I. General Information
School Name: NIDES
School District: SD#71 Comox Valley
Inquiry Team Members: Alison Kavaliunas: Alison.Kavaliunas@sd71.bc.ca, Marieke Holtkamp: Marieke.Holtkamp@sd71.bc.ca, Meghan McMillen: Meghan.McMillen@sd71.bc.ca
Inquiry Team Contact Email: gerald.fussell@sd71.bc.ca
II. Inquiry Project Information
Type of Inquiry: NOIIE Case Study
Grade Levels Addressed Through Inquiry: Primary (K-3), Intermediate (4-7), Secondary (8-12)
Curricular Areas Addressed: Applied Design, skills & Technology, Arts Education, Career Education, Language Arts – Literacy, Language Arts – Oral Language, Language Arts – Reading, Language Arts – Writing, Mathematics / Numeracy, Physical & Health Education, Science, Social Studies
Focus Addressed: Indigenous Focus (for example, Traditional Knowledge, oral history, reconciliation), Literacy, Numeracy, Core competencies (for example, critical thinking, communication, problem solving), Formative assessment, Land, Nature or Place-based learning, Self-regulation
In one sentence, what was your focus for the year? Our focus was on leveraging different tools to increase student agency in their learning program.
III. Spirals of Inquiry Details
Scanning: At the beginning of the school year we had our teachers review the Spirals of Inquiry “4 questions for learners”; the “3 questions for us as teachers”; review our values, philosophy, and description statements, the provincial Accountability and Quality Assurance (AQA) Framework; our 3-year plan for supporting Indigenous Students; and our District Strategic Plan. From that review, we had them answer three questions: what is going on for our learners? How do we know? Why does it matter? We took this data and summarized it into key themes.
Focus: We chose to do this to increase our focus on our end user, our students. Our schools are very diverse and broad reaching, but we were hoping common themes would emerge to link our work together. During the “Focus” stage we asked, “What will have the biggest impact?” and guided the responses with the Seven Principles of Learning (OECD) – what works for learners? We, again, summarized the collected data.
Hunch: The data showed that a major factor leading to our situation was the impact of connections:
– To learning, especially deep learning
– Between people
– To land and place
– With our communities and the world – local/global
– Between and within the Core Competencies
– To K – 12 Literacy and Numeracy Frameworks
– To First People’s Principles of Learning
New Professional Learning: We dedicated every staff meeting (1/month) to individual inquiry projects guided by our inquiry question: “How will actively working to make meaningful connections impact student learning?” Each teacher took on an inquiry project, following the Spirals of Inquiry Model, and shared their findings at each meeting. We also maintained a Padlet with guiding questions each month.
Taking Action: Due to the size and complexity of our programming, we knew this would be a multi-year process. Each teacher has what they learned and what their colleagues learned about improved connections. They will be taking this new learning and applying it to their practice beginning in September. Some examples include starting a book club; sharing observation journals; increasing direct correspondence with students in grades 10 – 12; updating the scope and sequence to better utilize daily routines, math talks, and digital resources to improve student engagement, learning, and parental comfort; increase use of discussion boards to support asynchronous learners; and introduce weekly Zoom meetings with families.
Checking: Depending on how one defines one’s goal will dictate these conditional questions. We did achieve our goal of having teachers focus on increasing connections in a myriad of ways. This was evidenced through conversations, reporting, and increased engagement of our teachers. We learned a lot about which connections have higher leverage potential and which do not. We also learned that we were on the right track and that our teachers want to continue this work next school year.
Reflections/Advice: I think the greatest learning I had was the importance of going slower rather than working to get the task done. The Spirals of Inquiry can be used for smaller, more finite inquiries; but they also work for larger, more broad-based inquiries. We are using this framework in all aspects of our learning community by adjusting our time and expectations. The major challenge we have, moving forward, is how to take the many disparate parts of this inquiry and glean systemic learning and value from them in a manner that can be shared and used.