Lupton, M.(2014)  Inquiry skills in the Australian Curriculum v6, Access, November.

A discussion on the above analysis and the impact of this for the need of an IL model in my own school.

Lupton (2014) in her analysis of the Australian Curriculum, recognises that inquiry learning is frequently referred to within many core subject areas, however, there is not one consistent framework to guide students in the development of inquiry skills.

There is a current need for an Information Literacy Model in schools and Lupton (2014) provides a proposed framework which could support a teacher librarian’s argument to implement a consistent inquiry learning approach across multiple curriculum disciplines. She specifically explores Science, History, Geography and how inquiry can be explored in the three subjects. She chooses these three subjects to analyse as inquiry is already a feature in the Australian Curriculum. She explores how inquiry is portrayed and how it is sequenced and recognises how Inquiry Learning is interpreted differently according to the discipline within it is used.

Science involves a complex and rigorous process of investigation with lab and field experiments opening the unit, hypothesis being formed and data findings being used to draw conclusions. She acknowledges that Science models within the Australian Curriculum do NOT look the same as GID as created by Kuhlthau, Maniotes and Caspari (2015). This is because GID emphasises the ISP process and the role of the teacher librarian throughout the inquiry as instead focuses on ‘guided investigation’ directed mostly by the classroom science teacher.

The Australian History Curriculum is underpinned by source work rather than experiments. This clearly relates to the context and nature of the subject area; after all history is concerned about making sense of past narratives and understanding who we are and how we act and live in this world. The advantage within this History curriculum is that key inquiry questions are provided for each year level for the two strands of ‘Historical Knowledge’ and ‘Understanding and Historical Skills.’

Lupton (2014) moves on to highlight how Geography inquiry stands out as the most sophisticated for a number of reasons. To begin with, the Geography curriculum initiates the use of critical evaluative skills earlier than Science and History. It is these skills that a teacher librarian is well positioned to nurture within an inquiry unit of work. Different inquiry question types are listed within the Geography curriculum which is helpful in developing a clearer use of inquiry skills and information literacy.

Lupton (2014) noted that the teacher librarian should be responsible for linking the inquiry skills used to the overall use of information literacy and help classroom teachers understand this. I enjoyed reading this article as it clearly valued the use of inquiry learning but there was an honesty in addressing the inconsistencies from on subject to another. After reading this article, I can certainly see how a universal approach would be very beneficial. It would help there be routine and consistency within the learning process and in processes of ISP.

Within my own school,  St Stephen’s School in Western Australia, there is a current recognition for the importance of a 21st Century pedagogy which focuses on digital technology use. However, this is still in its infancy. Subject departments can be insular in the implementation of their own teaching and learning programs and much of this is to do with the fact that teachers are inevitably time poor. Whilst teachers have good intentions, there is a lack of professional development on the research process and inquiry learning and teachers have to rely on what they know already which may/may not include knowledge of inquiry and information literacy, but more often not. It is positive that in staff meetings there has been recognition from leaders that there needs to be more focus on process and a when possible, a reduction in formative assessments.

Student inquiry happens across the curriculum but it comes in many shapes and forms. The primary school seem to be more adept at active classroom teacher and teacher librarian partnerships scheduled into the timetable weekly, with designated team teaching time for guided inquiry units. This is something I am very excited about being involved in this year, as I embark upon my new journey as a teacher librarian within upper primary as well as senior school.

In the senior school inquiry units are mainly led by the classroom teacher only, except for the subject area of HASS, which has some involvement and team teaching for the teacher librarian. It is great to be able to see the potential for increasing inquiry within the school curriculum in my role as TL and my vision is certainly not out of reach but I can imagine there will be a few hurdles ands challenges along the way!

References

Kuhlthau, C.C., Maniotes, L.K., & Caspari, A.K. (2015) Guided Inquiry Design in the 21st Century. ABC-CLIO, LLC.

Lupton, M.(2014)  Inquiry skills in the Australian Curriculum v6, Access, November.