C97: Documenting, Reflecting, Assessing, and Sharing the Process in order to Take Action (3.6-3.7)

Welcome to Week 7 of our Getting Personal with Inquiry Learning book club.  This fabulous book by Kath Murdoch has stretched our capability of thinking about personal inquiry learning.  This episode, we will explore how to document, reflect, assess, and share our process, so we are able to take meaningful action, which are sections 3.6 - 3.7 of the book. 

We have to give a big thank to Ragini who moderated our session this week and helped us to dive into this section.  She is a true delight and we are so grateful that she shared her insight and talents with us. She was the ultimate risk-taker this week by moderating, when she usually enjoys observing and discussing ideas.  Ragini, we couldn’t have done this week without you!

Also, a big thanks to Kath for joining our book club after a full day of teaching and travel.  She contributed to our conversations and we appreciate her dedication to our club.

​Documenting, reflecting, and assessing

As an inquiry educator, I am always seeking ways where I can give a learning engagement that is a reflection and a piece of assessment.  I like more bang for my buck, since time is so short in the school day.  Kath suggests, “The three elements of documenting, reflecting and assessing are intertwined.  In the act of documenting learning, for example, we come to understand more about the learner's thinking which prompts us to reflect and subsequently consider new possibilities and pathways for their learning.”  How is it that she takes the ideas in my mind and captures them so beautifully in print? This is half of my joy in reading this book!

There are many possibilities of documenting the personal inquiry.  Kath reminds us to make sure, “Recording the learning should never compromise the learning itself; ideally the documentation contributes to and is part of the process.”  Sometimes, I think we feel the overwhelming need to monitor and document everything that is being produced.  This can be quite taxing on your brain, your body, and your learners.  Remember, documentation can be in the forms of “photos, videos, handwritten notes, shared digital documents, drawings, diagrams, artworks, and voice recordings.  This documentation is about making the learning visible.”

One of my favorite examples of how to document data is the triple-entry journal.  Kath provides an example on page 138.  Quite simply, it’s a running reflection that answers these categories.


Recount

• What did I do today?

Reflect

• What did I learn?
• What worked well?
• What was challenging?
• How do I feel?

Plan

• What is my next step?

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​Can I just tell you, I love this so much!  It scaffolds back to the main idea in the last episode that the power remains with the learner.  They are doing all of the thinking and planning.  Love this!  Here are some tools that Kath has put together to guide this process. 

• Pg 139:  sentence starters for reflection that go beyond retell and comprehension

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• Pgs 140-141:  visual organizers to scaffold reflection and help organize thinking throughout an inquiry

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• Pg 142:  visible thinking routines and other tools for reflection

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• Pg 143: a choice board to assess independent thinking

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• Pg 145:  Dylan Wiliam’s strategies for formative assessment

When we are guiding our learners, we need to collaborate with our peers to calibrate what we are looking for as we document, reflect, and assess.  Kath suggests, “Having a shared understanding of what we are looking and listening for, alongside an attitude of openness to the unexpected, makes for authentic, transparent assessment.”  By having a shared understanding, it shapes what we are looking for as we engage with our learners.  It guides what we will document and bring back to our colleagues to assess. On page 150, Kath provides a protocol for collaborative inquiry into learner progress, which outlines each step of the calibration.  Genius!

One idea that I’ve not used is paired interviews.  Kath states, “At the end of a personal inquiry, before or after learners have shared their learning with others, learners can team up to interview each other about the experience.”  I really like this idea of hosting the interview before the sharing, so they aren’t focused on the product, but the process they have gone through.  This will make it easier to share those ideas with the rest of class or small group later.  On pages 148-49, there are some reflection sheets for early years and elementary age.

​Sharing and taking action

Kindergartners sharing their understanding at Creation Village World School

​“Enabling even our youngest learners with the belief that they can take action to bring about change is surely one of the most significant purposes of schooling in the twenty-first century.”  While reading this quote, my mind reeled through different children that have inspired me by their actions.  Here are some young people who have taken action that you may know while others you may not. 

• Malala Yousafzai - the youngest Nobel Peace Prize laureate for standing up for the educational rights of girls in Pakistan.  At 15 years old, she was advocating for these rights shot at while engaged with a mob.

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• Greta Thunberg - climate and environmental activist.  At 16 years old, she addressed the United Nations about the seriousness of climate change. 

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• Thomas Suarez - app creator and innovator.  At 12 years old, he created apps founded a school club for fellow peers

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• Jasmine Roberts - for a science fair project, she tested ice from major fast food chains.  She found that 70% of her ice specimens were dirtier than the toilet water in the restaurant.  At 12 years old, she shared her journey on Oprah. 

These are everyday learners who saw a need and filled it.  How did they do it?  They have parents, educators, and community members that saw their passion and set the conditions for it to turn into action.  To create those conditions, we can begin by asking “so what” questions.  Kath reminds, “The implications of this deceptively simple question can leave us feelings both inspired and decidedly uncomfortable.”  Here are some of her “so what” questions that can be found on page 151.: 

• ‘So, what has this all been for?’
• ‘So what does this all mean?’
• ‘So, what might you do with this that would be helpful to others?’

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Kath quotes Michele Martin, which sums up our purpose in taking action beautifully.  She says, “It’s about giving kids a say, a choice.  Letting them delve into something that they’re really deeply passionate about for their own selves, in their own lives or for the greater good of the community or even their family.  It’s about what they really want to do in their heart.  So they need to see that we’re invested in it as they are.  And then they want to do it.  They want to act.  It’s not ‘I want to do it for this teacher’ - ‘I want to do it for myself but they (the adults) have got my back’.”

What can we do to support action daily?  Kath has many suggestions that you can read more in-depth about on pages 153-154; 158.  My favorite is an entire page of ways to make a contribution.  It’s almost like a Wordle of big ideas and the most relevant are bolded.  

To share with our peers and provide feedback, Kath has given many examples on pages 154-157.  No surprise, she has some amazing questions and exit tickets that spark the reflection while sharing feedback.  

Well, that’s it for this episode.  Be sure to join us for section 4.