It’s hard not getting too revved up and eager to just want to hurry up and start one’s teaching career when listening to Trevor McKenzie speak passionately about teaching and learning through inquiry. By leading with genuine enthusiasm, for both his passion for inquiry learning, and his clear engagement with his students, he probably holds the potential to nudge forward even the most traditional of teachers along the continuum toward this type of impassioned teaching.

On wanting to describe Trevor’s qualities as a speaker and a presenter, I find myself getting distracted away from the importance of the what he is keen to promote, by the effective how of his messaging. Before I venture too far away from the presenter of a talk to the presented topic itself, as I was happening across some attributes of one that is charismatic, naturally led me to assign these qualities to Trevor. For sure not in any disparaging way, but for myself as someone that was drawn in both by the what of his talk — as in inquiry functioning as an effective classroom tool and an appropriate test of students’ knowledge and ability — and in the how of his skill to champion convincingly for the theoretical need and creative application of this new way of doing learning.

“inquiring minds want to know, why?.jpg” by STC4blues is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0

Reflecting upon the content and the tenor of our discussion with Trevor, as well as from what I was able to glean from his short videos which outline his desire for developing inquiring minds, I’m struck by two strong feelings. The first, is a genuine enthusiasm for developing my own ideas around inquiry projects and engaging with the different tools with my future students. There are even elements of this approach I’d like to try with my own kids. The second, is a bit more of a subdued, partly cautious, but also a questioning of the efficacy of what some may construe as aggrandized ideas to revolutionize teaching, let alone the whole construct of learning.

Now, coming from me, this is not too much of a surprise, or frankly, a problem, as I am constantly wrestling with myself, or within myself (see, there I go again) about these types of internal dilemmas all the time. Heck, if you look at how my mind mashes and mangles together most of my blogs I tend to craft sentences, paragraphs, and whole pieces of writing as if my internal Kung Fu matches are being grappled out across the page. And to kick that metaphor while it’s down, the throwing of punches is what tends to get my best thinking going. For some, this type of thinking could increase one’s level of anxiety or create stressful situations with others. However, for some of us others this type of self-splitting or contesting the narrative, is stimulating and thought-provoking. Provocation — that’s another one of Trevor’s words, isn’t it?! And, while they are either roots of each other or in the least, synonyms, they subtly mean different things. The former, thought-provoking, tends to have affirmative associations attached to it, while the latter, provocation, can hold more negative connotations. I think this mind drift actually gets me closer to one of the main points I want to make. And that is the multiple tensions going on for me are essentially these:

  1. Inquiry-based learning holds a real appeal for me.
  2. Trevor’s enthusiasm is appealing
    1. Trevor’s enthusiasm also triggers me to inquire further
  3. Is this shift of pedagogy evidence-based?
  4. Is the terminology used to describe inquiry offer more jargon than bargain?
  5. Are some of these doubts I raise more a projection of a fear that I would not be able to teach this way? Or, does being vulnerable or too-open with my students then expose a lack of knowledge in myself?
  6. Do I think I would strive, thrive, or barely survive in this type of environment
    1. Is that last question directed to me as a student or a teacher?!

These above questions either qualify as redundant, unanswerable, or both . . . and in the end would make this blog far too long. So, I will transition at this point to how I noted my expanding learning on this interesting and challenging topic of tweaking one’s teaching pedagogy.

 

Because I wanted to be fully engaged myself, both in this process and ensuring that I kept all my thoughts in one place, I decided to just write my notes right in this blog. And as time, that dastardly foe of mine continues to creep and crawl menacingly through these late, late hours, I found myself realizing that notes in this form was probably as good as translating them into full sentences, especially as we know how full mine tend to get. Hopefully I at least stop just short of them being full-of-it.

So, here are my notes, in what hopefully holds some semblance of sense and logic.

Notes on Inquiry from Vids

Authentic Inquiry:

  • teachers that model positive & effectively demo. learning inspire an INQUIRY focused environment
  • they lean in & lean out when/where appropriate
  • share their learning – metaCogn.
    • empowers students to do the same
  • steer the ship in new directions
    • thereby, an ability to co-design the curriculum & share the exp. of learning
    • what does this look like and how to act it out

Chp.6: Four Pillars of Inquiry
Student Passion:

  • passion as a start pt – a Powerful Q’s for students
    • kids say “I’m not passionate about anything.”
  • Passion not always not enough
    • Adopt the 4 Pillars of Inquiry (Starting Point):
    • By using Provocations & Discussions
      • Explore a Passion
      • Aim for a Goal
      • Delve into Your Curiosities
      • Take on a New Challenge
    • Developing an Inquiry Unit
      • use provocations t’out the year to demo. previous work
        • front-loads the kids learning process i.e. scaffolding learning
      • helps dvlp. for the Free Inquiry Project
        • they get to grow into their learning autonomy (agency delayed)
        • how they’ve responded to provos. overtime
          • Students – Reflections: journals, activities, discussions, provocations that stir interest & curio’s
        • teacher: can use as ancetodal evidence, observation for the potential direction for the F.I.

Chp. 7: The Role of Q’s in INquiry

  • INquiry Myth: Content & Closed Q’s are Bad – NO WAY!
    • allows for exploration about the other type of impt. info i.e. concepts & g8r depth
    • allows for grappling w. Open end Q’s more meaningfully
    • students need content
      • content too often drives learning
      • surface-area learning allows for the oppt. to go deeper
  • Find a Balance about Both types of learning . . . and their needs

Evidencing & Assessment

  • What is Assessment
    • All the variables that go into what it is & means?!
    • Basically using the 5 W’s and How to dig deeper
    • Resp.: teachers, admins, students
  • Shift to ‘Evidencing’ of how students’ competencies are measured
    • curation of evidence of learning
    • shift: mindset/ideas of feedback, formative f/back, task design
    • shift the mindset of evidencing ‘language’
    • imbedding the mindset of ….
    • student-centred learning

Co-designing for Compt’s, Dispositions & Habits of Mind:

  • Shaping Mindset — Culture of Learning
    • what/how we learn
    • direction
    • legacies of mindset
      • sharpen, explore, etc…
  • Mindset that transcends a specific class
    • collaborative learning
    • power of talk & discussions
    • de-centring
    • students MAKE connections t/out learning
  • 4 Core Competencies — student-directed . . . became 7
    • create learning exp’s/oppt’s
    • MAKE connections t/out the term — daily
    • kiddos set personal goal(s) — one specifically that they can evidence as they progress
    • when kids have a role in all those criteria-building elements they buy-in & output results

Inquiry Myth: Explicit Learning

  • Time & Space in Classroom is vast & endless for possibilities
    • teacher focused but 1 type
      • how long as teacher-led
    • 10-12 mins. can kids pay attn. to a voice/dynamic w/o it needing to change
    • provide variety
      • student-directed & co-designed w. students
      • for kids thinking/connection/synthesizing learning
    • What compt’s nurtured in either/both models
      • what learning happens in both frameworks
      • ask & engage w. students thru Q&A
      • involve & make sure you INCLUDE their suggestions
      • t/fore not just a VOICE but an ACTOR/AGENT of CHANGE

Creating a Culture of Learning vs Culture of Performance

  • How do you move from Performing to Learning (is it real or agnst. kiddos intuition?!)
  • Guy Claxton: The Learning Power Approach

Powering Up Children: The Learning Power Approach to Primary Teaching

    • Life has many Performance elements to it
    • they are there already & don’t need to be pushed as an agenda
    • Summative and Formative Asst’s has its place, BUT students need to feel comfortable in other dynamics
    • need to build self-worth
    • Risk-taking is Good!
      • But, it’s a skill that needs to be developed, practiced, and not afraid to try
      • Safe risk-taking
      • feedback w/o the B>S
    • Learning is the Core
      • summative eval’s as buoys in the big blue ocean
      • perf. as guides —
      • Find the Failure — Not the worry of failing
    • Evidencing of Learning — positive, personal, inquisitive, investigative, critical
      • Honing my compassing
      • use of groups
      • co-assessing
      • in/out of groups — get more feedback
      • can they ID where they’re at
      • bld. toward a better self-assessment
    • How do your students make me as a teacher accountable
      • offer them elements
      • bld. discussions off of these impt. matters

Trevor’s skill in explaining this theory and his ability to put it into practice of teaching was a helpful component, and in time will hopefully be a means for me to more actively engage and facilitate this type of learning in my future teaching.

Sidebar — Down the Rabbit Hole type thinking . . .

This was some thinking that ties to some of my beginning musings, that does seem unrelated, but I suppose at least in my mind, not so much. Looking at these qualities that define charisma are another element of teaching. Plato, one of our original thinkers would indeed note the need for logos, pathos, and ethos.

Well, first the qualities of a charismatic individual:

7 Signs You Are Charismatic Even Though You Don’t Feel You Are
  1. You have a genuine spark of life that rubs off on others. …
  2. You believe in something powerfully, and share that belief with others. …
  3. You are a great storyteller. …
  4. You are empathetic. …
  5. You speak your mind. …
  6. You acknowledge discomfort or threat and process it calmly — inwardly. …
  7. You take risks in being vulnerable.

Now, I imagine most of us would associate those qualities with Trevor, maybe not all of them, but most. Obviously I am basing this off of my impressions from the videos and the time he afforded us for a discussion forum in our zoom class. And again, tying these attributes of a charismatic person is not meant as a slag by any means. I think in fact it speaks to his genuineness in the why and how of what he does — engaging his ‘kiddos’ in inquiry-type learning. My main caution or hesitancy is just left with the efficacy of this specific way to run a classroom and that if this style is something that is well-matched to all, most, or some of our kids.

My point becomes clearer when you marry those qualities to again what he is talking about, which is at its core — engaged learning! I love that Trevor does challenge both teachers and students to be better at what we do — to do learning better. I especially like how he does it with such enthusiasm and obvious care for his students.

My Ah-Ha Moment

I concluded my trek of seeking to get to know what inquiry-based learning meant to Trevor, and in turn what it could mean to us as teachers, and further still, what it should mean to our students, by watching some more . . .

. . . His sit-down chat on TVO, which is Ontario’s version of BC’s Knowledge network, provided me with perhaps the little nugget I was searching for — a simple yet personal story of what became Trevor’s inspiration for the paradigm shift he would soon undertake — a former student, Garrison — who had fallen through the cracks, but by feeling safe enough to share his passion of creating graffiti art found the means through Trevor’s support and guidance to transfer that learning & doing that was taking place outside and away from the school to tangible evidencing of his competency inside the classroom.

Perhaps we can even say that Trevor’s thinking is much bigger and better than just outside the box thinking — it goes much deeper than that!

Other Resources of Interest: