of ideas/student centred and concept based planning
• By observing classes the team can determine if inquiry learning is espoused through such things as visible thinking or investigations (experimental/problem based/case based/discovery, etc)
• Teachers note in interviews that they feel they are trusted to not write prescriptive lesson plans, but to leave plans open for inquiry and explorations

In the Daystar Secondary School, I'd like to open a discussion on the relationship between unit planning and inquiry learning. How do we balance careful documentation of our curriculum with messy, exploratory, blended learning that attempts to gauge students' competency and mastery?

I encourage you all to read the the article below--which may spark some debate--and mull its conclusions over. How could it inform our evaluation of our own practice?

Enjoy! And when you have the chance, get into Anna's or Pim's classes and check out the the tinkering and doodling that goes on there.