Collaborative Inquiry
Spirals of Inquiry
Throughout 2019 a number of leaders and teachers, including principals, deputy principals and teachers of different year levels from our Kāhui Ako, have been part of a group taking part in professional learning and development around the theme collaborative inquiry. This learning has been facilitated by Rebbecca Sweeney from CORE Education and was made possible through funding from the Ministry of Education. Learning has centred around an inquiry process called Spirals of Inquiry.
Image from: The Spiral Playbook. C21 Canada. All rights reserved.
Spirals of Inquiry is a collaborative inquiry process that sees teachers working together to develop a holistic understanding of what helps our tamariki to learn and what does not. A key difference between the Spiral of Inquiry process with other teacher inquiry processes is the involvement of learners, their family and whānau at every phase. This, along with multiple perspectives from other teachers and learning centres, will ensure changes educators make to their pedagogy is respectful of learners and is productive in addressing what is going on for them.
Through being part of this collaborative learning inquiry group teachers are able to support one another across our Kāhui Ako to be curious about our practice and to share what we are learning. It is through this that we will have the most impact on outcomes for our tamariki.
Ehara taku toa i te toa takitahi Engari, he toa takitini.
My successes are not mine alone, they are ours - the greatest successes we will have are from working together.
As the Spiral of Inquiry is focused on changing the experiences of learners through new learning and new actions it is a process that takes time. It will be an ongoing focus of teachers within our Kāhui Ako as we strive to achieve our Kāhui vision to ensure that every child can reach their potential: 'Belonging to Malvern - Contributing to Society'.