pedagogies – Portable Magic

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Inquiry Skills in the Australian Curriculum

On May 9, 2021

Module 5.3a: discuss Lupton’s article “Inquiry skills in the Australian Curriculum” and the potential impact of her analysis on the need for an inquiry learning model in your school.

Mandy Lupton (2012) offers an analysis of the 2011 Australian Curriculum in Science, History and Geography – with History and Geography being in the draft stage at the time. Her analysis compares and contrasts the learning objectives, skills and abilities expected of students across different year levels, finding inconsistencies and limitations especially in the Science curriculum.

Inquiry skills in the Australian Curriculum for Science are limited to predicting, planning, conducting, processing, evaluating and communicating data – what’s missing is ‘interpretation’ (Lupton, 2012, p.14). The focus is on gathering data which can better reflect the inquiry process (as opposed to history which emphasises the need to gather information, which implies ‘facts’) (p.15) Science also restricts independent student questioning to a Year 7 start (p.15). Overall, the “role of information literacy is weak” with the emphasis on gathering empirical data through experiments (p.15).

I am especially interested in this as I have selected Year 5 Science for my inquiry learning assignment (Assessment Task 3). Lupton notes that the US National Research Council identified a need for information literacy but that this has not been reflected in the Australian Curriculum: Science. As such, school science inquiry is not ‘authentic’.

Lupton sees this as an opportunity for the teacher librarian to “unite the strands” of Science Understanding, Science as a Human Endeavour and Science Inquiry Skills (p.15). I am interested at where the crossovers are between the science inquiry skills and the General Capabilities, especially Critical and Creative Thinking (CCT). This could further support Lupton’s view that “a lost opportunity for ACARA” is a new one for teacher librarians (p.18), as the CCT strand fills in the gaps in the Science curriculum’s Inquiry Skills strand.

References

Lupton, M.(2014) Inquiry skills in the Australian Curriculum v6, Access, November. pages 12-18. https://search-informit-org.ezproxy.csu.edu.au/doi/10.3316/INFORMIT.584040093322031

Thoughts on Literacy

By Shannon Badcock

On May 8, 2021

In Discussion forum, ETL401, Reflection post

KELLEPICS / Pixabay

I never knew ‘literacy’ was such a complex term but, as with ‘information’, it is not as simple as it sounds. I definitely consider the term to be more of a concept (a sophisticated and complex idea) but one that was grounded in something tangible: knowing how to read and write. Of course, listening, speaking and viewing are also literacy skills; all five work together.

Literacy starts with the alphabet and phonics but is not just a recognition and understanding of visual symbols and the sounds they make; the semiotic system includes 5 key modes of communication: visual, linguistic, aural, gestural and spatial. We use all of these in order to construct meaning in our interactions, when we watch a game of footy, listen to music, ask someone for a favour.

Maryanne Wolf (2009) explains that we are not born to read but must create a ‘reading circuit’ from scratch; in turn, literacy reshapes our brains. It is a fascinating concept and a timely reminder to read Proust and the Squid, which I’ve had sitting on my shelf for over 10 years!

But the part of Wolf’s article that really resonated with me, and which makes clear the connection between literacy and inquiry learning, is where she explains the “sophisticated set of comprehension processes” that allow us not only to be literate at the most basic level, but to think beyond the text. This is ‘critical thinking’ and I share Wolf’s concern that new technologies (especially mobile devices) might be reshaping children’s brains in ways that impede their ability to think, if for no other reason than the fact that it does so much for us, quickly and efficiently, so that we do not need to develop that process in our own brains.

Wow. And, wow.

In that context, the integration of critical thinking and inquiry learning in schools can be seen to be even more important – it’s not just about what future employers want. Implied in all this is the risk that we could actually make ourselves, as a species, well, dumber. But the research isn’t there yet, it’s too soon to see the consequences and already people are conscious of a desire to ‘get back to basics’ for themselves and their families. Literacy is a complex term that encompasses a broad scope of contexts and modes, and while ‘Siri’ and other ‘helpful’ devices might have a longitudinal impact on the development of ‘comprehension processes’, it is also true that our world is more complex than ever and new demands are being made on our brains. Context shapes us just as we shape context. Our ability to make meaning from the world around us just got more interesting.

References

Wolf, Maryanne. (2009). Beyond decoding words in Does the brain like ebooks? New York Times [blog] https://roomfordebate.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/10/14/does-the-brain-like-e-books/?_r=0

Mindset challenges for collaboration in a school environment

By Shannon Badcock

On May 2, 2021

In Discussion forum, ETL401

Discussion forum 4.2.

I asked my husband, who teaches in a small, low-SES primary school, about collaboration and he expressed a view that is wide-spread: I don’t share because I don’t get any credit for my work (paraphrased).

To review what the barriers to successful collaboration really are, the top of the pile is this:

We don’t really understand what it means to collaborate or how it could benefit us or our students.

We think it’s just about sharing resources. We confuse it with the other, closely-related terms identified by Montiel-Overall (2005, p.25): networking, coordination, cooperation and partnership. Each is valuable and necessary but they probably don’t involve the shared thinking that she identifies as an important first step in the collaboration process.

The second key barrier is this lack of acknowledgement and recognition felt by most educators. That no one sees what we do, our successes both big and small, or appreciates the time, effort and personal expertise that we put into our work. The paradox is that, we are so caught up in the idea that no one recognises our expertise (Gibson-Langford, 2008, pp.32-3) – our ‘personal mastery’, as Senge (2007) calls it – that we can become blind to other people’s areas of expertise.

When we are time-poor and beset on all sides by more and more demands, both administrative and curriculum-based, and there’s no structural support for yet another professional development ‘requirement’ that feels and sounds like just another fad (teachers are skilled at looking and sounding compliant with the latest top-down initiative while knowing that in a couple of years it will be forgotten and the school will move on, so what’s the point in expending energy you don’t have?), we feel that ‘collaboration’ is the enemy. This perspective is based on the lack of conceptual understanding mentioned above, and a very clear understanding of the realities of teaching, at any level. At some schools, especially primary schools, teachers in a grade level are told what to teach and how in their ‘professional learning communities’ (PLCs); the school culture is a cohesive one with rigorous standards for teachers and students alike, but there’s arguably little to no creativity.

They say that real change (or revolution!) comes from below. The people have to want it, and drive it. In a school setting, senior staff need to be in touch to see what’s going on and support it, but as soon as it becomes a directive, it will be sure to fail.

Others have already mentioned it of course, but I agree that it needs to start with one receptive teacher. And because of the misunderstandings of what collaboration actually entails – the misinformed belief that it is simply sharing resources from which others can benefit while you receive no credit – it would be important that the TL does not call it ‘collaborate’ at first. Maybe after, when reflecting and assessing how it went with the colleague teacher, but not when initiating it. It needs to be disguised so that the jaded classroom teacher doesn’t shift into cynical, resistant mode. It can’t be forced, it needs to be organic, growing from an informal conversation (as described in some of the readings).

As a classroom teacher (I work one day a week in the school library, as support for the two TLs and the students, and to learn the job), I can honestly say I didn’t understand what ‘collaboration’ meant, and I know from my experiences and conversations with others, that no one really does. Spenge (2007) describes structural change, a shared vision and rethinking ‘mental models’ (p.8) as a means for empowering employees at all levels and driving up corporate successes. I can’t help but feel that the school environment is a bit different, that the types of people attracted to teaching are already the ‘lone ranger’ types. And, ironically, teachers themselves tend to have fixed mindsets and be resistant to learning new things. We’ve all observed it, even in ourselves.

So I would argue that it is really important for the Teacher Librarian to understand these mindsets (and I think they already understand it, better than anyone!), and keep this in mind when approaching teachers. As Karen Bonanno said in her speech at the 2011 ASLA conference, “A profession at the tipping point”, the idea is to find the one teacher in the school who wants to work with you and build on the success from that collaborative partnership. As a TL I plan to invite myself (via the Learning Area manager) to LA meetings in each department, not only to find out what’s going on but also to get a sense of who might be receptive to collaboration.

Because there’s no doubt that great things can happen when we want it.

References

Bonanno, K. (2011). A profession at the tipping point: Time to change the game plan. https://vimeo.com/31003940.

Gibson-Langford, L. (2008). Collaboration: Force or forced, Part 2. Scan, 27(1), 31-37

Montiel-Overall, P. (2005). A theoretical understanding of teacher and librarian collaboration, School Libraries Worldwide, 11(2), 24-48.

Senge, P. (2007). Chapter 1: Give me a lever long enough … and single-handed I can move the world. In The Jossey-Bass reader on educational leadership, 2nd ed. (pp.3-15)

Inquiry Learning

By Shannon Badcock

On April 29, 2021

In Discussion forum, ETL401

Discussion forum 4.1b

Photo by JJ Jordan on Unsplash

Are the acquisition of 21st century skills and the focus on accountability mutually exclusive?
(You may wish to consider what problems and barriers teachers and TLs may face in schools which adopt inquiry learning.)
What issues might stand in the way of inquiry learning in the school?
What issues might stand in the way of collaboration between teachers and teacher librarians to carry out inquiry learning?

Note: I’ve included some background info and rambled a fair bit as it helps me develop my thinking.

The Australian Curriculum and ’21st century skills’ aren’t particularly compatible. 21st century skills have been incorporated into the national curriculum as the ‘General Capabilities’, which are currently under review. These are:

Digital literacy
Critical and creative thinking
Personal and social capability
Ethical understanding
Intercultural understanding

The Australian Curriculum website explains that “The general capabilities are not stand-alone subjects but are taught through the learning area content in the Australian Curriculum. Not all general capabilities will be developed in every learning area. They are only included in learning area content where they can be developed in authentic and meaningful ways.” (Australian Curriculum Review: General Capabilities, 2021)

The key point here is that each General Capability (GC) is not meant to be the focus of a unit of study, but are elements that should be incorporated into the teaching and studying of a topic, as in, you should be doing it anyway. But no doubt, many teachers don’t, hence the need to spell it out.

An example of the Critical and Creative Thinking capability, current and revised:

ACARA Consultation Curriculum, page 4

The point that you don’t need to use it in teaching everything, all year (an impossibility anyway, for all 5 GCs), makes it a bit more flexible and relevant. Therefore, it shouldn’t be at odds with the other focus of the curriculum: accountability.

Looking at the elements of this GC (above), it is clear that it is a Guided Inquiry (GI) model. A Guided Inquiry is a framework of self-motivated learning where the teacher provides a question and the students research it, after figuring out how to go about this process. On its own, it would be a disaster: it requires students to have certain abilities (not least of which is getting along with others, knowing how to research topics and disseminate and evaluate information, and how to write and explain things) and these must be taught.

‘Accountability’ is the requirement of assessment, as in, how do we know how well the student is doing? Are they progressing and improving? What have they learned? Outcomes are a necessary feature of teaching and learning, though standardised testing like NAPLAN doesn’t sit well with me. I’m not even that keen on exams, having had many students who have made great strides during the year, mastered complex concepts, improved their written expression and grown as a person and a member of a community, do poorly in an exam because the medium is just not equitable. And the issue with tests like NAPLAN is the need to use computers to assess students’ work (because of the vast volume of work to assess); even if it were still people doing it, there’s issues with that too (as anyone who teaches a creative writing course and comes out of a moderation meeting absolutely purple after arguing over whether a student’s work deserves an A or a C knows!). It’s not a perfect system.

But there are so many issues, on all fronts, for all styles of pedagogy. This is what makes the jobs of teachers and TLs so complex and difficult: the whole student must be taken into consideration, and it gets messy.

[para. 6] On paper and in high SES schools, GI sounds amazing and rich and invigorating. But you can’t do it all year long, in every subject; it can’t be the only thing you do; and not every class or student would benefit from it. It works nicely with middle class and upper class children who do not have learning difficulties (such as Global Delay or Foetal Alcohol Syndrome); who are not disruptive or aggressive because they have super difficult home lives or extreme trauma; who attend school consistently with rarely a sick day or truancy problems – in short, with kids like my son whose school has implemented a school-wide GI model: Kath Murdoch‘s Inquiry Learning pedagogy (interesting that no one’s mentioned Kath Murdoch yet!).

To illustrate: a teacher I know went to a Kath Murdoch Professional Learning (PL) session and asked her, How would you make this work in a low SES school? Kath had no reply, because she knows: it doesn’t work. There are too many issues in the primary school classroom: students with attention spans a minute long, students with low IQs, students with severe trauma, students who barely attend, students who have no interests, elective mutes, students who let the drama in the community affect their ability to work with others, students who simply can’t read or write. Because bottom line, “true inquiry is internally motivated” (Lutheran Education Queensland, n.d.), and that’s the sticking point. So many of our students just do not have this ability to self-motivate. Left to research a topic, many will simply go on social media, watch unrelated videos on YouTube, chat, lose interest, squabble, or have absolutely no idea what it is they are meant to be doing or how to do it.

I would be very interested in hearing about the experiences of someone who had got it to work in a really low SES school. I’m not saying it’s impossible, but there’s just no support in place – i.e. funding – to enable success with a GI model in such a school. To expect a teacher to do this would be ridiculous when they must focus on the basics of literacy and numeracy (also General Capabilities, but not topics for a GI), classroom rules, managing behaviour etc. And these are also schools with no Teacher Librarian, which only compounds things.

The issues facing teachers and teacher librarians who want to use a GI model for a unit from the Australian Curriculum are ones facing the whole of Australia, urban and regional: the devaluing of education and generational problems in the community. If you could make it work, it would be amazing: think of what could change for these students from communities where rates of domestic violence, child neglect, drug and alcohol abuse, high unemployment, crime and teen pregnancies.

But these are kids whose development is already waaaaay behind because of issues in the early years – the late Dr Fraser Mustard (who I had the pleasure of hearing speak at a meeting in the Ontario Ministry of Education years ago: his passion for starting maternal and baby care before pregnancy up until 5-years-old was palpable, and his research should widely embraced by our governments if they really want to lift standards in Australia) articulated it well when he stressed the need to integrate health and education, rather than think of them as separate (Fraser Mustard Centre, n.d.).

In short, the key issues that make it difficult to use a GI model for teachers and teacher librarians are these:

students must have the skills, or be able to learn them through explicit teaching, in order to participate in a Guided Inquiry model, and many just don’t or cannot. They lack self-motivation and this is a tricky thing to teach.
within the scope of the subjects I teach, only the level 2 English Foundations course potentially has space and flexibility for it – the level 3 (pre-tertiary) courses do not. All of our English courses have an independent or negotiated study, but there is no time to incorporate a GI into these modules. That said, we still incorporate the GC, including critical and creative thinking, just in other ways.
implementing inquiry learning in the school requires students to be present as it’s an on-going thing over several weeks. It’s also often a group task, and you end up with one or two students having to pick up the slack for the others.
the school must have a Teacher Librarian (TL), which many don’t, in order for the classroom teacher to have the support they need, as to do this well, it must be planned out. (It looks like the teacher is abdicating their responsibilities to teach, but that shouldn’t be the case!)
the school must have a collaborative model in place, supporting teachers and TLs to work together through shared release time to plan and be in the classroom together.
Teachers are often time- and resources-poor.

References

Australian Curriculum Review: General Capabilities. (2021). https://www.australiancurriculum.edu.au/consultation/general-capabilities/

Fraser Mustard Centre. (n.d.). Department of Education South Australia. https://www.education.sa.gov.au/department/research-and-statistics/conducting-research/fraser-mustard-centre/fraser-mustard-centre-driving-high-quality-research-improve-childrens-lives

Kath Murdoch. (n.d.). https://www.kathmurdoch.com.au/

Lutheran Education Queensland. (n.d.). Approaches to learning: Inquiry based learning. https://www.australiancurriculum.edu.au/media/1360/lutheran-education-queensland-inquiry-based-learning.pdf