What Am I Learning? The 1st Days of Exploration

"What are you learning?" 

"What have you learned today?"

The exploration (beginning) stage of our inquiry journey was fun!  

Within a day, it seemed we had mastered our main goal...engagement and genuine interest in exploring an idea to learn more.

Students were excited, bursting almost as they came through the door each morning to begin working with the new resources and materials that were available to them.  It was a different setting. They moved about the classroom as needed, worked where and with whom they chose and spent their time pursuing their own interests and curiosities.

Students were having FUN- this is what they said in our conversations with them.  In the early stages, most of them would not have said they were learning.  We, as the educators, were thrilled to see the engagement and very surprised by several of the ideas they had.  They were pursuing interests that we would not have thought of- and many of them were researching to learn more and writing to capture what they were learning.   This makes me think of Lucy West's recent tweet that reading and writing should be the tools for learning rather than the product.   This exploration time for the Grade 5/6 students mirrored what you might see in a Kindergarten classroom when students are engaged in self-directed 'play' or exploration.   

We wanted to be able to recognize and understand the learning that was happening. Through observation, we attempted to name the learning.  Primarily, we were seeing the skills students were developing (collaboration, questioning, problem-solving, their willingness to persevere) through their exploration.  When we asked the students about their learning, they named the content or topic they were exploring. Either they didn't recognize the skills they were using or they didn't feel they were as important.  We found this interesting but also very telling.  How explicit have we been with students about teaching the importance of learning skills and work habits?  

This confirmed the importance of our having daily conversations with the students about the skills they were using and building as they explored as well as the skills they needed to work on in order to be more successful with their learning.  We wanted them to understand that learning includes new understandings of content but also the development of skills so that they can engage in deeper learning.  We needed to increase the value of these skills for students by taking the time to help students understand them.  Daily oral reflections, regular one-to-one student conferences and planned written reflections needed to be an intentional part of our process together.  If students can be more reflective and aware of the skills they use to when faced with challenges, questions and/or curiosities when working alone or with others, they would become more successful in all areas of learning.