Inquiry and the Key Competencies

1. Inquiry and the Key Competencies Jan-Marie Kellow

2. “When designing and reviewing their curriculum, schools will need to consider how to encourage and monitor the development of the key competencies” p38

3. Key Competencies (p12) • Thinking • Using Language Symbols and Texts • Managing Self • Relating to Others • Participating & Contributing How might inquiry foster these?

4. What makes them different? • Holistic - integrate knowledge, skills, attitudes and values. • Demonstrated in authentic contexts and in interaction with others. • Demonstrated when we adapt the competency to use appropriately in a new setting. • Consistent with situated and socio-cultural views of learning. • Focus on dispositions. * Rosemary Hipkins NZCER

5. Managing Self • Managing self is associated with self-motivation, a “can-do” attitude, and with students seeing themselves as capable learners. It is integral to self assessment. • Students who manage themselves are enterprising, resourceful, reliable, and resilient. They establish personal goals, make plans, manage projects and set high standards. They have strategies for meeting challenges. They know when to lead, when to follow and when and how to act independently

6. Managing Self • KWH • Resource Management • Time Management • Set standards • Self assessment

7. Relating to others • ‘Relating to others’is about interacting with a diverse range of people in a variety of contexts. This competency includes active listening, recognising different points of view, negotiating, and sharing ideas. • Students who relate well to others are more likely to be open to new learning. They can take different roles in different situations. They know when it is appropriate to compete and when it is appropriate to cooperate.

8. Relating to others • Active Listening • Grouping - variety • Good Inquiry Questions – sharing, negotiating & accepting

9. Fertile Questions • Undermining – challenge existing beliefs • Charged – have an ethical dimension “Teaching and Learning in a Community of Thinking” YoramHarpaz http://www.learningtolearn.sa.edu.au/Colleagues/pages/default/harpaz/

10. Participating and contributing • “‘Participating and contributing’ is about using learning when taking an active part in a range of local, national, and global communities. Communities can be based on kinship, interest, and culture and include places of learning, work, and recreation.” p12 • “Students who participate and contribute effectively know their own place in the world and have the confidence to become active participants in contexts that are new to them. They understand the importance of balancing rights, roles, and responsibilities, and can contribute to the sustainable well-being of society, culturally, economically, and environmentally.” p12

11. Connected & Contributing • Authenticity • Relevance • Purpose – why? • Action “Teaching and Learning in a Community of Thinking” YoramHarpaz http://www.learningtolearn.sa.edu.au/Colleagues/pages/default/harpaz/

12. Using languages, symbols, and texts “‘Using languages, symbols, and texts’is about working with the codes in which knowledge is expressed. Languages and symbols are systems for representing and communicating information, experiences and ideas; using languages and symbols, people understand and produce texts of all kinds: written, spoken and visual; imaginative and informative; mathematical technological and scientific.” “Students who are skilful in responding to and using languages and symbols can understand and create a wide range of texts. They can interpret and use words, number, images, movement, metaphor and technology in a range of contexts. They can identify how the ways in which languages and symbols are used to have an effect on understandings and responses.”

13. Presentation/Communication • Brochures • Radio interviews • Podcasts • Artwork • 3D designs • Posters • Songs • Wikis • Blogs • Powerpoint • Webpages • Digital Stories • Video • Documentaries • Letters/emails • Reports • Plays/Skits etc. • News desk

14. Thinking • “‘Thinking’ is about using creative, critical, and logical processes to make sense of and to question information, experiences, and ideas.” p12 • ‘Thinking’ includes researching, organising, and evaluating to seek understanding, to inform decisions, to shape actions, and to construct knowledge.” p12 • “This competency implies intellectual curiosity, an enquiring attitude, and a desire to know and understand.” p12

15. Thinking Dispositions Attitudes and inclinations that link skills and action Example: Costa's habits of mind (www.habits-of-mind.net/)

16. Thinking • “Students who have well-developed thinking skills can think about their own learning, draw on intuitions and personal knowledge, ask questions, and reflect on assumptions and perceptions.” p12

17. Thinking skills Techniques and strategies used to develop processes and efficiency of thinking Examples: Perkins & Swartz' graphic organisers De Bono'sCoRT

18. Types of Thinking • Generating ideas • Clarifying ideas • Assessing the reasonableness of ideas Source: Dr Robert Swartz www.nctt.net

19. Graphic Organisers • www.sdcoe.k12.ca.us/score/actbank/torganiz.htm • www.graphic.org/goindex.html • www.greece.k12.ny.us/instruction/ela/6-12/Tools/Index.htm • www.eduplace.com/graphicorganizer/ • www.educationworld.com/tools_templates/index.shtml#graphicOrganizers • www.enchantedlearning.com/graphicorganizers/star/

20. “The school curriculum should challenge students to use and develop the competencies across the range of learning areas and in increasingly complex and unfamiliar situations” p38 What does this mean in practice?

21. Resources • www.inquiringmind.co.nz • Birkdale Intermediate www.bis.school.nz/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=54 • ‘Infusing the teaching of Critical and Creative Thinking into Content Instruction” by Robert Swartz & Sandra Parks (The Critical Thinking Co.) • Solo Taxonomy www.tki.org.nz/r/assessment/atol_online/ppt/solo-taxonomy.ppt • Thinker’s Keys www.thinkerskeys.com/cms/pages/BM_Menu/Thinkers+Keys/Free+Thinkers+Keys+for+Kids/!/display.html

22. Acknowledgements • Trevor Bond • Sharon Friesen • YoramHarpaz • Pam Hook & Julie Mills • Opoutere School teachers • Zania Watt • Karen Reynolds • Jo Bennett

23. jkellow@xtra.co.nz www.inquiringmind.co.nz