A negotiated inquiry
There were six phases to the negotiated inquiry:
- deciding
- exploring
- recording
- making sense
- making a difference
- evaluation.
To introduce a negotiated curriculum the teacher used an inquiry process. For the first year the teacher worked mainly in the deciding, exploring and recording phases. In the first one-to-one conference, learning goals were negotiated and recorded. For each of the phases there was a "toolbox" of learning resources used.
- To download a weekly timetable, go to Learning centre timetable (PDF 98kb).
Deciding phase
During this phase the teacher reflected on these questions:
- What do I want these children to learn?
- What does it mean to decide, explore, record, make sense, evaluate, and make a difference?
- How can I scaffold this learning for my learners?
- How can I engage them in thinking about thinking and becoming reflective learners?
- What is powerful learning and teaching? [p. 4]
Toolbox resources used in the deciding phase:
Task map, Resource suitcase, KW map, Questions the keys to the treasure. [p. 5]
Exploring phase
The teacher sought answers from:
- the children and their parents through three-way conferences
- reading resources by the following authors including 'Learning to Think, Thinking to Learn' by Michael Pohl, 2000 (Hawker Brownlow Education 2000), Lane Clarke, Benjamin Bloom, Tony Ryan, Wiliams, Renzulli, Linda Silverman, June Maker, Sandra Kaplan, Francois Gagne, 'Information Toolkit', User Friendly Resource Enterprises Ltd. [p. 4]
Toolbox resources used in the exploring phase:
Treasure digger, Five senses, Picture think, Video think. [p. 5]
Recording phase
To scaffold the children's learning, the teacher developed a range of organisers and presented them as tools to be used at each stage of the inquiry process. The children used an inquiry wheel, developed from the work of Lane Clarke, to plan their inquiries. The inside circle [of the wheel] gave them the triggers to write meaningful inquiry tasks and the outside circle gave tools to support learning. The children used a task map to track their progress. [p. 4]
Toolbox resources used in the recording phase:
Experiment think, History think, Animal think, Story board. [p. 5]
- To read more about the learning process, go to Teacher reflections