COL Meeting #1: Understanding the basis of our inquiry

Today we had our first COL meeting for the year and it was nice to see some of the team actually in person!  Our co-ordinator Russell Burt led us through our session and we started with a discussion on what life was like coming back to school, what the vibe was like in our classes, what we noticed with our families and whānau and what would excite us about the year.

Our past inquiries have been based on the 6 achievement challenges across our cluster.  After 2 years of covid, the goal posts have shifted and we are in a super challenging space where kids don’t know what ‘normal’ school is.  Our achievement challenges don’t seem to be suited to our current learners needs.  Today we were asked to think about a shared inquiry challenge question:

How do I have present, happy, healthy, engaged tauira who are learning in the “Goldilocks Zone”.

I needed to re-familiarise myself with what the Goldilocks zone meant.  When I googled it, there was the lovely Dr Jannie explaining ‘Working in the learner’s ‘Goldilocks zone on Vimeo. 

Dr Jannie explains how the Goldilocks zone is the art of providing new learning that is in the just right zone (not too easy or too hard etc).  This is the where optical conditions for learning and uptake exist.

How do we know if a child is in their ‘Goldilocks zone’. 

We need to have continuous stock take and evidence points before, during and at the end of learning.

Most usually, the expression is oral and tauira can be talking their learning.

• Think about an idea and share.
• Take turns and tell what you know.
• Think, pair share.
• Give a reason and explain abit more.
• Organise the strips into the order of the story and tell why you’ve arranged them that way.
• Arrange the words in groups that belong under one heading then explain.  

These are triggers to reveal a learners known and uptake of new information. 

Armed with this information, I hope to now refocus my inquiry to ensure that I keep the shared inquiry of How do I have present, happy, healthy, engaged tauira who are learning in the “Goldilocks Zone” at the forefront of my own inquiry.