Fertile Questions as the core to curriculum

innovation

An implementation case study at Glen Waverley SC

Dianne Peck dpe@gwsc.vic.edu.au

THINK for 2 minutes about the learning process that you would love to see in your classroom/school?

PAIR up with the person next to you.

SHARE your ideas with your partner.

REPORT BACK on behalf of your partner.

Characteristics of a Thinking Curriculum

Supportive individual relationships Secure environment for risk-taking in thinking and

learning Emphasis on motivation, cognition and self-

regulation High levels of student decision-making Explicit teaching and infusion of thinking and

learning strategies through all teaching Focussed in-depth learning Challenging tasks, complex thinking,appropriate

assessment Time for sustained thinking and learning Task- and effort- focused culture Shared student and teacher beliefs. (Russell, 2000)

Two types of pedagogy

Answering Pedagogy

Questioning Pedagogy

‘ Communities of Thinking’ (Harpaz & Lefstein)

An ‘Answering’ Pedagogy Learning is about being able

to give the teacher the right answer.

– Beliefs about Q’s Questions are superfluous,

unimpressive and annoying Only the ignorant ask

questions Comfortable, non-

threatening – does not threaten our basic ‘schema’.

Questions used to exercise control over students.

A ‘Questioning’ Pedagogy Learning is about asking

questions to clarify, explore, explain, undermine.

– Beliefs about Q’s Questioning is a creative

activity Questions reveal

involvement in, and a deep understanding of, the subject.

Motivating – a source of energy.

Why focus on fertile questions?

Questioning involves: an ability to transcend given information an understanding of knowledge mental willingness to undermine existing

knowledge structures and to indulge in the construction of new structures and knowledge

The ability to pose questions to understand ourselves and our world is at the heart of what it means to be human.

Yoram Harpaz

The word ‘question’ is taken from the Latin ‘quaerere’ (to seek) which has the same root as the word quest. This makes sense. Questions are powerful allies on our life journey. They stretch our mind, body and soul.

A very powerful question may not have an answer at the moment it is asked…… It will sit rattling in the mind for days or weeks as the person works on an answer. If the seed is planted, the answer will grow. Questions are alive.

And we are more alive when actively involved with questing and questions. Keep moving. Keep crossing inner and outer borders. Keep asking.

(Frederic & MaryAnn Brussat ‘Spiritual Literacy’ (NY 1996)

What makes a ‘good’ question?Are all questions equal?

Characteristics of ‘good’ questions

Open

Charged

Connected

Rich

PracticalUndermining Fertile Questions18/08/2003 - v3

A question that requires grappling with rich

content

A question relevant to the

life of the learners

A question that in principle does

not have a definite answer

A question that undermines basic assumptions and fixed beliefs of

learner

A question that can be

researched as information is

available

A question with an ethical dimension

What we wanted to achieve…..

Vision and Values

What is it powerful to learn?

What is powerful learning?

What we wanted to achieve…..

Positive social relationships with peers

through cooperative group work and fertile questions to focus on

relationships

Student ownership through constructivism

Students able to articulate how their subjects relate to FQ, make links to real world and organise and direct their own learning

Increased student engagement through student-centred curriculum

Promoting ‘deep’ understanding of powerful ideas in context across a range of disciplines.

CONSTRUCTIVISM - Learning as making meaning from experience

EVENTSAND

THINGS

WINDOW ON THEWORLD

BAG OF TRICKS

MAPS

FINDING OUT

TAKING ACTION

Richard Bawden's Visual representation of Kolb's (Kolb 1984)

Scaffolding the learning

CONSTRUCTIVIST MODEL

TRANSMISSION MODEL

From supported to autonomous Over time, as students are explicitly

taught and develop these skills and strategies, teachers should be able to increasingly expect them to determine which skills and strategies are appropriate to use in a given context. However this level of autonomy will only develop if students are given practice in the use of appropriate skills and strategies and then supported to transfer the application of these skills and strategies to other areas.

Problem Means Solution

Level 1 given given given

Level 2 given given to be found

Level 3 given to be found

to be found

Level 4 to be found

to be found

to be found

What happened in 2003?

PLANNING THE FQ UNITS

The model developed at ASMS by Fiona Buley was used as a basis to plan our Fertile Question units

Key features-- Immersion activity- Reflective journal- Summative performance- Central part was up to each team to

design

Fiona Buley,GWSC 2002

YEAR 7 FERTILE QUESTION

“What do we need to survive?”

English- the novel “Hatchet”, about a boy’s survival after a plane crash

Science- the “Marooned” unit: survival on an island by learning chemical separation techniques

Maths- why are numbers important for our survival?

SOSE- survival in stoneage vs now

YEAR 7 FQ TRIAL “What do we need to survive?”

YEAR 8 FERTILE QUESTION

“Patterns”(a thematic approach rather than a fertile question)

Why does our brain automatically look for patterns? Are all patterns helpful? Can patterns restrict our thinking?

SCIENCE ENGLISHMATHS SOSE INFO TECH

How do patterns work and how do we use patterns in each subject?

GWSC, 2003

DURING THE UTOPIA PROJECT….

“Can anything thrive in isolation?”

Science- eg. The relationships between functioning parts in body systems

SOSE- eg. The interdependence of features in different environments

English- eg.Text: “So much to tell you” (Teenage isolation)and issues

Maths- eg.The mathematics involved in gathering, interpreting and analysing data to address the FQ

GWSC, 2003

DESIGNING THE KEY PARTS

Immersion activity (the hook)- murder mystery- animal ages

Inquiry project (project to enable students to answer the fertile question using the different discipline areas)

Online logbook for students to map their progress

creatingproject

DEVELOPING THE GROUPS

We used the Hermann Brain dominance activity to establish groups with a mix of different preference thinkers.

TIME FOR STUDENTS AND TEACHERS TO WORK

8.30-9.00am Wednesday in Library- teachers met

Shared blocks of time- students to work on Utopia project

- research- developing rubric for assessment- planning presentation- practising presentation

Teachers donated this time from normal class time

2 x 2 rather than 1 x 4

DURING THE UTOPIA PROJECT….

Development of needed skills- 6 steps in research process- cooperative group skills (looks like, sounds like)- presentation skills

Keeping online reflective log on Intranet shared space

- connections between subjects, FQ and utopia project

- roles and planning- needs/requirements of group- example of student work – Dennis, Jasmine,

Ashleigh

AND FINALLY…. Summative performance in lecture

theatre (oral presentation with support material- power point, models, computer-designed layouts)

Students designed rubric used by all class members to assess presentations

Principal and A.P’s invited to attend Evaluations of both multi-media used

and whole FQ experience conducted

What we wanted to achieve…..

Positive social relationships with peers

through cooperative group work and fertile questions to focus on

relationships

Student ownership through constructivism

Students able to articulate how their subjects relate to FQ, make links to real world and organise and direct their own learning

Increased student engagement through student-centred curriculum

Promoting ‘deep’ understanding of powerful ideas in context across a range of disciplines.

OUTCOMESIncreased levels of engagement

Teacher evidence Immersion activity

worked well. Increased self-

directedness and freedom for students to explore, greater autonomy.

Student evidence Enhanced level of

enjoyment“It makes me more

curious, makes me want to learn. The fertile question makes it interesting. When I like something, I just get curious, I might look it up and facts relating to it”

OUTCOMESImproved levels of metacognition

Teacher evidence Use of intranet assisted

metacognition. “They were actively reflecting on

what they have done and were being quite critical about what they are doing and not doing and seeing the value of it”

Students more self-directed.

Student evidence Reflections done by

students.

OUTCOMESEnhanced social relationships

Teacher evidence Fostering positive

relationships Development of

cooperative group skills.“The groups are working a lot

better than they used to work”

“They are more in tune with allocating tasks to each other to enable a collective goal to be achieved”

Student evidence

“It helped me to be …. cooperative, instead of being just like someone who just watches other people do the work. It is better to be a part of it”.

“I learnt that we should communicate with empathy instead of cutting each other or shouting over each other. We learnt to communicate in a group”.

OUTCOMES‘Deeper’ thinking

Teacher evidence Development of skills

such as research and thinking skills.

Creating meaningful knowledge across a number of KLAs

“…. no subject area of course being seen as better that any other subject areas, but adding more information to a total understanding of the world…..”

Student evidence Some students able

to see the connectedness of their subjects and the fertile question

“We are using multiple skills from different subjects … and from this we learn the skills to browse more deeply into the questions, into more specific parts…”

BARRIERSAs identified by trial teachers

1. Time to ‘touch base’ with other team members

2. Constraints of existing syllabus i.e. is this ‘real’ Maths?

3. Tried to impose it on top of existing curriculum – lead to frustration due to feeling not meeting requirements of existing curriculum

4. Current requirements of assessment and reporting framework

BARRIERSAs identified by trial teachers

5. Current mental models of students and teachers – hard to move from existing paradigm

6. Fear of stepping on someone else’s toes (in your team) – maybe due to lack of coherence regarding what we were trying to achieve at the beginning?

7. Timetabling – didn’t allow team teaching 8. Physical space and storage facilities

available to complete FQ work

WHAT WE’D DO DIFFERENTLY

1. Meet regularly as a team2. Be more organised re: timelines, due dates etc.3. Allow the Fertile Question to drive what we do

rather than imposing it on top of already existing structures and curriculum within the school

4. Have flexibility in our assessment framework to enable existing demands to be met

5. Decide how we will report on the outcomes of FQ project

6. Need greater scaffolding of the “deeper” thinking we require students to do eg. Making links between all subjects and FQ

WHAT WE’D DO DIFFERENTLY

7. Have a clearer picture in our minds of what the performances of understanding should look like.

8. Use a more coherent framework for the development of FQ units required (however, this also must be flexible)

9. Be more focused on the outcomes we are trying to achieve (KLA and skills based)

10. Schedule time within the timetable for students working on the Fertile Question

11. Have more planning time

Some questions we have…

How to implement interdisciplinary units based on FQ’s that are not perceived to be ‘on top of’ what we already do?

How to deal with problems of overcrowded curriculum?

How do we give students a greater voice in curriculum design?

How do we better facilitate teachers working in teams?

Our decision…… Keep on trialing….. Use the Communities of Thinking model Defining essential learnings – this is really hard

work!!!! Challenging our existing models – this is really,

really hard work!!!! Finding additional frameworks to assist us eg

Educating for Understanding framework Exploring alternative delivery models for Years 7-

9.

What’s happening in 2004?

Research Question

Research Question

Research Question

Research Question

Research Question

Research Question

Fertile Question

Communal concluding performance

Concludingperformance

Concludingperformance

Concludingperformance

Inquiry Inquiry Inquiry

Initiatio

n

Feedback

2004 trial A mix of multidisciplinary and

disciplinary units. Some classes blocked together (to a

limited extent) with a team of teachers Multidisciplinary units

Year 7 – overview , planning & outcomes

Year 8 – overview and outcomes Year 9 – overview and outcomes

Our current challenges…… Continuing to get our heads around the

Communities of Thinking framework Supporting teachers in trial

Teaching and Learning coach Less ‘extras’ Time to meet – timetabled period, scheduled meetings Build into L.I.P.

Finalising the essential learnings Working on assessment and reporting

frameworks. Developing evaluation framework