The Foundations of Teaching for Learning programme is designed for teachers and educators of all abilities and backgrounds; from those who are new to the classroom and looking for development, to experienced teachers ready to reboot their skills for modern education. With dynamic lessons taught by established and respected professionals from across the Commonwealth, this eight course programme will see you develop and strengthen your skills in teaching, professionalism, assessment, and more. As you carry on through the programme, you will find yourself strengthening not only your professional skills, but your connection with colleagues across the globe. A professional development opportunity not to be missed. This course will help you consider how to develop appropriate learning goals for individual and groups of students. You will learn how to plan learning activities to engage your students in ways that will achieve these goals. Enhance your course by joining the Commonwealth teaching community on our website, Facebook and Twitter.
Interview two
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Foundations of Teaching for Learning: Planning for Teaching and Learning
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Commonwealth Education Trust
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Spirals of Inquiry for Planning and Teaching
Week four follows the pattern we have set in the first three weeks. This week we explore how you can inform and deepen your planning for teaching and learning by engaging in a specific inquiry cycle. All of the lectures this week focus on the various phases or stages of the spiral of inquiry. The spiral of inquiry asks us to start with the experiences of our learners and to continually ask ourselves these questions: What’s going on for our learners? How do we know? Why does it matter?
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Dr Judy HalbertCo-director of the Centre for Innovative Educational Leadership
Vancouver Island University, British Columbia, Canada
Dr Linda KaserCo-director of the Centre for Innovative Educational Leadership
Vancouver Island University, British Columbia, Canada
Professor John MacBeathProfessor Emeritus
University of Cambridge, UK
[MUSIC]
All right, we are at the end of the fourth week.
>> True.
>> And we've covered a lot of ground.
>> [LAUGH] We have.
>> And I think one of the things that comes up pretty consistently,
is this whole issue of language, and you want to reinvent or change language.
Because language kind of imprisons us in a way in past concepts and ways of thinking.
But for you, language is clearly important.
>> Mm-hm.
>> Say a bit more about that?
>> Well, I'll start by just saying that I think it's interesting, being
in a province that has so many cultures and so many languages that are endangered.
And a lot of us are very passionate about making sure that the languages,
and the concepts that lie underneath them or
that are illuminated through the language, are recreated and kept lively.
And some of our favorite work that's going on in the world,
is an aboriginal scholar who's working with Google to make sure that
the languages are preserved, so that we can work together to reinvent them.
So because we love the inquiry process,
there's a word in the Lowlot language that's [FOREIGN] and
we'll build it into a slide perhaps in an upcoming session.
It means that moment of confusion before you get to clarity, and
then it's wonderful to think about that as being a concept in this territory for
10,000 years, and we don't wanna lose that.
So language does matter.
>> So we revisit our ideas because we have a new way of describing it.
We have a new word from another linguistic register.
I think that's incredibly powerful.
>> Yeah, I'm not sure the word hunch would show up in many research journals.
I haven't heard it at any learned lectures.
However, we found that that notion of the hunch, of intuition,
of the just being open to possibilities is really freeing for
teachers and they've responded very positively to it.
So I think it's an idea that's relatively new to Linda and
myself, and we're working with it and we're learning from teachers as we go.
So, all I'd say is that, yes, language is really important.
And getting grounded in what new words might imply and how they can create space.
Just like [FOREIGN], cuz Linda was saying is that anticipation,
and the expectation, the confusion when there's something new.
There's another wonderful term called [FOREIGN] that's also from
the Lowlot language, and it's finding stillness amongst the busyness.
And in the spiral of inquiry what we're
really trying to do is slow the process down.
That our planning process as teachers is often really revved up.
We wanna get things done,
we wanna do it tomorrow, we feel this pressure of deadlines.
Some of that is real, and some of it, it comes from inside.
It's our own messages about the way we need to do things, so
if anything, we're hopeful that being comfortable with
the spiral and that whole process of inquiry will actually slow us down.
So that we can take more informed action.
>> One thing about the spiral that I keep thinking about is
it sounds a bit like there's a sequence.
That you've got one, two, three, four, five, six.
And that you have to kind of go through that sequence.
And I was thinking about Michael famous fire aimed fire.
>> [LAUGH] >> [CROSSTALK] But
can you go into that spiral at any point?
Can you go into practice?
I mean, you don't really sit and reflect, and then you plan.
That's not the way the world works is it?
>> Yeah, we've explained it in a sequence, because we think all of
the phases are necessary and you can come into it at any point.
So, to try and make it understandable,
we've approached it in a linear fashion, but it isn't that linear.
It is a spiral, and you can move from scanning to new learning to taking action.
And what we've seen is for the real impact over time, all six phases are important.
The sequence is less important, but all of the phases are important.
>> Yeah, if you're able to visit these phases at different time,
it's very much an organic process, yeah.
>> And also have the language to describe what it is that's happening in the moment.
So to know that when you're taking a look at your class, and taking a look at
what's going on with them, that there's a term for that, and it's called scanning.
When you're setting priorities and deciding what to do,
that's getting a focus.
When you're listening to your internal voice, that's the hunch stage.
So, we found that the language and the consistency of the language is helpful
in a shared way of making inquiry just a way of life.
>> It's a great question and a great observation because
we both love taking action, so.
[LAUGH] >> You are action, action oriented.
>> Action figures.
So, the ability to act, and act in spontaneous ways to bring some of
the joy of the arts into our work is really, really important.
And I just have to connect it to kind of how we thought about the writing process.
There are editing stages, there are proof-reading stages,
there are publishing stages, there's drafting, and there's what people used to
call pre-writing, all of the conceptualizing we would do.
And then you're sitting on your porch in some beautiful place that, and
in some ways you're kind of grinding it out.
You're getting it down and shaping that.
But in the reality of that, that's why we say it's recursive,
all of it's happening all the time.
In fact you may, at some point, throw away your manuscript and
say, I'm actually writing a different book.
[CROSSTALK] >> Once you drop the scheme and
once you've got the essential concept,
then you're not going to be tied down to thinking oh is this allowed.
[CROSSTALK] But I think is this allowed.
>> I think the other thing though, from our perspective because we do work in
a networked way with educators in big geographic spaces.
It wouldn't be the same as for people who are working perhaps on a small island
where everybody can see each other eye to eye.
We do find that having a bit of a shared framework allows us to communicate
across time and space, and
to say here's what we're thinking about in a way that the rest of us can understand.
So that we use the frameworks as a way,
also, of publishing our work to each other and saying, here's what we were thinking,
here's what happened, here's what didn't work, and here's what did work.
So that we can collectively take more informed avenues.
>> Very much framework, people like framework.
[LAUGH] >> Yeah, we like framework.
[LAUGH] >> Well,
I think that- >> New country, new framework.
>> Frameworks provide two things, I think.
One is a sense of coherence, particularly when we're working across schools or
across classrooms, that we can have a similar way of thinking.
And it also provides some confidence that, if we're working from
a base of knowledge and a base of what has worked in other places,
then we can experiment within that base.
So it's a framework, but it's not so rigid that there isn't room for
imagination, intuition, experimentation.
>> I think that's the genius of it that you've got a framework there.
That isn't rigid, it's not prescriptive, but the people can,
once they've grasped it, they can liberate themselves within that framework and
be able to adjust, be able to think differently.
Do you find people coming up with ideas that maybe challenge the framework or
suggest ways of taking it further, customizing it to different contexts?
>> One of the really interesting things that's happening is that we've
got teachers that are working with us at the level of the individual student and
are trying to figure out, how does the inquiry process work at the kid level.
And we're at early days with that but
we're seeing some pretty exciting things happening.
At the other end we're seeing it being used on a whole district level
as the district planning and improvement process.
So we see it from the individual child to a whole system as
having some implications and we're excited to see what happens with that.
>> I think another place that we're still in the process of exploring,
and this is very interesting to me because my niece and
nephew have both been involved in the International Baccalaureate program,
which has inquiry at its core and lines of inquiry that they explore.
There's something from a framework point of view, that If you have six or
seven variables, you can then wrap your arms around it.
That's educators doing very challenging work sometimes.
But what the people, teachers, and principals involved in that traditional
lines of inquiry approach are beginning to think about is how can they use
this frame in interaction with that frame to see where are the good sticking points.
Not the sticky wickets but the points where the things really stick together and
kind of make some cognitive sense.
Then it'd be an interesting exploration.
>> Make the connections for me if you would with your frameworks and
that whole process of inquiry, or as we would say, inquiries.
[LAUGH] >> Right.
>> With self-evaluation in school,
I'm thinking of self-evaluation with an individual class, school, systemic level.
Is that something that's embedded in your work?
>> Well absolutely.
>> In some ways- >> [LAUGH] I'll let you start on that and
I'll pick up on my chance to say.
>> And some ways that's emerged from that.
And I guess it was about ten years ago,
our government changed in British Columbia, and Linda and
I were both invited to be senior policy makers at that time.
And the first thing that the new deputy minister did was to cancel
our school accreditation process, which was a self-evaluation process.
It was a bit complicated and it was labor intensive and I was a big believer in it.
There was a lot of value in having a process that we all went through.
And he said, and you are going to design a new process of district reviews.
And Linda and I were working together and
we invited some very smart colleagues to join us.
And we developed a district inquiry
review process based on ten big questions around school districts.
And it was an exciting, heady time in our province as we were thinking
about what are the foundational questions that we should be asking the schools and
districts?
That's kind of a long story, and
there's a longer version of that that will be for another time.
But, the point is that we've seen inquiry actually,
as the next step from school review.
And that we can, and we have developed processes that can
really help schools focus on areas that are important.
>> My observation would simply be, because we've followed the work is,
is that to me, self-evaluation is an inquiry process.
All of the stages that we think are important and
we would like it to be an international way of life, which is
what makes this course [CROSSTALK] >> You're going
to take over the world, I know.
>> [LAUGH] We'd be quite happy to have you take over the world
with some frameworks that people can use to share across the world.
Because right now we're involved through the OECD with schools in South Africa
and other exciting parts of the world like Peru, New Zealand and Belgium.
And I think if we can find some commonalities and
find some ways of deepening our curiosity about schools and
how they can be different for young people, I think, to me,
that is really energizing, and I think that's exciting.
>> These are words you use constantly, aren't they?
>> Yeah. >> [LAUGH] Continue to be excited.
>> Well, absolutely.
[LAUGH] >> You've continued to do this how long
and you're still excited.
>> Yeah, absolutely. Well we also say,
that's an interesting point of view.
I hope that we always will be.
I certainly hope that I will always be, and that Judy will share that interest and
passion for the work.
But we also think that people need, when then decide to leave their formal careers,
whatever that time point is,
that they leave more curious than when they arrived at the beginning.
And we know that new educators are excited about their profession and
we think it's really important that people keep that energy and
find ways of reenergizing themselves.
>> So as Alice in Wonderland said, you get curiouser and curiouser.
>> [LAUGH] Yes exactly, why not?
>> [INAUDIBLE] was right!
Curiosity is the cure for boredom.
And we certainly aren't bored.
And I think for me, what gives me the greatest joy is seeing teachers
feel passionate, empowered, excited and more confident about what they're doing.
Teaching is a hard and it's a lonely profession and
I've been very lucky to have worked with Linda for the last ten years.
And everybody should have that gift of working with somebody that they trust and
that they can co-create.
>> That's very much part of your work isn't it?
You constantly come back to teaching.
It is a lonely, it can be a very lonely thing.
But if you are able to have colleagues around you,
then that makes a huge difference.
My own experience was closing my door and
never letting anybody hear the chaos that was going on behind it.
>> Right. >> Cuz I had to constantly protect myself,
and here the notion that the school, I think was in Australia, where there Friday
afternoon, people can confess, they can share all the things they've done wrong.
If only I'd been able to do that when I was a teacher I just had to hide my
faults.
And it took me years and a long time to be confident enough to be able to speak to
others about what I was finding difficult.
>> And I think one of the most important things for experienced teachers and for
formal school leaders to do is to express their own vulnerability with new teachers.
To really say, I'm learning this too.
Can I try it out in your classroom?
Here's something I'm thinking about.
So, it's a real privilege for us to be able to do that.
>> It's a privilege to be able to share these.
And I think issues like the one you just touched on,
the vulnerability, when you work in an international context,
and you go to places like Japan, for example.
Hold the humility.
As a head, as a principal, am I going to show my vulnerability?
And it takes a long time culturally to get over that,
but I think it's a huge thing, a hugely significant emotion.
We're gonna go on and we'll meet again
some sunny day after the sixth week, but thanks very much.
It's been really very engaging and inspiring over the last couple of
weeks as these ideas percolate and develop and so on.
And always going on and on and learning.
>> All right. >> Thank you.
[MUSIC]
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