June 2022

Inquiry Action projects have been a component of professional learning at the School since 2018. Celebrations of learning also form part of the process. Participants create a poster and make their thinking visible in relation to the focus question they choose. The posters are designed on butchers paper and are not supposed to be a polished artefact, rather, they show the participant’s journey, messy thinking, as well as their challenges and successes in pursuit of their question. Poster creation is guided by these prompts: My Inquiry Action question is … Some actions I took were … The payoffs were … What is next?

Each year, educators at BGGS take part in a Gallery Walk of their colleagues’ posters. The debrief has traditionally involved a noticing phase, a questioning phase, and connections to teaching practice. This has been a lovely way for teachers to value the thinking and actions of others and has prompted thinking about connections, challenges, and changes in their own practice. The benefits of involvement in Inquiry Action are many. Developing a community of practice amongst teachers where the important moments of teaching are explored and discussion about teaching, learning, and thinking is valued, says a great deal about our School culture. Inquiry Action projects at BGGS have no doubt been a factor in shifting culture, increasing collaboration, and transforming classroom learning. We can see the value of such a project in the words of a recent participant, Ms Belinda Lindsay, who was investigating how to encourage her students to take more artistic risks in Drama: I am ‘flipping the focus from being about outcomes, to being more about process’. I focused on ‘incrementally allowing opportunities for students to build up to showing and sharing’.

I have learned about modelling my own thinking to students— ‘I started to say things like it’s ok to get it wrong, please ask questions, I don’t know the answer to that, what I might try is this …’ ‘I liked being able to come together with other teachers from all different teaching areas and share ideas, and … it was surprising to take things from what somebody was doing in French … I can apply that in my discipline’. I have pivoted my practice and was inspired by ‘sparking curiosity and encouraging students to ask their own questions’. Getting students to ‘value the questioning phase … prioritising, thinking more deeply, critically’. I will continue to ‘show students I am learning too, trying new things, but in a way that inspires students … I use “What makes you say that?” all the time’. Inquiry Action and study groups are a key part of teacher growth at BGGS. Sharing cross-faculty conversations and teacher observations about student work and interactions, provide a big picture of practice. Offering Inquiry Action projects and study group facilitation each year, shows how highly we value stories of planning, action, and reflection. Inquiry Action participation can inspire the transformation of practice.

Sources Stringer, E. (2008). Action Research in Education. Pearson Education. Kemmis, S., & McTaggart, R. (2000). Participatory Action Research. In N. Denzin & Y. Lincoln (Eds.). Handbook of Qualitative Research. Sage: 567-606. Kemmis., S., McTaggart., R. & Nixon, R. (2014). The Action Research Planner. Springer. Patterson., C. (2022). Creating Cultures of Thinking. Churchill Fellowship Study Project 2019: 1-44. Ritchhart, R. (2015). Creating Cultures of Thinking: the 8 forces we must master to truly transform our schools. Jossey-Bass.

School Wide Pedagogy Newsletter June Edition 2022

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