Inquiry learning and key competencies
Perfect match or problematic partners?
Rosemary Hipkins
New Zealand Council for Educational Research
R Hipkins
20.06.08
The spirit of change in NZC
• Learning how to learn – developing an identity as a
‘lifelong learner’ and a greater emphasis on
developing student autonomy
• School-based curriculum design is more explicit and
linked to NAGs.
• A more holistic approach – interconnected nature of
knowledge
2007
• A more participatory view of learning
(just having knowledge is not enough – you need to be able to do
things with your learning)
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20.06.08
cf. 1993
The potential match to inquiry (1)
• Learning to learn
• Inquiry skills/disposition
• School-based curriculum
design
• Huge range of potential
inquiry contexts
• Interconnected nature of
learning
• Fertile questions often
span learning areas
• A more participatory view
of learning
• Students active at all
stages of inquiry process
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20.06.08
“Fertile questions” prompt inquiry..
• Problem solving where the solution is not already known
• Actively questioning learning – traditional and less familiar types
of questions
• Contexts that make ‘real’ connections to learners’ lives (the
outcomes/solutions genuinely matter)
• Challenging and rich, deep topics/situations – there is much to
be explored
(List based on Claxton, 2006, “fertile questions” = Harpaz, 2005)
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20.06.08
Broad parameters of inquiry learning
Students are actively involved in any or all of
• Determining inquiry questions/directions
• Finding and processing information
• Shaping a response/report
• Doing something with what they have found out
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20.06.08
Many types of inquiry
• Traditional information-based
“research”
• Many kinds of discipline-specific
investigations (arts, sciences,
social sciences, maths,
technology, literature etc.)
• Problem solving/ action
competence projects (E4E, E4S,
Health/PE etc)
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Problematic partners (1)
• Student-centered or co-constructed? (What
is the role of the teacher?)
• Grand production or horses for courses?
(Does an extended time frame necessarily
characterise “inquiry”?)
• The “right” way or any way that works? (How
is the process linked to purposes for
inquiring?
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20.06.08
The potential match (2)
Lifelong learners
(vision)
• Literate and
numerate
Key competencies
• Using language,
symbols and texts
• Thinking
• Critical and creative
thinkers
• Participating and
contributing
• Active seekers,
users, and creators of
knowledge
• Informed decision
makers
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• Managing self
• Relating to others
KCs locate learning in students’ lives
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Using content knowledge when making good personal
decisions (P+C fore-grounded)
ARB item LW0542
How safe are your sunglasses?
Pupil reflex protects eyes from UV
Sunglasses shade eyes and so
pupils dilate
If glasses are not good UV filters,
more UV can then enter eye
Damage to the retina could be a
consequence of wearing such
glasses
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20.06.08
Knowing the science: easy
Constructing the simple
chain of reasoning: very
difficult
Seeing the big picture:
priceless
(NB Year 9/10 students)
Real issues don’t sit neatly in
subject slots – but keeping a
disciplinary focus still matters
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20.06.08
The central alignment/integration argument
When students engage critically within each learning area in the
curriculum, they have opportunities to develop the key
competencies. By refocusing the way we currently teach, each
learning area becomes a vehicle for developing key competencies,
rather than the key competencies being another ‘add on’ to an
already crowded curriculum.
Let’s be very clear:
KCs do not replace knowledge!
But they can powerfully transform what
we can do with it!
R Hipkins
20.06.08
Which purposes for inquiry could be foregrounded?
• Developing inquiry skills
• Learning to
dispositions
learn/fostering
lifelong
learning
• Developing deeper understanding of a topic/ issue/
context/ concept/ system or etc
• Learning about research as a process of knowledge
building (the constructed and contested nature of
knowledge)
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20.06.08
Problematic partners (2)
• Does the fore-grounded purpose impact on
the role of the teacher?
• What might evidence of learning look like
when different purposes are fore-grounded?
• How aware are students of the intended
purpose(s)?
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20.06.08
Learning how to find
stuff fast on the Internet.
You can find anything
once you have learnt
how to do it. Copy and
paste. Copy and paste.
History taught me
how to use focusing
questions to scan
through resources. It
was useful but I only
use this tactic in
history.
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20.06.08
In history and
physics it is
more like getting
facts. In English
it is translating
what you have
found into your
own words and
stuff.
How some students see
traditional “research”
inquiry
Learning about history as a discipline
To research like a “real historian” requires:
• Learning to choose and evaluate sources
• Learning to compare and contextualise multiple
sources of information
• Learning to corroborate information from different
sources
• Weaving a story based on the sources - learning to
generalise
(based on Wineburg, 1991)
What could support students to learn in this disciplinary
frame? How might learning here differ from and/or
compliment student-led inquiry approaches?
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20.06.08
Rethinking learning
• What you already know determines what you can
see (Davis, Sumara and Luce-Kapler, 2008)
• If learning about “researching like a historian” is
the focus, students should learn about the topic
before they undertake inquiry activities (Stahl et.
al. 1996)
• If teachers want students to experience the
differing perspectives of different sources, they
may choose to locate these rather than relying
on students to do so. Students still undertake an
active inquiry after locating information has been
done for them. (Wineburg, 1991)
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What does “deeper understanding” look
like?
One of the hallmarks of teaching for
understanding is to seek rich and
multi-dimensional connections
between school subject matter and
students’ lives, and specifically with
the initial concepts students form by
their life experiences
Zohar, 2006
We would add that a related challenge is to stretch those connections,
supporting students to experience less familiar ideas and contexts, and
the diversity of ideas, peoples and cultures
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A similar message adds the dimension of
context
Skills must be imparted in an authentic
context in which learners/researchers
experience them as essential for developing
their understanding; dispositions must be
cultivated through embodying them in
ongoing behaviour, dealing with them in
adequate opportunities, and experiencing
intellectual activities that invite them
Harpaz, 2007
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20.06.08
“Connecting questions” help students build links
• Relating more general conceptual ideas to specific
contexts
• Making coherent links between topics and ideas
within a discipline area
• Developing multi-disciplinary links across learning
areas
• Building bridges between
learning and everyday life
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20.06.08
powerful
conceptual
The “take home message”
• Key competencies and inquiry can potentially act as
a bridge between the aspirational framing of the
front end of NZC and the learning areas.
• But …teachers need to be very clear about the
purposes for which they are using inquiry, and what
they want their students to get out of it. If inquiry
continues to be framed within traditional views of
learning as “getting” disciplinary knowledge as
expeditiously as possible, no “big picture”
curriculum changes will actually be achieved.
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20.06.08
References
•
Claxton, G. (2006). Expanding the capacity to learn: A new end for education? Paper presented at the
British Education Research Association (BERA), Warwick, September 6. (Google this – it’s on the internet)
•
Davis, B., Sumara, D., & Luce-Kapler, R. (2008). Engaging minds: Changing teaching in complex times.
Second Edition. New York and London: Routledge.
•
Hipkins, R. (2006). Learning to do research: Challenges for students and teachers. Wellington: NZCER
Press.
•
Stahl, S., Hynd, C., Britton, B., McNish, M., & Bosquet, B. (1996). What happens when students read multiple
source documents in history? Reading Research Quarterly, 31(4), 430-456.
•
Wineburg, S. (1991). Historical problem solving: A study of the cognitive processes used in the evaluation
of documentary and pictorial evidence. Journal of Educational Psychology, 83(1), 73-87.
•
Zohar, A. (2006). Connected knowledge in science and mathematics education. International Journal of
Science Education, 28(13), 1579-1599.
Harpaz, Y. (2007) Approaches to teaching thinking: Toward a conceptual mapping of the field. Teahcers
College record, 109, 8, 1845-1874
•
•
Harpaz, Y. (2005). Teaching and learning in a community of thinking. Journal of Curriculum and
Supervision, 20(2), 136-157.
•
Hipkins, R. (2006). Learning to do research: Challenges for students and teachers. Wellington: NZCER
Press.
•
Stahl, S., Hynd, C., Britton, B., McNish, M., & Bosquet, B. (1996). What happens when students read multiple
source documents in history? Reading Research Quarterly, 31(4), 430-456.
•
Wineburg, S. (1991). Historical problem solving: A study of the cognitive processes used in the evaluation
of documentary and pictorial evidence. Journal of Educational Psychology, 83(1), 73-87.
•
Zohar, A. (2006). Connected knowledge in science and mathematics education. International Journal of
Science Education, 28(13), 1579-1599.
R Hipkins
20.06.08