For this week’s inquiry blog post, I will expand on a few select points from my notes for chapters 1 – 6 of Dive Into Inquiry (MacKenzie, 2016).

Dive into Inquiry Chapters 1-6 Notes

  • I have heard that some administrators expect to see a year’s plan before the beginning of the school year. And so, my question is: How does administration view the process of using the first few weeks of school to co-design the curricular content with students for the year/semester? Does this freedom need to come with established trust? What did MacKenzie (2016) need to overcome or provide in way of evidence to have administration support his approach?
  • “Make learning visible” (p. 20) sounds very reminiscent of the early childhood education (ECE) literature pertaining to Reggio Emilia, documentation, and pedagogical narrations in British Columbia. I wonder if this terminology has from ECE…
  • Inquiry is “the process of being open to wonder and puzzlements and coming to know and understand the world” (Alberta, Focus on Inquiry, 2004; as cited in MacKenzie, 2016, p. 22)
  • Inquiry-based learning is “a process where students are involved in their learning, create essential questions, investigate widely and then build new understandings, meanings, and knowledge. That knowledge is new to the students and may be used to answer their essential question, to develop and may be used to support a position or point of view. The knowledge is usually presented to others in some sort of a public manner and may result in some sort of action” (Alberta, Focus on Inquiry, 2004; as cited in MacKenzie, 2016, p. 22)
  • MacKenzie (2016) talks about flipping control in the classroom, empowering student learning and scaffolding with the Types of Student Inquiry (Structured Inquiry, Controlled Inquiry, Guided Inquiry, Free Inquiry). Question: I wonder if there have been students who are so acclimatized to a teacher-led model that they do not ever feel comfortable with the gradual release of responsibility approach he talks about taking with the students in his class(es).
  • The author refers to Understanding by Design by McTighe and Wiggins, which is a resource I will need to look into.
  • I appreciate the listing of the twenty-first century learners soft skills: curiosity, creativity, initiative, multi-disciplinary thinking, and empathy, growth mind-set, grit, character. Having experienced the Japanese macrosystem, it is the last two, grit and character that I think students in Victoria, BC may need to focus on. It would help if the adults in their lives were more able to model characteristics like grit and character.

Partway through chapter four, MacKenzie (2016) provides a QR code link to a video entitled, If students designed their own schools. I have revised my inquiry planning sheet to add this as next week’s learning task, including the activity of listing the pros and cons, as described in MacKenzie (2016).