Teaching as inquiry in The New Zealand Curriculum is a model to support teacher inquiry into the teaching-learning relationship.
It is useful across the curriculum as a whole, and also to consider teaching and learning in relation to the key competencies in particular.
Teaching inquiry involves three inquiries:
Focusing inquiry
The focusing inquiry is about establishing what matters most. The key question that guides a focusing inquiry is ‘What is important (and therefore worth spending time on), given where my students are at?’ It establishes both a baseline, and a direction. That baseline, and direction, need not be based only on information about students’ knowledge or learning area achievement. A baseline and direction for developing students’ capabilities in the key competencies should also be a key consideration.
Which key competencies?
- The key competencies my students include most in their learning are ...
- The key competencies that have been most emphasised in our learning to date are ...
Which aspects of learning?
- The learning attitudes that are most important to improve for this group of students are ...
- The units of work that my students have been least engaged in have been ...
Which students?
- The students who are most likely to be ready and willing to seek new learning are ...
- The students who are least likely to apply their learning beyond the formal activity are ...
For example, you might notice that students:
- are more likely to suggest that they find out more information, than they are to suggest getting involved in real learning
- have a positive attitude towards some parts of the programme, but not to others
- are more inclined to seek community involvement in some learning areas than others
- show much more curiosity during one topic than another
- demonstrate awareness of values and attitudes that reflect sustainability in contexts beyond school, but less so within school.Key ideas
Further questions to prompt attention to key competencies in a focusing inquiry
Key competency considerations:
Baseline
- Which key competencies do students tend to most/least be motivated to use?
- What contexts does the programme enable students to demonstrate their competencies in? Are there other contexts that could be used?
- To what extent are students activity involved in decisions about teaching and learning to ensure their needs and aspirations are taken account of?
- What information could be used to indicate students' current competencies?
Prioritising
- Given students' current competencies, what really matters most for them?
- In which learning area/s have students had the least opportunity to date to apply their learning in an authentic context?
- Since it is impossible, and not desirable, to teach all of the knowledge in all of the learning areas, what exploration have teachers at your school done on the idea of 'meta-knowledge' and learning about the 'nature' of subjects?
Allocating time
- What proportion of time is allocated to applying learning outside of the classroom context?
- How much time is spent making connections across learning areas?
- What proportion of classroom activity is teacher directed or student-initiated?
- How much time is allocated to 'busy-work' or to rich and engaging activity?
Teaching inquiry
The teaching inquiry is about increasing the likelihood that teaching strategies will help students achieve the most important outcomes for them. The key question that guides a teaching inquiry is ‘What strategies (evidence-based) are most likely to help my students learn this?’ The teacher uses evidence from research and from their own past practice and that of colleagues to plan teaching and learning opportunities aimed at achieving the outcomes prioritised in the focusing inquiry. The evidence used to inform a teaching inquiry should also emphasise key competencies – with attention not only to evidence about how to improve, for example, knowledge or skills, but also how to improve, for example, students’ application of ideas, learning dispositions, participation, curiosity, interactions, metacognition, or self-motivation.
My approach
- I could consider different ways of ...
- I'd like to find out how to more effectively ...
- The part of my approach that has been most successful is ...
- When designing the learning sequence, I involve students by ...
The activities I use
- The activities I typically use that have probably been least helpful for my students are ...
- Students were most able to participate in authentic contexts in the activities that ...
The relationships I establish
- The key competency that is most supported by the kind of relationships I have is ...
The approach to feedback
- When I give feedback to students I think it usually focuses on the key competency of ...
- If I think about the dispositions involved in key competencies (being ready, willing, and able), I think my feedback to students emphasises ...
Learning inquiry
The learning inquiry is about investigating the success of teaching for important outcomes. The key question that guides a learning inquiry is ‘What happened as a result of the teaching, and what are the implications for future teaching?’ In a learning inquiry the teacher investigates the success of the teaching in terms of the prioritised outcomes, using a range of assessment approaches. A key competency focus in the learning inquiry suggests the importance of students being actively involved in providing feedback about what they learnt, how they learnt it, and their experience of the teaching and learning. It also requires attention to the success or otherwise on key competencies both during and at the end of the learning process. This enables the teacher to be immediately responsive to supporting key competency development.
Which key competencies?
- The key competency that was most developed during this learning was ...
- I could tell that students developed the key competency of .... because ...
- When considering the learning opportunities overall, the key competency students had the least opportunity to develop was ...
- To strengthen the opportunities students have to show their competencies, I will need to ...
Which aspects of learning?
- Examples of how attitudes to the learning shifted were ...
- Examples of how attitudes and values developed during the learning were ...
- New ideas that students grasped and applied in a meaningful way were ...
Which students?
- Some individual students who showed development in relating to others during this learning were ...
- Students who made little progress in demonstrating competencies were ...
Download a PDF of all three key competency inquiry tools:
Teaching as inquiry tool (PDF, 46 KB)
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