Getting Started

Welcome to Inquiry Learning Redefined!

How this journey began...

My name is Tracey Walsh.  I am an Instructional Consultant and work closely with Kindergarten educators.  The more I learn, the more I see connections between Kindergarten and the ministry's pedagogy right through to Grade 12.  

I strongly believe we need to be making some cultural mindset shifts in education. Teaching and learning need to look different today than they did in the past.  The demands of our world and our students insist that that they do.  Seeing the impact of some of these shifts in kindergarten has me excited about what this could mean for older students too. This blog is an attempt to capture the journey of some of our shifting mindsets.  

Samantha Dales is the Grade 5/6 teacher I am working with.  Our rethinking learning goals focus on honouring an engaging student voice and allowing for student choice and exploration of their own ideas.  

Our vision of Innovative (or inspired) learning is when:

• Student ideas are central to the learning that happens; they are encouraged to invent, create, investigate, explore and/or research  
• Students are passionate about learning more because they truly believe they have a role in what is happening
• Students understand that their voice really matters and is necessary in order to learn  
• Students and teachers are collaborators in and co-constructors of learning

This is the culture we'd like to create.  Together, we believe this is possible.  

Kindergarten Connections

In Kindergarten, we talk about our "image of the child as being curious and competent, capable of complex thinking and rich in potential."  We also focus on the learning environment as providing an invitation to students for learning as well as the materials we provide as provocations to elicit thinking. Inquiry and play-based learning are focuses because children naturally learn through play and by exploring their wonderings.  

Planning for Kindergarten begins by identifying student needs (in looking at the whole child). When needs are determined, the following criteria are considered for planning:

• consideration of the environment (which involves co-constructing some of it with the students)
• the intentional selection and placement of materials
• teacher choice 
• student choice
• being in a co-learner stance; and in an inquiry stance
• direct/explicit instruction
• opportunities for exploration
• inquiry learning
• documenting observations and conversations as a form of assessment 
• documenting with students to make their thinking and learning visible

Past Kindergarten...

Professional learning monographs and sessions for K-12 educators show the connections to Kindergarten pedagogy in their focus on: environment as third teacher, inquiry-based learning, student voice and agency and pedagogical documentation.  This provides support for our journey and our challenge:

What could inquiry and hands-on learning look like in Grade 5/6?