Disrupt your Orbital Velocity with Inquiry Learning

Disrupt your Orbital Velocity with Inquiry

Learning target I can evaluate teacher inquiry in its collaborative and individual forms and analyze the its usefulness to my district’s professional learning needs

Read Strategy - Mark the Text Read Excerpt of the guest post by Jenni Donohoo in Peter De. Witt’s blog post: “Fostering Teacher Leadership through Collaborative Inquiry”

Question Can collaborative inquiry strengthen teacher leadership and enhance school improvement efforts in my district?

Four Corners Four corners activity- 25 minutes – select leader, recorder and presenter. Discuss your position to share with the group. Front right – I strongly agree Back right – I somewhat agree Front left – I somewhat disagree Back left – I strongly disagree

Journey to Inquiry – bringing it to everyone’s attention Can we increase the level of results with the deliberate practice completed by Principals and Assistant Principals by guiding them through an Inquiry Process? Through our partnership with NEFEC this training was provided to all Principals and Assistant Principals and Aspiring Leaders Phase II. Ask participants in the Regional Principals’ Leadership Academy to share their inquiry projects at the district leadership retreat.

My Inquiry Question –what are the professional learning needs of Monroe County Educators as they relate to personal growth and student achievement?

inquiry process Conduct surveys and meet with focus groups to analyze teachers’ thoughts regarding professional learning. Collect data and examine it. Once the data is analyzed propose a new delivery model. Review the success of the delivery model at the close of 2016 -17 school year through the same methods mentioned above.

Inquiry Results Action The value of the Professional Learning Communities is challenged by the following: Lack of trained facilitators, perceived lack of expertise on the part of the participants, confusion over how to select a topic and frustration with a lack of time for collaboration. Selected teachers from each school will receive Inquiry Training in a “train the trainer” model as facilitators for PLC’s. The district will develop PLC inquiry topics to model possible choices for teachers to consider for schools’ PLC’s and facilitate participation in specific Inquiry based district PLC’s.

Plan 1 for 2016 -17 Develop and facilitate district wide PLC’s on topics that are created based on analysis of data. Train school level Inquiry Facilitators to lead PLC efforts at the school. Assist principals and assistant principals and facilitators in reviewing inquiry topics for PLC’s. Provide resources for PLC’s once they are formed such as research-based strategies or expert guidance. Monitor progress of PLC’s and provide support as needed. Share PLC Inquiries at District Wide Professional Learning Meetings.

Monroe County’s Collaborative Inquiry Process School Self-Assessment and Goal Setting Examine data school wide Examine data by grade level and student Principal’s Commitment and Focus Meet with facilitators Assist BLPT take leadership role Team Formation Teachers set up teams Facilitators named; then trained

Instructional Inquiry Cycle – Multiple Teams Examine student data/work and define Inquiry Topic Revise and repeat Inquiry Cycle Monitor student progress with common assessments Define instructional strategies and goals; engage external resources as needed Take action: Implement instructional strategy

Inquiry Results Teachers want to see other teachers teaching. Surveys and focus groups express this as a need. Specifically, 66. 67% of those surveyed said that an opportunity to visit other teachers’ classrooms is the type of support that would be beneficial to them. Another example is the comment, “You don’t have to leave your school to get ideas; you just have to see other teachers. ” Action Develop the Visiting Innovative Educators Workplaces (VIEW) Program. Teachers will visit the classrooms of highly effective teachers who are experts in Technology Integration , Flexible Grouping and STEM.

Plan 2 for 2016 -17 Invite Building Experts to host VIEW participants Select teachers to become VIEW visitors Plan debrief session after each VIEW classroom visit Require reflection on the part of VIEW visitor regarding what they have learned and how their learning will be used in their classroom Survey hosts and participants to gather info to inform next visit Other considerations: Videotape the visits to share with other teachers Share VIEW program with community possible press releases or radio interviews with teachers

How will Inquiry help teachers maintain excitement about their work? Activity: 25 minutes Readers’ Theatre with an an excerpt from: “ A Love Letter to Teacher Candidates” by Bernard J. Bodiali, Penn State Question: Does this piece appeal to your head or your heart? What are its implications for practice?

The Value of Inquiry in the Big Picture What do Hong Kong, Shanghai, Singapore, and British Columbia have in common?

They are the Highest Performing Countries in the PISA Assessment Based on the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) which tests 600, 000 fifteen year olds world wide every three years, the average 15 year old in the United States is 22 months behind their peers in Shanghai in reading literacy. The gap is even wider for science and stretches beyond three years for mathematics.

What do high performing countries do that makes a difference? – they use Teacher Inquiry as their Professional Learning Model Assess students’ learning to identify their next stage of learning (at either an individual or school level) Develop the teaching practices that provide for the next stage of student learning (and being clear what evidence supports this), and Evaluate the impact of new practices on student learning so that teachers can refine their practice. From: The Executive Summary in “Beyond PD, Teacher Professional Learning in High-Performing Systems” produced by Learning First

Teacher Inquiry can be a great job-embedded professional learning model …. . Teachers have accumulated an enormous amount of knowledge through their years of teaching, …. This knowledge can be mined by teachers studying their own practice, making visible the complexities of teaching…. . Enriched by sharing with other teachers who can learn from it, expand it, critique it and build on it. By learning about their practice in this way, teachers not only build their capacity to better understand their own teaching, but also help to build a collaborative culture in their schools. Ann Lieberman, Senior Scholar, The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, Visiting Professor, Stanford University

Schools and Classrooms become sites for investigation “Collaborative inquiry offers an alternative to one-size-fits-all and topdown approaches to educator professional learning through its approach and its results. Collaborative inquiry changes the professional learning experience by reframing how professional knowledge is constructed and applied. Moving from professional learning approached as the acquisition of methods and structures developed outside the classroom and the school, collaborative inquiry places educators in the role of actively constructing professional knowledge through treating their classrooms and schools as sites for investigation. ” This excerpt from Michael Palmisano's Taking Inquiry to Scale: An Alternative to Traditional Approaches to Education Reform

What the experts say “…significant changes in student learning depend on major changes in the practices and structures of schools, and these changes will emerge from the professional knowledge creation and sharing that occurs through interaction within and across schools in networks. ” (Steven Katz, Lorna Earl, and Sonia Ben Jaafar, 2009 in “Building and Connecting Learning Communities: the Power of Networks for School Improvement”)

What the experts say cont. “It is one of life’s great ironies: schools are in the business of teaching and learning, yet they are terrible at learning from each other. If they ever discover how to do this, their future is assured. ” (Michael Fullan, 2001, Leading in a Culture of Change)

What the Experts say cont. “Young people need to be innovative to succeed in work and life, and education can both model this requirement and support its development. For teachers, innovation is about learning to work differently in order to work better. ” (Steven Katz, Lorna Earl, and Sonia Ben Jaafar, 2009 in Building and Connecting Learning Communities: the Power of Networks for School Improvement)

One of the Challenges For Collaborative Inquiry: Developing an Inquiry Question A powerful question of inquiry should not feel like an add-on to teachers. Rather, it should reflect pre-existing interests/curiosities around promising practices that will have a positive impact on learner engagement and achievement. The inquiry is focused on solving a specific problem related to student engagement, learning or well-being identified as a result of the analysis of evidence.

What teachers do Inquiry Groups follow the Spiral of Inquiry Model to collect evidence on student learning, pinpoint a specific improvement area; then research and implement a new teaching practice. During this process teachers constantly collect data on student learning to gauge where instructional changes are working and where they are not. Teachers give each other feedback through lesson observation or co-teaching while implementing new practices.

Spiral of Inquiry Scanning: collect evidence about what is going on for learners Focusing: from the evidence, decide on the highest priority Developing a hunch: critically appraise how teaching is contributing to the issue New professional learning: decide what the team needs to learn, and plan how to do it Taking action: make multiple attempts to apply learning and try changes to practice Checking: analyze evidence of students’ learning progress From Beyond PD – Teacher Professional Development in High-Performing Systems; Part II: Professional Learning Programs

Inquiry Question STEMS Questions of Inquiry should be stated in the form of a question that asks “What will happen to (an aspect of student learning) when (an element in the learning environment is changed or enhanced)? ” The inquiry must outline the assessments that will be used to evaluate improved student achievement Here’s other helpful stems: If we _________then students will ________ and we will know there has been a positive change because ___________. What effect does____________have on improving student learning and how will we know?

Activity – Evaluate Inquiry Questions 10 minutes Examine the inquiry questions on your table How would you proceed? How is teaching contributing to the issue What new learning would be necessary and how would you do it What action would you take on the learning What evidence would you collect to demonstrate that the new learning has make a difference

I can understand teacher inquiry in its collaborative and individual forms and analyze its usefulness to my district’s professional learning needs. Thumbs Up or Thumbs Down