Firstly what were the great ideas that shaped the planning stage? Secondly, how did the plan get shipwrecked so quickly? Thirdly, how did the shipwreck manifest itself in student learning? And finally, how can these reflections be used to create much more successful learning and teaching in the future? 1. Far better to stay on shore and play games on your iPad.Īs I consider the disastrous beginning to what was initially a unit plan with great potential, four questions shape my reflections. Why bother starting when you have no idea what you are doing anyway. These students chose a task from their list, opened their iPads, went to Google and started typing the task directly into the search box. You can imagine the effectiveness of typing, “Determine the issues that you think are important for your party” into a search box. The other dominant response was to give up before you have even started. Quite a number of students started firing questions at the teacher wanting to get started but having absolutely no idea where they were heading. Others quickly began and just as quickly lost their way. This moment was followed by complete pandemonium. It began with a moment of stunned silence as students registered that the teacher had just directed them to start completing a task they knew nothing about. I wish I could properly describe the scene in the classroom in the next couple of minutes. “Hop on your boats and set sail now please. The directions on the bottom of the sheet were read and explained and students were allowed to begin. Next the students were directed to complete Survey One. The classroom teacher then handed out the assessment task. Task one was to brainstorm what the students already knew about Governments. “Everyone get out your books, have your pencils ready and make sure you have your iPad on your desk.” The unit started like any ordinary lesson… This is the type of task that the students in this Stage 3 class were faced with as they began their Information Learning Activity ( ILA) on Governments. You have then been instructed to set sail and be quick about it… You have been given a ship and a list of tasks to be completed on some unknown islands. Imagine you have just been instructed to go on a treasure hunt in the Pacific Ocean. What will the next adventure bring? What new and exciting developments in digital information are just around the corner? How will my current navigational skills have to adapt in the future to meet the ever-changing world of information? Who will I take on the journey next time and will it be any more successful? I hope so, but in Rudyard Kipling’s words, “that’s another story.” For now I am home safe and sound but not for long… But it also has more potential than I realised potential to enable students to experience learning in a far deeper, broader and more transferable way. I have understood that Inquiry Learning calls for far more skills in teaching than I had previously recognised. I have understood the value of skilled, timely intervention. I have come to recognise that using an inquiry pedagogy doesn’t mean giving students a task, setting them in the right direction and marking the outcome. Most significantly I have come to understand the process of inquiry more deeply. I have discovered so many new and interesting things about the world, about learning and about myself as a learner. A sense of achievement accompanies my return. It feels like I have not seen the shore in a very long while. Here is where I finally pull my ship safely into harbour and home. I work on my relationship with the classroom teacher, I demonstrate my growing expertise in information gathering and sythesising and I offer more to the teacher and to the class. The answer is: I do it better than I did last time. Getting back to my initial question at the beginning of this ILA, “How do I take others on the journey with me?” As I begin work as the Teacher-Librarian at this same school next year, I feel a real challenge to create strong working relationships with classroom teachers so that as a team we can build a clearer, much more successful Information Learning Activity. I did not have the team relationship that allowed me to use the information I was gathering in any but a very minor way and I felt frustrated that I couldn’t do more. Despite the fact that I undertook this unit in a school I had not previously worked in and therefore did not have an established working relationship with the classroom teacher, I felt responsible that I could not engage in the planning and direction of the unit in a more useful way.
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