My Casual Chain

"A causal chain is when a cause leads to an effect and that effect becomes the cause of another effect.  A leads to B. B leads to C. C leads to D.  Any intervention you design will (consciously or not) be based on a causal chain you have in mind - this is your theory of action."

Here is the link to my Casual Chain.

Restating my inquiry

At the start of my inquiry, I wanted to engage and empower my year 9 Social Studies class to ‘care’ about their local community and local curriculum because I believed it was important for them to know.   Many of the kids, although born and raised in Glen Innes, don't really know about the history of the place especially Mana Whenua history, even though they may go past these places every day.  

As I gathered evidence through student voice, looking at student work, talking to other teachers and looking at their test results,  I could see that kids were still not really understanding the importance of our local history.  Much of what we did was still based in the classroom.  My beliefs about what was important to them, wasn't really matching to what I was expecting them to do.  Here, look at a map.  Can you see how far Mauninaina is?  Look at Maungarei, it's so high.  Yep, not enough.  I did some professional reading and developed some hunches and realised my inquiry needed to shift and change.What I found was that 'engaging' needed to be explored more than just taking part in or knowing.  It need to active and dynamic and authentic.  The concept of empowerment was also something that I needed to explore further.  What power were they gaining and who was it important to. 

I sat down and discussed my inquiry with 2 experts who helped me fine tune my inquiry to allow for a more specific and clear outcome.  I started with 'How will supporting students to authentically connect with their local area and community create a sense of pride and respect in their learning?' but realised that 'creating a sense of pride' was different for everyone and can't be measured.   So I've decided to rebrand my inquiry to look at: 

How will supporting students to authentically connect with their local community create a sense of belonging and provoke action for a sustainable future?

I am going to find more authentic stories/narratives to understand and share so that kids can hear a real person talk about a real place.  I am thinking about developing a short series of lessons on the local street names of streets in our areas as a start and utilise perspective taking to build critical thinking and learning for my kids.  Hopefully this would provoke action and help guide them in the future.

#7: Testing out my Hypothesis part 2

 If students were connected to their learning then they would not less be distracted and more engaged.

• Provide highly engaging relevant lessons with variety linked to what they know
• Create enough down time to do their own work.
• Let students select music which helps them to learn.
• Offer opportunities to do group work and peer work as well as one to one.
• Bring in experts who are engaging and relate to the learning.

Recently, one of our community activists and project based learning expert Karl Bailey came in to work with my year 9 class on design based thinking and learning.  My class has been one of the lucky few who were selected to help look at challenges facing young people in our community today and to think of ways to solve it.  

A few months ago, we started by getting the kids into groups and thinking about the challenge of attendance but we could see that kids weren't engaging with the context.  Karl and I brainstormed some ideas and discussed keeping it simple and engaging.  The class is made of mostly boys and asked them what they were interested in.  The majority said gaming, eating and sports.  So we decided to do a mini project whereby the kids in their groups had to design a new sport.  

Kids found it difficult to plan and figure out the pros and cons of the design.  They just wanted to get up and play it.  So it was interesting to see how kids responded and in the end, I could see they enjoyed the planning and process of the design and some of the ideas the kids had were really exciting.

#7: Testing out my Hypothesis part 1

If students were connected to their learning then they would not less be distracted and more engaged.

• Provide highly engaging relevant lessons with variety linked to what they know

• Create enough down time to do their own work.

• Let students select music which helps them to learn.

• Offer opportunities to do group work and peer work as well as one to one.

• Bring in experts who are engaging and relate to the learning.

We have started our new year 9 Social Studies on 'Understanding our Government' and the first lesson is called 'Survivor'.  This lesson involves students working in groups to survive on a deserted island with nothing more than the clothes on their backs.  They do all the activities on a big piece of A3 paper and have to work together to complete tasks.  I take them slide by slide through the powerpoint and allow them time to discuss and complete the tasks.  I did this during one of our double periods so as not to rush the teams.

It is interesting to see how each group works.  There are 1 or 2 with obvious leaders whereas others work equally together.  Students seem to enjoy the discussions and are forced to work together and get to an agreement.  At the end of the lesson, my year 9's agreed that it was a fun activity to do and they learnt about how and why working in groups can help their learning.