Chapter 3: Curriculum Inquiry

Overview

What?

Curriculum Inquiry is an active process involving teachers in implementing self-selected aspects of Core curricula in their classrooms and evaluating the results.

How?

Curriculum Inquiry is accomplished by a streamlining of basic planning, teaching, and evaluation activities that teachers engage in customarily. Teachers increase their opportunities for understanding particular instructional strategies or evaluation techniques through the use of reflective tools and other supports provided in this chapter.

Why?

Teachers who engage in Curriculum Inquiry can direct their own implementation/renewal process, fulfill

curriculum responsibilities, implement personal-professional growth plans, and support student learning -- all within the same set of activities. More specifically, when you undertake Curriculum Inquiry you can experience benefits like those in the chart on this page.

Organization of the Chapter

The overview chart that follows describes the five stages in the Curriculum Inquiry process in summary form. The chapter is sub-divided into five sections. Each section describes one stage in the process and concludes with a one-sentence guideline. Opportunities for Curriculum Reflection and Curriculum Networking are also incorporated into the inquiry process where relevant.

Overview charts that present the steps within each stage in summary form precede fuller explanations and important considerations. Planning and assessment tools needed in the inquiry process can be found in Appendix A and are in full-page format for ease of duplicating. Appendix A also contains examples of Curriculum Inquiry planning in several subject areas and at various grade levels.

Stage 1: Committing

Teachers involved in the development of this Handbook have stressed that the most essential rationale for their commitment to participation in any professional development process is that it result in real benefits for their students. This placement of the highest value on student learning echoes the findings of Goodlad's (1994) study of American teachers and schools. He said:

Good teachers are driven in their daily work by neither the goal of improving the nation's economic competitiveness nor that of enhancing the school's test scores. Instead they are driven by a desire to teach satisfyingly, to have all their students excited about learning, to have their daily work square with their conception of what this work should be and do. (p. 203)

Another reason for participation in Curriculum Inquiry is that the inquiry process may be used to achieve personal purposes for teaching.

Reflection Connection. See Reflection Focus I, p. 21 for questions and materials that help teachers become clearer about their personal motivations which, if acted upon, increase the satisfactions they experience as a result of teaching.

As well, Curriculum Inquiry is useful because it combines many teacher responsibilities within one process.

• Teachers have suggested other more specific professional rewards that may also result from involvement in Curriculum Inquiry. These include the development of abilities that can be:
  used in obtaining special grants such as, those given by the Stirling McDowell Foundation
  
• applied in graduate work
  
• developed as a marketable skill.
  

Stage 2: Focusing

Overview

The selection of a useful and worthwhile focus for Curriculum Inquiry involves making decisions about what aspect of Core Curriculum you will implement further based upon some crucial assessments of yourself, your students, and your teaching context. The Overview chart on the following page shows the relationships between these assessments and your selection of a:

• Curriculum Focus (the subject area, Core Curriculum Component or Initiative you will implement further)
• Professional Target (the specific instructional strategy or evaluation technique within your Curriculum Focus that you will implement within the inquiry process).
  

Assessment Tool 2 has several uses including:

• assessing your own progress in implementing any new curriculum
  
• planning the next steps to take in further implementation
  

Appendix A contains three planning tools related to the focusing stage:

• Assessment Tool 2
  
• Planning Tool A: Suggestions for Professional Targets
  
• Planning Tool B: Knowledge of Needs, Supports, And Curriculum.

This section describes ways to make use of these assessment and planning tools.

Using Assessment Tool 2: Stages of Implementation

After selecting a Curriculum Focus that interests you and that you feel you need to implement further, use Assessment Tool 2, pp. 80-81 to ensure that it is the most appropriate focus for you.

Read through the descriptions of stages and select the one that most closely reflects your present growth in relation to the Curriculum Focus that you selected. Look at the descriptors in this stage and the one that follows it for ideas of some of the activities that you might undertake and the supports you may need.

Alternatively, this assessment tool can be used to help you select a Curriculum Focus to work on this term. As you read through the stages in Assessment Tool 2, you may find that a particular subject area, Common Essential Learning, or other Core Curriculum Component or Initiative comes to mind as one most in need of your attention.

Using Planning Tool A: Suggestions for Professional Targets

See Planning Tool A, pp. 84-90 for suggestions of targets in several areas of study. These suggestions reflect feedback from pilot teachers, provincial curriculum evaluations, and national and provincial learning assessments about important elements of subject areas that need further strengthening. The suggestions for Professional Targets are developed at two levels in order to support you in finding a target that matches your present stage of implementation in the area you selected.

Planning Tool A can also be used to get a better understanding of what a manageable target might look like.

Using the questions in "Knowledge of Needs, Supports, and Curriculum"

In order to ensure that your Professional Target is selected from the perspectives of its implications for self, students, and community, reflect on the questions in the Planning Tool B before deciding upon a specific target.

Reflection Connection. The questions and advice in Planning Tool B are related to several of the foci in Curriculum Reflection (see Chapter 2). If you are involved in this process, you may have given thought to these topics already and will find the material in Planning Tool B to be a quick review of your ideas. If not, you may find that reading the chapter on reflection offers further support for the focusing step.

Stage 3: Planning

The third stage in the inquiry process is that of planning for the successful implementation and evaluation of the Professional Target you selected in the Focusing Stage. This section includes:

• overview charts of elements, actions, and activities within the Planning Stage
  
• suggestions to assist you in planning a successful Curriculum Inquiry process.

Overview

Curriculum Inquiry can be considered both a professional development process and a form of classroom research. The elements of an inquiry plan include those things a teacher will do in order to successfully implement her/his Professional Target and the actions a teacher will take in order to evaluate the impact of the target and the success of her/his plan. See Planning Tool C, Sample Curriculum Inquiry Plan, p. 90 for a sense of how the elements of a Curriculum Inquiry plan relate to each other and to the Professional Target that has been selected.

About the Elements of a Curriculum Inquiry Plan

Learning goals for self. These are your professional development goals in relation to the target that you have chosen. A good way to develop learning goals for yourself is to think about what you do now in relation to your target and what you would like to do -- that is, the changes you would like to make, and the new skills/abilities, knowledge, and values you would like to acquire.

Supports I will need. This aspect of your plan involves thinking about the range of supports that, if acquired, might make the achievement of your learning goals more likely. You would list the resources, materials, and other forms of support (such as in-service) you feel you need for successful implementation and set yourself a timeline for acquiring these supports.

Actions I will take to prepare. These are the specific things you need to do in order to implement your target. They would include things like obtaining materials, reading curriculum resources, seeking advice, and planning lessons/units.

Actions I will take to implement. Look at the learning goals for yourself and for your students. Think about the specific actions you will take in the classroom during instruction in order to make the implementation of your target successful and the achievement of learning goals complete.

Indicators of Success. Indicators of success are criteria you will use for evaluating the achievement of your learning goals and those for your students. In developing these, you ask questions such as, "What might be some signs that individual students are increasing their interest and confidence in this subject? How might I judge the extent to which I have learned to use appropriate facilitative behaviours?"

Examples of behaviours that could indicate teacher personal-professional growth in the affective domain are given in Appendix A, Planning Tool D (a). Assessing and demonstrating your own growth and the achievement of your learning goals in knowledge or skill/ability areas are more straightforward tasks -- ones where these achievements can be made evident in teacher planning, classroom instruction, and through informal interviews or discussions.

The more that you become accustomed to looking for a broader range of indicators of growth, the more confidently you will be able to:

• discuss your own professional growth with administrators
  
• share understandings related to Core Curriculum with colleagues
  
• demonstrate or explain progress to students, parents/guardians.

See Appendix A, Planning Tool D (b) "Developing a Range of Indicators of Success: Student Examples," p. 100, for examples of behaviours that indicate positive student growth in the areas of:

• attitudes and values
  
• skills and abilities
  
• knowledge.

Assessment/evaluation tools I will use. List the assessment tools/ techniques you will use for individual indicators or groups of similar indicators. A wealth of information is available to teachers when selecting appropriate assessment tools. See the Evaluation section of the curriculum guide in your targeted subject area/s and other resources such as Student Evaluation: A Teacher Handbook (Saskatchewan Education, 1991).

Record-keeping system. This is a system for keeping track of events as they unfold; that is, noting such things as behavioural changes, times spent, and problems and ways they were solved. These records supplement the data collected through using the assessment tools and techniques described in your plan.

Refer to Appendix A (pp. 91-98) for completed examples of plans in various areas of study and at several grade levels.

Steps in Planning

Curriculum Inquiry planning is not a linear process. The three types of planning outlined below should be accomplished together -- working back and forth between steps in each type as necessary.

Personal-professional development planning

1. Select a subject area, Common Essential Learning, or other Core Curriculum Component or Initiative as a focus for your personal-professional growth for this current school term/year.
2. Select a particular aspect of the subject area, Component, or Initiative as a Professional Target (e.g., learning a new and centrally important instructional strategy or process such as dialectical reasoning in social studies or the decision-making process in health education).

Lesson, unit, and yearly planning

1. If you have not already done so, consult relevant curriculum guide/s to sketch a yearly plan for the subject area/s related to your target.

2. Include in your yearly plan at least three trials for implementing your Professional Target. This can be done through incorporating experiences/lessons related to your target into three different units or through the inclusion of several opportunities to learn and practise the Professional Target in one unit.

3. Sketch out the unit/s in which you will implement the target. Establish a realistic time frame that allows for problem solving and practice.

4. Plan your more specific lessons for each unit closer to the time of their implementation and allow for changes to your plans in order to address specific challenges that might arise.

1. Define your Professional Target as specifically and concretely as possible and in terms of your professional growth. Think about what you do now and what you want to do differently.
2. List learning goals for yourself and for your students. Use curriculum guides and other resources such as the Common Essential Learnings objectives to develop and legitimate a broad range of learning goals.

3. Refer to curriculum guides and resources, as needed, in order to:
· brainstorm and list all relevant and appropriate actions you will take to prepare and to implement
· list the resources, materials, and forms of support you will need for successful implementation
· define Indicators of Success for all types of learning you wish to develop/support (Try to include demonstrations of growth related to attitudes and values. See Planning Tool D (a), p. 99.)
· list the assessment tools and techniques you will use to assess self and students.

4. List ideas for involving students in some aspect/s of the planning and implementation, and incorporate into Actions I will take to Implement.

5. Review your plan from the beginning -- evaluate your lists of actions, supports, and resources with a view to simplifying and streamlining your plan. Eliminate items if necessary.

6. Establish a timeline for acquiring supports and resources and for completing preparations.

7. Establish a simple record-keeping system to record events during implementation, such as making anecdotal notes at the bottom of your teacher day planner or keeping a separate logbook in which to note events of interest.

Important Considerations

The following suggestions will support your planning:

1. Incorporate Curriculum Inquiry plans into your regular planning practices. Planning for a Curriculum Inquiry need not be in addition to or on top of your regular planning. It should fit smoothly into your usual yearly, weekly, and/or daily planning practices because it has the same basic elements of curriculum, instruction, and evaluation. A good time to begin the planning for Curriculum Inquiry is before school begins each fall or in the early weeks of a school term. See the sample Personal-Professional Growth Plan (p. 2) for an example of how one teacher used Curriculum Inquiry as the focus of her professional development for one school year.

2. Plan for three applications of your selected focus. In order to achieve real comfort and skill with your targeted strategy/technique, you need to allow time and opportunities for sufficient practice. We suggest that you and your students require a minimum of three experiences with your focus for most strategies and techniques, and entire school terms to learn larger processes.

3. Recognize the long-term gains that can result from spending adequate time on implementation of your target in the short term. Develop a plan that takes into account the additional class time that may be needed for sufficient practice and for problem solving with students as challenges arise. An appropriate way to allow for this time is to plan your unit/s using a variety of instructional strategies including some direct instruction lessons as appropriate. Recognize that time spent now in learning an important instructional strategy, learning process, or assessment technique will pay dividends later as many, if not most, of the new skills and abilities learned can be applied in other subject areas and will contribute to lifelong learning.

4. Categorize your supports into "must have" and "would be nice to have". Be prepared to be flexible and to implement without all the items/supports on your list. Negotiate for your "must haves" by offering something in exchange. Be prepared to share with others.

5. Develop a broad range of learning goals. Use curriculum guides and resources related to Common Essential Learnings to develop a broad range of learning goals. The knowledge, behaviours, attitudes, values, and skills/abilities related to the C.E.L.s are legitimate aspects of assessment plans and grading schemes within areas of study. Teachers can refer to these as needed when developing learning goals related to work habits (e.g., Independent Learning), social behaviours and attitudes (e.g., Personal and Social Values and Skills), and process learning (e.g., Critical and Creative Thinking).

As well, Core curricula incorporate a focus on forms of equity. One of the cornerstones of equitable education is the idea that students be given every opportunity to "show what they know" as opposed to having only one means to demonstrate their learning, such as the end-of-chapter test. To provide these opportunities, teachers need both a broad and deep conception of learning and many assessment tools and techniques in their repertoire.

Reflection Connection. Reflection Focus III contains a set of questions to support teachers in increasing their awareness of the many ways learning takes place (p. 27). You may wish to read those questions and spend some time thinking about how you would answer them before continuing with this area of your planning.

Stage 4: Acting

This stage involves following your plan, changing it as necessary when circumstances dictate, involving students in problem solving when challenges arise, seeking advice as needed, and recording events (both negative and positive) as they unfold.

Important Considerations

1. "If at first you don't succeed ..." Be prepared for some challenges and setbacks, and several trials. Keep your focus positive and adopt a problem-solving approach. Involve your students in coming up with better ways to approach routines and procedures related to your target. A Saskatchewan teacher describes how she turned a shaky start into successful learning in the vignette that follows.

2. Withhold judgements until you have completed the Curriculum Inquiry process. It may be tempting to draw conclusions after your first experience with implementing your target; however, you will learn the most about the strategy or technique that you selected and the ways it affects students' learning if you wait until you have concluded the "acting" step. As the vignette above shows, often our first experience with a new strategy is not a good indication of its uses and benefits.

3. Observe individual student responses. Be alert to changes in individual student's usual behaviours and find ways to describe these briefly for future reference. Some behaviours to watch:

• Increased or decreased participation of individual students. Are some students who are usually quiet talking more or showing greater interest in other ways? Do confident students appear more hesitant or uncertain

• Production of original work, unexpected answers, thought-provoking questions, unique ideas.
  Does use of this strategy/technique appear to be stirring the imagination and creativity of some students more than is usual for them? supporting some students to think in new ways?
• Increase or decrease in perseverance and/or confidence.
  Do some students stick with a challenge longer/give up more quickly than is usual for them? Do some students ask to work longer; show regret when the lesson time is up?
  

5. Review your plan during implementation. Review your plan from time to time to ensure that you are doing what you set out to do and collecting the information that you planned to collect. If your record-keeping system is not working for you, simplify it.

6. Record time spent in preparing and implementing. Note the amount of time spent in preparing for each lesson related to your target, the class time spent in implementing it, and the time spent in evaluation, student assessment, and record keeping. As teachers have described the time needed for student-centered or interactive approaches as a concern, this may be an area that you would like to be clear about at the "reviewing" stage.

7. Think and act positively. Remember that your attitude will affect the attitudes of your students -- act enthusiastically even if you have some initial misgivings about how well things will work. Develop or borrow a maxim to repeat to yourself when problems arise. (e.g., There are no perfect teachers -- only teachers who are or are not committed to growth. We all learn important things by trial and error -- mistakes are human.)

8. Focus on the benefits to students. Remind yourself when necessary that you are learning and persevering with your targeted strategy/ technique for the benefit of your present and future students. As not all students learn in the same ways, the greater the variety of strategies you can draw upon the better.

9. Seek help and advice from colleagues. Think of experiencing problems during the implementation of your target as opportunities to share your experiences and collaborate with interested colleagues in developing solutions. Two heads are almost always better than one!

Networking Connections. If you belong to a teacher network, chances are some teachers in your network may have experience using the strategy or technique you selected as your target. You might want to simply phone or e-mail your network members for ideas and advice, or describe your problem during the "Sharing Time" section of your next network meeting. Others may have implementation stories to share as well. Your sharing could conclude with small or large group brainstorming of alternatives and possible solutions.

10. Celebrate accomplishments. Be prepared to enjoy your new learning. Plan a way to celebrate your achievements. Teachers often say that they remember lessons and responses that did not work longer than successful ones, and, give more prominence to their "failures" than to all the things they do right. Use the inquiry process as an opportunity to turn negative thinking around.

Stage 5: Reviewing

This stage is primarily one of synthesizing what you have learned. It involves looking back through your records and looking again at products of learning with fresh eyes and a focus on what meaning this material has for teaching and learning.

The most central task of the reviewing stage is to find ways to answer the question, "To what extent and in what ways did I achieve my learning goals for myself and those for my students?" However, in attempting to answer this question, you do not want to overlook other things you have learned during the inquiry process. For this reason, your procedure for reviewing what you have learned needs to contain some degree of openness.

Networking Connection. Networking possibilities that could evolve from completion of the reviewing step include having everyone in your teacher network prepare a short vignette about what s/he learned as a result of carrying out a Curriculum Inquiry process. Your network may then want to look at similarities and differences across the group's experiences and develop a short summary of these for other teachers and administrators in their school division or region.

Important Considerations

1. Avoid the tendency to oversimplify your findings and conclusions. Teachers may give shape to their stories about trying a new strategy or using a new resource by summing up their descriptions with phrases such as, "The students just loved it." or "It was a total disaster." Such conclusions are likely to be overly generalized. Before using such descriptions, you need to ask questions such as:

• "Did all students enjoy the experience? If not, which students did not appear as enthusiastic and involved? What might the reasons be for their lesser participation? "
  
• "Was that lesson really a total disaster? What went right? Where and when did I feel things started to go wrong? What might be the reasons for this? How am I defining a 'good' lesson and what do I mean by a 'disaster'? Did I learn some important things through this experience that I can apply to future lessons?"

Questioning the specifics of classroom events will not only produce a more accurate analysis and synthesis of your inquiry, but also give you the quality of information that could make a real difference to the learning of particular students.

3. Take the time to really think. Teaching is a very demanding profession and teachers have described the implementation of Core Curriculum as increasing the demands on their time. All the effort and time spent on the inquiry process to this point may be wasted at this last step if you do not make time to reflect deeply about what happened during the experience. Use the times during your day that you are doing relatively straightforward physical tasks -- walking, biking, washing dishes, or washing your car -- as opportunities to review your inquiry process and question its meaning.

4. Expect and accept new questions and uncertainties as a natural by-product of the Curriculum Inquiry process. Inquiry is one of those processes that leads people to the conclusion that "the more we know, the more we realize that we don't know". As teachers make inquiry or reflection a part of their lives, the more questions they are likely to have and the less likely they will be to find satisfaction in pat answers.

This does not mean questioning to the point of being unable to act. We must still plan and implement lessons based upon the best we know at the time. What it does mean is that we become more alert during our teaching to behaviours that might be related to our questions. It means we start noticing more and different behaviours and events, and continue to grow as teachers and as persons. Accepting that teaching is complex -- a science, art, and moral craft -- can also mean refusing to label yourself, your experiences, your students, or your colleagues as "right/ wrong", "success/failure", or "good/bad".

The inquiry process can lead us to "better/poorer" or "more adequate/less adequate" ways to approach teaching, but not to final answers. Within every answer is a new question and every ending contains a new beginning.