In today’s Going Further with Inquiry IG Live conversation with Jessica Vance we began to explore what it means to harness the power of questions in our inquiry practice. This conversation really got us thinking about all the pre-work we plan for and are intentional with before we even enter our classrooms. As we know, strong planning and mindful anticipation are pivotal in helping make inquiry authentic and successful. Although I encourage you to watch the entire Live here, I wanted to share some more of my thinking in this post.
When planning for questions I structure my reflections into three areas:
the who of the learning
the what they will be learning about
and the how they will be experience the learning
Let’s take a closer look at each.
When I consider “the who of the learning” I am referring to, of course, our learners. In preparing for their learning I always centre them in my planning, my reflections, and my mindfulness. I ask myself who are my learners? What are their strengths? What are their stretches? What do they need from me and from each other to be powerful and productive learners? I also ask myself how can I show up for my learners and be my best self? How can I most powerfully meet the needs of these students? How can I used questions to differentiate, to empower, and to foster thinking and student agency?
I find that this sort of pre-work, the planning towards “the who of the learning”, takes more time and consideration earlier in the year than the months afterwards. The more time, reflection, and thinking I put into preparing questions with my learners in mind, the easier and quicker this becomes throughout the year. It is the early investment in this process, an investment of time and prioritizing these questions and this reflective thinking, this focus pays massive dividends later. The roots of agency can be traced back to these initial decisions and the moves that I make early on. As students experience the deeper ends of the inquiry pool, we can trace this agency back to this early and powerful planning with the end in mind.
Next, when considering the “what they will be learning about”, I consider the curriculum and the know or understanding of our learning. I consider how I can spark curiosity and explore personal relevance in the classroom as students engage with provocation. i consider the questions I will ask as we get curious and how we can use structures to capture student questions, make them visible, and subsequently leverage these throughout learning. I wonder what do I want students to know and understand of the curriculum? and what questions will invite students into the curriculum?
And last, when I consider “the how they will experience the learning” I am referring to the experience I am to cultivate. I wonder how will the learning be active and how can I invite students to be both physically active as well as cognitively active? What competencies and dispositions will students flex in this learning experience? How can I make these competencies and dispositions visible to students so they can reflect on how they learn as they learn? And how can I support my students in making connections distinguishing between these two?
It is in these three realms of my planning that I find myself most often reflecting on the questions I can be more mindful of before I enter the classroom. Both in my own planning as well as when I support schools in implementing inquiry, I ensure these questions are documented in my unit planner, on post-it notes to easily refer to as I teach, or in my teacher notebook (my trusty evidencing space I likely use most often in my practice). I find that the more I plan with these realms in mind, the more effective my questioning in class becomes.