Inquiry Questions

I have been pondering about my inquiry questions for awhile now and the Spiral of Learning workshop helped clarify how to take the initial step of developing an inquiry question. The process of Scanning - Focusing - Developing a Hunch (first three steps) can be a revolving process until you find the right questions. However, my focus, or should I say, Danielle's and my focus is around the Batten Team's newly established self regulated maths class, including the associated workshops.

Danielle and I had already decided that we would work together (collaborative inquiry) as it involved both our teams and as the following slide says "Transformation work requires a team!" This approach, I believe, will be more effective in researching into our inquiry question(s).

Scanning:
Actually I think we have been going through this process for awhile, narrowing down the area where an 'inquiry' would benefit not only students' but also teachers. Maths stood out as we had already introduced the 'flipped classroom' approach on a smaller scale in 2014 and this year with the chromebooks, well this has allowed us to introduce self regulated learning or greater student agency.

Focusing:
So here I need to ask myself (or ourselves some questions) :

1. So when we make the changes, what will make the most substantive difference?
2. How do we keep it manageable?
3. What evidence do we need to collect?
4. What are our students strengths
5. What changes do we want to see?

(Ideas for questions from Spiral of Learning slide)

Hunches:
The Year 6 students had already had a taste of self regulating their learning near the end of 2014. A discussion was held at the end of the year about this type of learning: how they felt about it and what impact did it have on their learning.  At the end of Term 1 2015, I asked Rm 4 how they were going with the chromebooks and learning in this way. They responded it was great, however can we work the way they did at the end of last year where they could 'choose' their schedule.
So the point is here that my hunch was already established and now I (or we) need to look at how we are going to respond to this different way of teaching and assist our students to have a greater learning agency.


Questions to ponder:  (refer Core's 10 Trends Tab above for further info on Learning Agency)

1. What impact will a self regulated maths class have on the Batten Team students' learning and the way they will be able to exercise their agency in learning?
2. How will redesigning the current way we teach maths in the Batten Team impact on students' learning once they become self regulated learners during maths?
3. How will redesigning the current way we teach maths in the Batten Team impact on students' learning and learning agency once they become self regulated learners during maths?