Welcome back to our specialist and supporting teachers series! This is our sixth episode leaning into inquiry for our supporting teachers, particularly the inclusion specialist. In specified roles that support learning and behavioral development, the challenge is there isn’t a set curriculum you are following. This is how the PYP can help you the most, because it’s full of approaches to help bring about the best in the learners that you support. What do the experts have to say?When you ask the PYP community about the inquiry leaders, you might get the response of Kath Murdoch, Kimberly Mitchell, and Trevor MacKenzie. They provide varying approaches to bringing about inquiry into practice. Consider reading some of their books for general strategies that you can apply to your unique role. In Dive into Inquiry, Trevor MacKenzie states, “I see inquiry as the strongest method to create personalized learning pathways for all learners, a method that brings the curriculum of life into the curriculum of school. My approach is a scaffolded one that proposes a gradual shift - from the teacher to the learner - in control over learning.” Everytime I read this quote, I am reminded of the power of consistency. Inquiry can only authentically occur when teachers are consistent with approaches to teaching and learning. Teaching is the vehicle for unpacking WHY a strategy is important, HOW it impacts processes, and WHAT must be done to make it happen. We can’t teach inquiry as a subject, because it’s a process of understanding and applying ideas to the self. In her book, Getting Personal with Inquiry Learning, Kath Murdoch states that “An inquiry is generally driven by questions and these questions may arise from a need, a problem, a puzzle, or an interest” (Murdoch, 2022, pg.18). As you teach and support your learners, how are you crafting it through a question that drives a need, problem, puzzle, or interest? This might be the simplest way to bring about more curiosity and wonder into your teaching. This is not the only way to approach inquiry. In Experiencing Inquiry, Kimberly Mitchel states, “An inquiry is teaching in such a way that the students are doing most of the work. They are asking questions. They are researching complex problems. They are formulating opinions. They are even at times teaching and offering feedback. Inquiry works at every grade level in every subject area (Mitchell, 2019, pg.1). Once again, inquiry brings about the natural exploration of ideas and agency of learners. The learner is taking on most of the thinking and you are there to provide the questions. I know this sounds so easy and silly at times. Looping back to the last episode, I thought so too in the beginning. I wondered how questions would change my practice. I can only speak to my experiences, but they have changed everything about how content is delivered. I provide the provocations and they respond. Let’s take a moment to apply this to the role of the inclusion specialist. How will we apply this to an inclusion specialist?I love inclusion specialists! I’ve had the pleasure of being part of an inclusion team and as a self-contained special education teacher for learners with learning and emotional disabilities. Our goal is to provide opportunities for our learners to return as quickly to the general education setting with support and strategies. I know you are doing your best to make modifications to existing processes and products, so your neurodivergent learners can access the overarching content. This can definitely be a challenge with additional language acquisition and usage issues. One of the challenges you face is serving a wide population based on your limited materials and timing. For this reason, inquiry might aid in helping your learners to make meaning at a quicker rate. I will use the same protocol from the last episode: think, chat, create. This time, we will use a different guiding question to explore the process. Here is a recap of the process. 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.
Setting the StageYou are an inclusion specialist working with learners inside the general education classroom. The homeroom teacher is exploring story elements, but many students are struggling with the language of character traits, setting, and plot elements. You see that many learners are confused about how they work together, so you suggest co-leading a session with the homeroom teacher. To address this issue, you will use a strategy called Probable Passage from Kylene Beers book called When Kids Can’t Read, What Teachers Can Do. I was introduced to it when I began my teaching career and I’ve used the strategies ever since. They were designed with middle school learners in mind, but they can be scaffolded down. I am currently completing this process right now with my third-grade learners using the book Three Samurai Cats by Eric Kimmel. I am setting up the experience using the thinkchat lesson cycle presented in confession #140. thinkWhere are they actively problem-solving? Problem-solving begins with a great question. I like to use images, books, videos, and experiments to get my learners to ask questions about what they are experiencing. Asking questions can be challenging for some learners who don’t yet feel confident in their abilities. Here is one way that I model the process for them. I share a picture of a tree with some special blossoms on it that is specific to a region. I simply ask, where in the world can we find this tree? Based on their prior experience, learners make quick predictions of where they can find the tree. Low risk, but it gets them curious. Next, I show a picture of three men in armor. I ask them these questions one at a time based on the Think Puzzle Explore visible thinking routine. The groups are simply answering the questions and sharing.
This thinking routine is an extension of See Think Wonder. I usually teach it first and show how Think Puzzle Explore is the next step of the same process, so it decreases their stress. To extend the thinking “How are the two pictures connected together? Can you figure out where this story is going to take place now?” What is the job of the three men? How are they different? chatWhat scaffolds are in place for authentic reflection and action? Scaffolds come in all different forms. Some like to use note-taking sheets while others like bubble maps. For me, I use a wide range to gather information and then we use it to reflect and move forward. For this session, we will use Probable Passage. We will need one piece of paper, a marker or pencil, and 8-10 vocabulary words that you want to frontload from the text. As we know, a big part of being an inclusion specialist is providing scaffolds for language acquisition. I love this tool to help this process. We take a piece of paper and fold it into thirds in portrait mode. I draw lines on the fold lines, so learners can see the three sections. On the first row, I break it up into three sections and label them characters, setting, and problem. The second row, I label it GIST statement. The third row, I break it into two sections and label them as: solution and unknown words. Once the template is made, I present 8-10 words from the text that guide to an understanding of the text. Learners review the list of 8-10 words and place them in the categories: characters, setting, problem, solution, and unknown words. They can only place three words in each box to stop learners from placing most of the words in the unknown category. Once the words are placed, they use them to create a GIST statement, or a main idea of what they think the story is about. They specifically use characters, setting, the problem, and outcome to describe the story arc. This process is of high interest, but non-threatening to neurodivergent learners. The purpose is to make a best guess and most of the class will guess incorrectly. This is because of their prior knowledge, life experiences, and cultural heritage, which shapes the narrative. We explore this idea together to make it as non-threatening of an experience when sharing the GIST. After reading the Three Samurai Cats, we compare our GIST statements to the story and find areas of similarities and differences. This is a chance for learners to share their ideas with each other and calibrate if they are close to their peers to clear up misconceptions. This reflection part is so crucial, because learners get to share their ideas and regulate themselves. Sometimes, everyone has a different answer, which is also part of the experience. createHow are they internalizing the content into their everyday lives? As we go through this experience, the learners are beginning to recognize their ability to make predictions, frame out a story, and find meaning based on their personal experiences. To create further contextualization, we reflect on our history and find similarities to the story of the samurai in our own cultures. In the United States, the Spanish missions followed the same structure as the Daimyo and Shrine relationship. The Catholic priests would establish missions around the southern part of the country. Each mission was surrounded by a fort that would protect the priest at all costs. There were varying levels of soldiers like the samurai to protect the ruler. In speaking with my class, they compared the samurai to the military of today. The soldiers are there to protect their fellow citizens. Just like the samurai, there are rankings based on education, time in the military, and ability levels. The most specialized enter a special team to protect world leaders. These relevant connections help to launch the discussion about human-made systems that are in place to protect the ruling power. This can launch into present-day ideas about advertising, social media, rules, regulations, and power. So many potential possibilities for exploration. final thoughtsAs an inclusion specialist, you are probably thinking, that was a lot to process. It is. The key is breaking down the process into bite-size chunks that your learners will understand. Make it over 3-4 sessions, so they see a complete story arc. Here are possible ways I scaffold the learning to this experience.
I hope some of these ideas work for your small group lessons. It’s about elevating our neurodivergent learners up and not watering the learning down.
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