C98 (Book Club): Managing Personal Inquiries (Section 4)

Welcome to our final session of our club for Getting Personal with Inquiry Learning by Kath Murdoch.  This session leads out with a bang by looking at resources that make personal inquiry manageable. 

A big thanks to Bhavna Mathew for being our moderator.  As usual, she posed some deep questions for us to ponder and we used a visible thinking routine to synthesize our ideas.  What a great way to end our book club!

Making it manageable 

​Most authors leave the back of the book for the bibliography, endless templates, and genuinely a menagerie of goodies that seem overwhelming.  Not Kath, she provided us with some purpose and reminders when curating our material. 

Librarian and Library Spaces

​The library can be a valuable tool when getting learners to engage with personal inquiries.  The space is no longer a stagnant place of informational retrieval.  Now, library spaces have morphed into communal spaces that are dynamic and often driven by collaboration.  

Teacher librarians have morphed their roles to meet the demands of the learning space design.  Kath reminds us, “School librarians can assist enormously with ensuring that physical, digital, and human resources are available to all learners and the library or resource center is seen not just as a place for knowledge consumption but also knowledge creation.  Like the art and music studio or tech lab in a school, the library might be made available during personal inquiry workshops, meaning learners have more access to diverse spaces in which to work on their projects and can tap into the expertise of the librarian.” Don’t be afraid to partner with your librarian, because they are passionate and knowledgeable about texts that will support personal inquiries. 

Research

​When we have our learners begin their personal inquiry, Kath warns that many educators feel the need to get everyone on a divide to conduct “research”.  The internet is just one form of research that we can conduct.  Yes, there are a lot of YouTube videos that are useful, but we want our learners to create on their own.  Kath warns, “Different kinds of inquiries require different resources: physical, digital, local, and human.”  How are we preparing our units with this in mind? 

Here is a suggestion that Kath provides that I think might take the pressure off in finding authentic research.  “Many personal inquiries we have undertaken in my partner schools have involved learners in conducting surveys and interviews - the data from which became their main source of information.  For creative (making) projects, it can be helpful to make learners aware of the material resources available in the learning spaces, so they can pitch their ideas accordingly.”  Let’s not make it more complicated than it has to be. 

Human Resources

Out of all of her suggestions, this resource resonated with me the most.  “Within our communities, we can build a resource bank of experts to contact for personal inquiries - creating what is often referred to as a human library…a way of bringing people’s stories to the public in a safe and supported way, the emphasis being to challenge stereotypes and champion diversity.  Human libraries are held as events around the world where ‘people are the books’.”  Who can be part of your human library?”  We might include: parents, grandparents, aunts/uncles, educators, leadership, staff, and older students.  

When we are curating our human library, Kath presents some talking stems that will spark the conversations and help to dig deeper into a human story:
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• I know quite a lot about…
• I have a passion for…
• I would be happy for you to ask me about…
• Some skills I have that I could show or share are…
• I could help you to learn to…
• I could help you learn about…
• I can show you how to…
• I have had a lot of experience with…
• I know how to…

​Tangible Resources

As always, Kath has left us with a lot of resources that we can explore on our own to deepen our practice.  Be sure to take a look.

• Pgs 164-65: a thoughtfully curated list of digital resources to inspire and model personal inquiry, provoke curiosity and wonder, to teach research skills, and tools to support searching for topics with our younger learners. 

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• Pg 166: an extensive list of literature to stimulate wonder and inspire personal interests and passions within our lessons.

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• Pg 167-70:  a reference guide of books, documents, and webpages, for further reading and development

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• Pg 171-72:  a personal reflection from Kath on her personal inquiry process for writing this book and final thoughts. 

As I was talking with my peers in a break out room, I shared that even the resources section of the book had a purpose and inspired inquiry.  This speaks to Kath’s passion for her work and helping us to improve our own.  

Be sure to join for the next episode as I try to make meaningful action with the enhanced PYP.