ETL401 – Inquiry skills in the Australian Curriculum
Mandy Lupton, a lecturer in teacher librarianship at QUT. She explores and analyses inquiry skills in the Australian Curriculum specifically in the areas of Science, History and Geography in her 2014 article Inquiry skills in the Australian Curriculum. This article was quite interesting to me in regards to my next assessment in ETL403, as I am looking at the area of science in K-6 and how a TL could collaborate with a classroom teacher to teach a unit that involves inquiry learning. I am interested in Lupton’s point of view about ‘scientific inquiry’ as part of the Australian Curriculum too.
I currently teach in NSW and as a result, we use the NSW Curriculum and Syllabuses. Both the NSW Curriculum and the Australian Curriculum have learning areas and though these differ slightly in each, the area of science is common. Lupton says that in the Australian Curriculum she found that ‘guided investigation’ is defined as ‘an investigation partly directed by the teacher’, conversely in the NSW Science Syllabus this notion of ‘guided investigation’ is not clearly addressed in the glossary. ‘Inquiry’ and ‘investigation’ are seen as two seperate ideas and defined as such in the NSW Syllabus glossary and it is not until you delve deeper into the skills of ‘working scientifically‘ that the NSW K-6 syllabus somewhat addresses inquiry skills and states and they are “at the core of inquiry and are developed by conduction practical investigations and research in Science and Technology’
Lupton says that ‘geographical inquiry in the Australian Curriculum is the most sophisticated and comprehensive” and the same could also be said for the NSW Syllabus Geography Syllabus. In terms of Science, Lupton confirms that “Science seems more limited. Inquiry skills are portrayed only as the experimental method.” With the term of “inquiry learning” lacking in both the Australian Curriculum and NSW Syllabus, opting for “inquiry skills”, Lupton makes a pertinent argument that this is a key opportunity for the teacher librarian to be “curriculum innovators” in the use of the whole of the curriculum and thus “bridging and strengthing the gap” between the role of the classroom teacher and the teacher librarian. I am drawn to the ideas Lupton put forward in her investigation of inquiry learning science models and am now wondering what information literacy model would best suit this approach and which one would best suit my particular, relatively small K-6 school and look forward now to analysing these models further. Each starting with a posed question by the teacher (which is how I would begin), followed by some teacher-introduced background information, then allowing student-directed learning to occur (with teacher support if needed). I believe that I may need to look further into the Martin-Hansen (2002) model as it seems to align most with my own methodology.
Interestingly, the Australian Curriculum has just released a review of the curriculum this week and it would now be pertinent to compare some of the concerns and inconsistencies that Lupton addresses in her article with this review and its aim of “refining, realigning and decluttering the content so it focuses on the essential knowledge and skills students should learn and it is clearer for teachers on what they need to teach”. I am wondering if there will be greater consistency with inquiry learning or if the idea of inquiry skills will remain.
Resources
- Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority. (ACARA) (2021) Australian Curriculum review consultation. https://www.australiancurriculum.edu.au/consultation/
- Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority. (ACARA) (n.d.) F-10 Australian Curriculum. https://australiancurriculum.edu.au/f-10-curriculum/
- Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority. (ACARA) (n.d.) F-10 Australian Curriculum. https://australiancurriculum.edu.au/f-10-curriculum/science/glossary/
- NSW Government Educations Standards Authority (NESA) (2017) Science and technology K-6 syllabus https://educationstandards.nsw.edu.au/wps/portal/nesa/k-10/learning-areas/science/science-and-technology-k-6-new-syllabus
- NSW Government Educations Standards Authority (NESA) (2017) Science and technology K-6 syllabus: Glossary https://educationstandards.nsw.edu.au/wps/portal/nesa/k-10/learning-areas/science/science-and-technology-k-6-new-syllabus/glossary
- Lupton, M.(2014). Inquiry skills in the Australian Curriculum v6, Access, November