Week 3 Chapter 2: February 1 - 8 - Delaware Valley Literacy Association

Week 3 Chapter 2: February 1 - 8

1/31/2020

Thank you for another great week of discussion about action research! This week's discussion will be focused on Chapter 2. Below you will find some specific and general prompts to help guide your thinking. These are only suggestions. We welcome your own thinking as well!

Specific prompts to the chapter to possibly consider:

What connections did you make to Chapter 2?
Did one or more of the scenarios resonate with you? If so, can you explain why?
Did this chapter lead you to thinking about your own possible entry point to inquiry, in education or another facet of your life?

General prompts to possibly consider:

What was meaningful to you?
How can you use this in your own practice?
How does the content connect and apply to your practice?

Thank you!

7 Comments

Janice Ewing

2/2/2020 09:31:40 am

Hi Fellow Readers and Friends,
Thanks for coming along on this journey with us. If you've been following along but not posting, consider adding your thoughts or commenting on someone else's post at any time! Also, please look back at the earlier threads to see if you may have missed a response to your post.
In this chapter, Mary and I presented a variety of scenarios from teachers in different settings and at different levels of experience. Most of them are based on composites of educators that we've worked with, and two are from NWP colleagues. We're hoping that some of them will particularly resonate with each reader. Overall, our purpose in this chapter was to explore how teachers find possible entry points to inquiry. We hope you'll share your reactions to any of the scenarios, to the book, and/or your own experiences. Thank you!

Carol Shiffrin

2/14/2020 08:43:45 am

I’m truly enjoying getting to know and follow the educators in the seven scenarios in each chapter. It’s an engaging method for presenting a variety of situations in which educators find themselves and the range of ways in which they consider their issues. I’m looking forward to what happens next!
As a reading specialist and graduate instructor, I recognized how comforting to teachers it was to learn that there is no one right way to approach a problem or question; however, reflecting/writing, connecting, and applying play important roles in inquiry, no matter what the question or problem.
Protocols such as the lesson demonstration, as well as the templates at the end of the chapter can be very helpful in guiding teachers to their inquiry questions. As I was reading this chapter on forming an inquiry question, I kept thinking of the quote by psychotherapist Carl Rogers: “What is most personal is most universal.” Although I don’t think Dr. Rogers was necessarily talking about teacher inquiry, I do think that when teachers’ questions are deeply connected to a strong desire to address a specific issue involving a student or students, the inquiry process can result in impacts beyond those particular students.

Janice Ewing

2/16/2020 04:29:51 pm

Carol,

Thank you so much for posting these thoughts, and for sharing the quote from Carl Rogers. I agree that it's very relevant to teacher inquiry, even if that was not the intention. From my experience, anything we learn about one student or group of students, will have wider application, and will help us develop the mindset of searching for what works.

Meg Norris

2/4/2020 03:49:51 pm

Finding an entry point for inquiry for me requires reflection, observation, and critical thinking. Many of the scenarios this week resonated with me as I felt as though I had lived those situations too. The role of community was also very important to me. I tend to reach out to my PLC or mentor teachers for advise. Then, I use that information to help me move forwards to ensure I'm doing what is best for my learners. Recently, I've really been thinking about engagement. I'm not sure of my particular question yet, but I've been mulling this idea around in my head.

RITA SORRENTINO

2/5/2020 09:21:58 am

The poem, “The Way It Is” by William Stafford reminds me that throughout our personal and professional journeys we discover new ideas, which help us evaluate our practices. These threads inspire us to weave what is purposeful and meaningful into the fabric of our beliefs. Staying current requires a recursive rather than a linear path. Perhaps the routines and the procedures articulated by the teachers in the scenarios are the invisible threads that empower us to continue our reflections, questions and implementations as we develop entry points into an inquiry stance of teaching and learning.

Lisa Hantman

2/13/2020 10:50:29 am

I have done teacher inquiry many times, as a member of a teacher inquiry group, or on my own. For many years, I focused my annual inquiry question on a single student, one who emerged, early in the year, as needing a closer look for one reason or another. For example, I might ponder how I can help said child integrate more productively during center time. This looking closely at one child would, inevitably, help me with many classroom issues and with knowing other students better, as well. I learned of this observatory stance from the work of Patricia Carini and my long standing involvement with The Philadelphia Teacher's Learning Cooperative.
As a member of an inquiry group years ago, the topic emerged from the group purpose. It was entitled Going Deeper. We were looking at how student's views of things change, or not, over the year, and I focused on students' prejudice, or lack of. I wanted to know if the books we read, the discussions we had and the activities we did mattered, or helped them become more accepting, thoughtful and loving beings.
For the last several years, I was an active member of an inquiry group with Need In Deed. Each year, I chose a different inquiry, based on my reflections of the previous teaching year. With my desire to counter the ever amounting testing mandates, I was looking for how to truly inspire children and increase their investment in their learning. My first in-depth inquiry with this group was entitled Doors In. With the support of the facilitator and the group members, I looked closely at three students, and generally at the class as a whole, to find the various ways children connect to the daily work of school. The experience helped me reshape some things and broaden many things I was already doing. It led to a major increase in student involvement and a vibrancy in the work we were doing through the year. It magnified many ideas allowing me to offer a wide range of opportunities that touched each individual in my classroom.
In subsequent years I have looked closely at how I can open my classroom to allow more student voice, how to reshape the curriculum to allow for a project based experience and several other topics.
When choosing a topic, I think it helps to ponder what has been in previous years in one's classroom and whether goals were reached. It is crucial to know what are your goals, in addition to the mandates foisted upon the teacher. The inquiry comes from critical thought, but it also comes from the heart.

Janice Ewing

2/16/2020 04:37:40 pm

Lisa, thanks for sharing your wide experience with action research. It seems to have been a common thread throughout your career. I was familiar with Need in Deed, but not with Going Deeper and Doors In. Are you familiar with the book Troublemakers by Carla Shalaby? She takes a very in-depth, non-judgemental look at four children whose behavior could easily be seen as problematic, and helps the reader to see them differently. There are no easy answers, but the inquiry and ethnography approach is very illuminating.

Winter Book Club

Week 3 Chapter 2: February 1 - 8

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