Teaching as Inquiry

Where we are now Departments – every department has planned a departmental inquiry for 2015 that links to the school wide goals HODs, PD committee and staff facilitators have had preliminary training in Teaching as Inquiry (TAI) and more training to come in term 1 Call back days – all staff training on TAI and introduce personal teaching inquiries approach

Where we need to be in 2015 All departments actively involved in their departmental inquiry Everyone able to explain their departmental inquiry and what the on-going data/evidence is showing during the cycle at any time Recommend that all teachers have their own personal inquiry underway in 2015

The Big Picture In 2015, we will be aligning our key professional requirements. TAI that is done well and on-going will supply much of your evidence required for appraisal and Teachers Council registration Strategic direction Annual plans/targets Professional learning Teacher Inquiry into practice Appraisal

What is Teaching as Inquiry? “At its most basic, inquiry in schools is a process in which those involved investigate what is working well for student learning and achievement and why, so it can be continued and what is not working well and why, so it can be changed”

Getting Started 1. Planning the Inquiry: what is the focus of my inquiry based on the priorities of my learners and where they are at (data). What are the department and school goals, what other students are at risk of not learning effectively? For a personal inquiry - what is an area of my teaching practice that needs to change or improve for better learning to take place ? what teaching and learning strategies need to be adopted to make a positive change to learning. Share latest research, best practise to help make the best decisions. Not just a “gut feeling” approach.

2. Implement and Evaluate: Use data and evidence, during & after to see if the strategies made a positive difference to the learners. Store this data, evidence, comments

3. Next steps? Didn’t work? – make changes and try again or whole new inquiry Made a positive difference? – then embed into practice for long term. Choose another inquiry for another goal (or same). Inquiry becomes an on- going and regular reflective process OREWA COLLEGE TAI

In other words: What? So what? What next?

TAI Templates to get started

HoDs used this template

SLOTH Goals S omewhat vague L ack commitment O pen-ended T imid H ard to achieve

iSMART Goals I nspiring S pecific M easurable A chievable R esults driven T ime-bound

Task – setting an iSmart Goal and a possible personal TAI Write down 3 areas of your teaching practice that you would like to change, modify or improve on in For each of them write an iSmart goal in the following format By…. (timeframe) I am/I have…. (teacher practice) So that…. (student outcomes/benefits) Some Examples: By the end of Term 3 I have successfully implemented reciprocal reading with the two groups of target students in my Year 9 class so that their individual asTTle scores increase by at least two sub levels. By mid-Term 2, I am using new interactive strategies from NZ Maths with my ten Year 9 target students, to increase their numeracy knowledge, especially in place value, so that they move from working at Numeracy Stage 7 to achieving Numeracy Stage 8. iSmart goals

Next steps 1. Get actively involved in your departments TAI 2. Start planning your own personal TAI, by using iSMART goals as a starting point 3. Think about individual professional development needs for 2015, and feed that through to your HOD and PD committee 4. Collect and store the evidence of your teaching practice (13 criteria) during the year