When I think about inquiry, I consider the evolution of learning. In the beginning of my PYP career, I thought inquiry was about asking questions. Whenever I asked a veteran teacher for practical tips on how to make inquiry happen in my classroom, they would tell me to use a variety of questions within my practice. This sounded logical as this was the beginning process of any investigation. As I advanced in my career, I realized that inquiry was a way to learn. It involved students asking questions, which was the physical part, but it was more than that. It required learners to make careful observations in the world that sparked questions in their mind. Our early learners do this naturally, because they want to know how the world works through play.  Evolving from logical thinking to a fluid way of being. My Niece and InquiryThis summer, I watched my 31/2 year old niece listen to Paw Patrol while playing with her sand table and toys. She was absolutely absorbed with dump trucks and other construction tools, because of her favorite character, Rubble, who works in construction. She replicated what she saw, at the same time, she made it her own. When it didn’t work out as planned, I may have heard a cry or two, but she picked up the pieces and tried again. This process is inquiry. Inquiry doesn’t take a lot of prep work. In fact, it’s quite the opposite. There is less prep work involved, because the learners decide how to use the materials. They are given the freedom to put ideas together through individual or small group decision-making. They see an idea or process and want to test it out. They make decisions about what they want to do and execute it through experimentation. There will be mistakes made along the way, because inquiry is not formulaic. Your learners will fumble, but this is how they know they are on the right track or need to make a new plan.
The beauty of inquiry is that learners are provoked to think beyond the curriculum and see how it applied to their personal lives. Most of the greatest learning moments are those that allow learners to see themselves in the curriculum. The learning reflects their beliefs, fears, assumptions, experiences, and voice. How does this apply to my role?Let’s take a moment to think about how inquiry impacts and reflects your role as a specialist and supporting teacher. As a learner, your classes were my lifeline. They were the one part of my day where I could just breathe and be me. The language and actions were simplistic enough to follow along without feeling like a fool. Yet complex enough to make me think and connect to other parts of my learning. Growing up, I was quite scared to show my personality with my peers and teachers. It was partially due to my painful shyness that bordered on selective mutism and my lack of confidence in my language abilities. I kept to myself, so people would not discover the secret that I lacked the skills to communicate and ask for the things I needed as a learner. In seventh grade, I chose home economics as an elective. During this time, I learned to cook my own meals, sew aprons, and watched a lot of after-school specials. This was a time where I could apply my skills from school into practice, such as symmetry, precision, temperature, proportions, and so much more. By the time I entered tenth grade, I was able to work up the courage to join the high school choir. I had a passable singing voice and sometimes sang in our church choir. I wanted to learn more about myself and my talents. What I discovered were a variety of people from different family backgrounds, school social status, and cultures. It was my first time learning about alternative perspectives that touched my heart. I literally found my voice. As you listen to my stories, how many students come to mind that have a similar experience in your class? You are the haven for the othered…the learners who don’t quite fit in. Don’t feel the pressure to deliver your content in the traditional way, because this will make learning so much harder for these learners. They need experiences that make their hearts explode with excitement, hands-on experimentation where they can challenge their thinking, and quiet time to reflect and revise their process, so they can become better. This is your superpower. How can we make it happen?When you have access to your learners 1-2 times a week, how can you allow for inquiry to happen in your practice? This is something that many specialist and supporting teachers have struggled with for some time, which I totally understand. I am going to challenge you once again to think about your time differently. Ever since I became a teacher, researchers have been talking about teaching the “whole child” for decades. It’s not merely filling a child’s head with new ideas, but getting them to engage with their entire being. When I set up my consultancy, I wondered how this might look in practice. This is how I came up with my name, because I wanted learners to think, chat, and create. THINK: to authentically think, we have to be put into a situation where we are challenged critically and creatively to solve complex problems that are being faced within our world today. They must resonate with learners as being important. I ask myself…
CHAT: to engage in meaningful chats, we explore a wide range of issues that interest us and come up with alternative solutions that may not have been explored. We recognize that not all of them are doable, but we dream big with others. I ask myself…
CREATE: to create thoughtfully, we consider the big ideas of the exploration and decide what is worthy of being captured. We cannot create everything, so we must decide what is worthy of being remembered and how it is connected to other ideas.
I know what you are thinking, this is just one more theory about how we teach. Actually, it embodies all of the elements of the PYP through agency, inquiry, skill and character development, and conceptual understanding. With this said, how do I make it happen in my daily practice? I’m so glad you asked, because we are going to explore this next. A Practical ExampleA big part of inquiry is making connections to the local and global community. This is an important part of being an IB learner. The PE class can be a wonderful place where these connections can come alive and be applied to practice. Setting the Stage In PE, we are learning about team sports and how they bring about collaboration. Each role has a unique function and the players work together to reach their goal. When one player tries to control the game, the team will always perform lower than normal. I am zooming into one of the guiding questions to bring about more inquiry. Think How am I getting my learners to be provoked in their thinking? The purpose of this part is to engage in a provocation (experience, media, movement, etc.) to get them thinking. Talking will naturally happen here as a response. Let it naturally occur.
Chat Where are there opportunities for my learners to engage with each other through storytelling? The purpose of this part is to take the ideas further and to reflect on the provocation through a personal lens. It’s an extension of the think. Ask learners to reflect on their own experiences by asking these questions.
Create How do my learners show their thinking in a variety of ways? The purpose of this part is to create something that helps learners to process their ideas while helping others to make connections. It’s about building up the learning community. The learners will create a product in groups of 5-6, so you have less products to display. They can be put outside of the PE area (hallways, doors, windows, etc.), so as not to stop the playing from happening.
Final ThoughtsIf you don’t want 1,000 posters of being a ball hog, consider breaking up the curriculum from K-1, 2-3, and 4-5 with different topics that are more age specific. This will help the younger learners to become more aware of the ideas that are coming up in the next grade level.
By providing more agency, you might find that display items are less, because learners are creating more video content, which can go on the school’s website and internal system. It’s all about getting learners to take action on their learning and this is one way to plan to make it happen. Just have fun with it. This is another way to plan like the thinkchat lesson cycle that will help you to build more agency and inquiry into your practice. One major shift, you are there to ask a lot of questions and have the learners answer them in their unique way. You might learn some things too and see connections that you had not made. It happens all the time in my class. That’s it folks! Join me for the next episode as I try to unpack this process for the supporting teacher through the lens of the inclusion specialist.
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