Completing an inquiry during my practicum has been incredibly valuable for me, and my learning as a teacher. I have seen in action how the inquiry process can work in a class, and although my inquiry ran over a relatively short period of time, I could see the impact that it had on the learning of my focus group.
I understand the value of an inquiry for a group of children but can also envisage how it could work well for an individual child, or for the whole class, particularly when establishing norms in my class.
During my practicum, I found myself starting to use teaching as inquiry ‘in the moment’ while I was teaching. I found myself constantly thinking about what I was doing, how it was impacting the students learning and what I could change if I realised something wasn’t working as well for the children as I would have liked. I was also analysing what went well and was open to changing my plans if something was going particularly well or presented a learning opportunity that I hadn’t planned.
One thing that I particularly enjoyed about working with my AT was how open she is to new theories and different ways of doing things. Her focus is constantly on what is best for the children and their learning, and this is something that I want to emulate. I observed her class in November 2018, as part of my application for this programme. At the time, she made quite an impact on me, I was impressed at how open she was to a stranger coming into her class for half a day, and how much I learnt from her in that short time. The school had moved to a play-based learning model at the beginning of the year and she told me that she had been against it at the time and didn’t think that it would work, but had changed her mind over the year as she had seen it in action and the impact it had on the children’s learning. The school has also made significant changes to the way they teach maths and literacy over the last few years and she shares her knowledge freely and why she thinks these different ways have been positive for the children. I’ve seen her as a fantastic example of someone who uses a growth mindset, inquiry, collaborative problem-solving and professional learning everyday, which is what I would like to do as a teacher.
Having been through the teaching as inquiry process in my own small way, I can see myself using teaching as inquiry as a tool to direct my own learning and focus on my own teaching practice and its development throughout my career as a teacher.