Kath Murdoch Teaching and Learning Through Inquiry: Berlin February 2017 Day 2

Tuning In
After an evening inquiring into the city of Berlin we find ourselves back at the Berlin Brandenburg International School and Kath Murdoch starts the day by asking us: How are you feeling this morning? 


It seems like a simple question! We share on the trusty post it notes and ask a few questions in our groups.

Then she asks these questions to help us go deeper...

• Is this feeling a driver or a blocker to your learning? 
• What can you do to stop the blocking feelings from blocking? 
• What can you or other people do to help you change or capitalise on your feelings?

This 'Be more dog' video can be used as a provocation to think about changing behaviour, feelings or thinking. What can you do to be more dog?



The thread from yesterday about knowing yourself and your students and your students knowing themselves as learners and being in touch with how they are feeling continued. The four rooms of change was suggested as another way of thinking about how you are feeling and how this will impact on your learning (simplified from this theory) Which room are you in? Use the four rooms to inquire into yourself and how you are feeling.

Journeys of Inquiry

The next part of the day focussed on the path you take as you inquire. 'Inquiry teachers are highly intentional. The more you know where you are headed the better positioned you are to take the unexpected route to get there.' Kath Murdoch, Berlin, February 2017

We thought about how the PYP offers us a framework for inquiry and considered the familiar question of what do we want our students to understand, be and do?

Kath talked about the importance of keeping an eye on the curriculum. She challenged us to ask ourselves: Have we set this up so that we hit these outcomes? Do we know what the concepts are that we are working towards? How will we know when students understand them? Are the concepts that we have attached to our units worth knowing about?

As a group we discussed: Are there any units in our school that we feel have concepts/big understanding in them that are not worth knowing about? The grade 2 and the grade 5 teachers present discussed their current units and identified the concepts of change, identity, family, connection and perspective as being important and valuable ideas to think about.

'Questions are at the heart of an inquiry.' Kath Murdoch, Berlin, February 2017

Q Chart to support with forming questions
from http://oneandwonder.blogspot.de

Still on the topic of questioning we tried out the 5 Whys protocol. We started with the question 'Why is teacher questioning so important?'  and our partners had to ask us four more Why questions which connected to the answers. This protocol helped us to focus on listening, connecting and going deeper.

Common questioning traps:

Guess what's in my head

Closed questions with 

Questioning to large group and responding only to individuals hands up (no think, pair, share)

Lack of probing-not going deeper (question-response-probe but just question-response, question-response)

Not leaving wait time or silence

Let's try not to do these! Be conscious of your questioning behaviour. As your students for feedback on your questioning.

What are we already doing?

It was reaffirming for us that much of what Kath Murdoch shared as good practice, relating to inquiry, were things that are already well imbedded and part of the everyday learning and teaching in our school. The use of visible thinking routines to 'get inside the students heads' and to see what they are thinking, supporting students to ask relevant and effective questions and research in a variety of ways, teachers asking meaningful questions to try to go deeper, using the inquiry cycle as a framework and observing and listening to children's interests to help us to go further are all things that we felt familiar with and understood the importance of.

Reflections from the ISZL group...What are your take aways?

'This weekend has reaffirmed that what I am doing in the classroom and what we are doing as a school is on the right path'

'This workshop has made me think about the idea of Release. This will be my focus going back to the classroom on Monday.'

'The quote 'Please don't do it for me, teach me how to do it myself' was one that resonated with me.'

'Time. Having the time to connect with what Kath was talking about to our own classroom practice and generate ideas that we can try out in the classroom was really valuable.'

Final Thought About Inquiry 
What does this say about inquiry? A good one to show to teachers, parents and students to get them thinking about learning.