How do 21^st century skills and skills accountability work together? This is such a big question and one I am not going to solve by myself in a single blog post. There are expectations on both sides of the debate. On one hand we want our students to be independent thinkers, capable of posing questions about a variety of topics and interests, and using inquiry methods to answer these questions. On the other hand, there are growth point expectations with NAPLAN, HSC and LIEN testing, just to name a few.

There would be several issues that could potentially arise in a school that adopts an inquiry learning approach. These would include

• students lacking skills in being able to complete standardised tests such as NAPLAN
• reluctance for some students to participate
• Teacher not having the appropriate professional development to support students in inquiry learning

Every school I have taught in states that they do not ‘teach to the test’ for NAPLAN, however, inevitably a few weeks before NAPLAN commences, out come the past papers as a way for students to familiarise themselves with the types of questions they will be faced with. This is a dilemma every Year 3, 5, 7, and 9 teacher tackles every year. To prepare or not to prepare? From my own experience I have seen students (and parents) get very stressed and anxious about NAPLAN, but is the solution to get rid of it and lose the growth point data? Is there a better way to track learning growth and development without NAPLAN?

Some students may be reluctant to participate in inquiry learning because they are disengaged from their learning, perhaps through a learning disability, or they find the process overwhelming. This is a challenge for inquiry learning that would need to be addressed as the individual situations arise.

Inquiry learning success is also dependent on teachers being able to facilitate the inquiry learning process. Teacher who do not have the appropriate professional development in inquiry learning may not be able to support their students successfully.

These are but a handful of issues that could arise in a school which adopts an inquiry learning approach, though I feel I have raised more questions than answers.

Teacher librarians have a unique role in the school for the implementation of inquiry learning, however there are challenges that arise. Collaboration with class teachers and students is key to the success of inquiry learning but a challenge that arises is everyone’s best friend – time. Time to prepare the inquiry learning project in collaboration with the TL and class teacher, as well as time for all parties (TL, class teacher and student) to work together on the inquiry project.

I don’t feel the skills acquired in inquiry learning and the skills required for standardised testing are mutually exclusive, in that the skills learnt in one can be useful in the other. However standardised testing has given questions to answer, rather than questions to be devised by students.