Month: March 2021

What method of inquiry will I bring into my practice?

Transformative Inquiry

“Transformative inquiry is a dynamic process that helps educators negotiate the complex and vibrant terrain of learning [to] teaching” (Tanaka, 2014).

For the moment, I have chosen the transformative inquiry as my method of moving forward with my career as an educator and a learner. I felt that this method of inquiry really resonated with me because it connects research, learning and teaching together. Where if we are focusing on one without the other, than we are leaving out a key component to our inquiry

In Transformative inquiry there are four main ideas that we need to consider to really have a well-rounded inquisitive practice (Tanaka, 2014).

• 1) Look at what is happening in your own classroom. Take observations, of what is relevant to your inquiry. What is working? What is not? How can we connect learning to real life examples? What do we see in the classroom that motivates our inquiry?
• 2) Looking into the most recent literature. Examining published research on questions similar to your inquiry. See how academia feels on a topic or in what direction their research is going.
• 3) Connecting with others.  Talking and building relationships with others to gain their perspective and ideas. This includes going to community, to parents, to colleagues and building relationships that will in turn help you gain different perspectives about your inquiry.
• 4) Self reflection. Looking at yourself, your beliefs, experiences, and passions. How can these inspiring or shifting your inquiry from its original starting place? What kind of biases are we personally applying to our inquiry?

I feel that this method of forming an inquiry really relates to me as an educator, because I personally believe that we need to keep modifying our teaching practice to become the best version of an educator that we can be. Also, I think the transformative inquiry practices gives educators the tools on how to become reflexive to the diversity in the classroom.  If we are always watching what is happening in the classroom, diving into professional development, seeking help from others, and reflecting on our practices we are going to be more in tune to who is present in the classroom and their needs.

Reflect on your Inquiry Question from Block 1 and what you have experienced so far. What have you learned?

Previously, the center of my inquiry as an educator was “How will changing the focus of schooling from ‘getting good grades’ to ‘learning’ through the implementation impact students mental health?”. However, this question, has already been shown in the literature. It has been determined that using grades can put an unnecessary pressure and stress on students to preform and receive a high mark, or if they cannot achieve this, they often become discouraged and remove themselves from the learning experience (Gonser, 2020). However, this is exactly the opposite of our goal as educators. We want students to learn, not to get an arbitrary letter grade.

Therefore, I am shifting my inquiry to the question: “how can we implement gradeless and holistic assessment as summative assessment in our classrooms and get all the students and parents on board?”

So far, what I have experienced is reluctance from both parents and students towards using holistic assessment because it is familiar to them and they understand it. Or having parents and students wanting to know what the equivalent rank a step in holistic assessment is to the letter grade system. However, I have had only a small amount of time in the classroom in my most recent practicum. So, I hope, with more time and practice in the transformative inquiry I will learn how to better incorporate it into my classroom.

Connect your inquiry with your EDUC 391 practicum experience, coursework, and EDUC 405.

So far this block, a common theme was inclusion. Where each class gave us a strategy to bring all students into the learning space. Either through holistic assessment (EDUC 421), through making and choice (EDUC 399), by through lesson planning (EDUC 391), by bringing the First People’s Principles of learning into our pedagogy and valuing and giving space to practice teaching through story and the exploration of self and identity (EDUC 446). Lastly, the process of transformative inquiry (EDUC 405) I think will allow me the reflective and inquisitive strategies to figure out how to incorporate all these strategies into my teaching practice and optimize it.

However, what was common throughout all the courses is that we want all students to be included in the learning. I feel connects to my transformative inquiry though creating a way to bring our focus back on the learning and away from the result of the assessment so that all students feel represented in the learning such that all students can feel success and not only the students who get A’s.

I think that if we can generate the buy-in from student and parents into the holistic assessment practices, we can change the mentality around learning which should relieve the stress that students feel from grades.

Goals moving into next semester…

• Commit to the creation of holistic learning experiences with wide entry points so all students can enter the learning.
• Work on the practice of transformative inquiry – connecting with coaching teachers, parents, and the students about holistic assessment and how to make the learning relevant to the students who are present in the classroom.

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Gonser, S. (2020, March 16). 4 reasons teacher are going gradless. Retrieved from edutopia: https://www.edutopia.org/article/4-reasons-teachers-are-going-gradeless

Tanaka, M. (2014). Transformative Inquiry. Victoria: Transformative Inquiry Research Group. Retrieved from https://books.apple.com/ca/book/transformative-inquiry/id854038743?ign-mpt=uo%3D4

This semester, I was fortunate to take part in EDUC 391 otherwise known as our short practicum. This comprised of teaching 25% of the time over a three week period.

What went well? What were my strengths as a future educator?

I felt like I have really grown as an educator during my EDUC 391 practicum. I found that I gained a lot of confidence in myself as a presenter and as a source of information for the students. With that confidence, I felt that my pacing and transitions in class also improved.

Prior, I was nervous to give the lesson, and as a result, I would go way too fast, and students would not have the necessary time to copy their notes or process the information so that they could ask questions. However, as the practicum went on, and my confidence grew, I able to have better pacing, reiterating the information in a different way, finding applicable examples which in turn made my lessons more meaningful.

I also felt through the practicum that I was able to improve my transitions between work periods, the lesson, and the break. I quickly found that I was not going to be able to speak over the students to get their attention. So, what I did was dim the lights as a signal for the students’ attention, then I could tell the students that we were moving into the lesson etc. Conversely, I would make sure that I gave the instructions to the work we would be doing before I turned the lights back up. I tried to make the association ‘dim lights = lesson / I need attention’ and ‘bright lights = work time’.

What needed improvement? What were your stretches?

After this practicum, I felt that my biggest stretch was teaching from the self.

Throughout the practicum, as I had previously mentioned, I gained a lot more confidence in presenting the lesson. However, what I found challenging was really teaching from the self. I felt it was easy to hide behind a note package and present the information traditionally- especially at the beginning when I was nervous about presenting the information in the first place. Even as I grew more confident, I still did not really feel like I was showing any personality in the lessons. In a way, I question if I may have felt this way because I was using my coaching teacher’s note packages, with little modifications. So, since it was not the wording or order I may have put it together, is why I did not feel myself entirely.

 I hope to work on this as I move forward, becoming more comfortable with the content modifying resources to fit my teaching style, I will be able to teach from the self. I also think that with experience, I will be able to mind more relevant examples and stories that help connect myself to the content, as well as to the place.

What are you curious about? What’s next? What do you want to learn or develop further in EDUC 490?

What I want to learn more about before the next practicum is how to plan for diversity and implement it. I found during my practicum it was hard to plan for diversity when teaching Science 9. I found that I would give the same worksheet or textbook questions, but my plan for diversity was giving that student more support to complete the same task as the rest of the class.  However, I felt like this was not enough; or that I should have done more.

On the other hand, there is very little that I was able to find in terms of resources to teach to a grade 9 classroom at a variety of levels. So maybe, a point of future inquiry or professional develop will go into looking for or making those resources accessible to others in the future.