Inquiry Question #1: Collaborate

My task was to collaborate with my school's leadership team and colleagues to identify areas where my inquiry will make a powerful contribution to the wider school and cluster goals.

Goal number 4 of our school goals for 2021 is: 

All teachers at Tamaki College will be well supported so that their practice meets the needs of their students. 

We have aligned our department goals to this school goal:

By the end of the year, we will have developed relatable practical teaching and learning resources to support the varying teaching needs of our team to meet the learning needs of the students in our Social Science classrooms.  There is a focus on our Maori and Pasifika learners.  We will construct a Social Sciences framework with which we will apply the learnings from the Standards for Profession teaching using the Tapasā as a lense, to enable all Social Sciences teachers  to have a kete/bank of strategies to support our learners across each year level.

My draft #1 Inquiry focus that I discussed with my school’s leadership team and colleagues was:

Can I develop the capabilities of my staff to accelerate learning through understanding and applying the Tapasā in a year 10 Social Studies class?

At this stage, ‘develop the capabilities’ relates to:

• Me understanding in depth the Tapasā
• Understanding where my team are and know about culturally responsive pedagogy
• Understanding where my team are and know about the Tapasā
• Wondering if kids can learn in an environment where the strategies from the Tapasā is prevalent and at the forefront of the teaching and learning/

Specific Outcomes:

• A ‘collaborative framework’ for staff in my department to develop with my guidance and support
• A ‘framework’ for success in collaboration with students
• A positive shift in achievement data related to PAT or asttle writing (possibility)

Wider school goals: 

• School goal:  Focus on school goal #4, on teacher wellbeing

Cluster wide goals: 

• Manaiakalani Achievement Challenges
• Challenges identified by Woolf Fisher at our cluster wide meeting specifically reading 

Through formal and informal discussions, I have talked to the following people:

My school’s leadership team: 

• Our School Principal (Senior Leadership team).  
• It is an inquiry that is paramount and embedded in your practice
• This is part of core business and will help staff develop cultural awareness 
• It will be useful to the growth of the department meaning that it will shift achievement in some way.
• You won’t be reinventing the wheel and should not be more work then what you are currently doing.
• Heads of Department (related to curriculum).
• How can what you learn apply to other subject areas.
• Positive in the way it can support our students.

Colleagues:  

• HOD in another department
• The more strategies the better especially around managing behaviour.
• It would be good to support staff in having restorative and meaningful conversations
• Teachers in my department
• How much more work is required?
• Can it work in my classroom? Strategies and tasks that you can see works.
• We would like support in how to scaffold collaborative groups because we don’t do it enough.
• Teachers from other curriculum areas
• I can see the value in working across curriculum areas.  How would assessments and reporting on the class look?
• Sharing ‘knowing the learner’ in a consistent centralised place important

Professional Colleague with Language and Inquiry Experience:  Dr Jannie Van Hees

• This is in two parts and maybe too big to do.  For the meantime, don’t worry about affecting learning and achievement as yet. 
• Uptake of the journey to somehow be evident in the pedagogy and then we make a projection (after analysing blogging, logging, student voice and discussions) to see what are some trends.
• Think about how you can collect evidence and measure this. 
• I think It will be interesting to see how they (not giving them do this do that) but saying from that piece of learning, I might try this and I might try that, alright go for it.  With regular checkpoints, the support will be there.

After discussing with the SLT and a number of colleagues and experts my draft#1 inquiry, I have decided to reframe my inquiry to focus on the capabilities of members of my department.  My Draft#2 of my Inquiry is along the lines of: 

How does taking teachers on a journey of growth in Tapasā affect their pedagogical implementation?. 

I will attempt to discuss this further in my next blog.