Overall, I found this project to be a very valuable undertaking. My goal from my first days of teaching has been to become less prescriptive in my learning outcomes and let the students have more control in what they learn and how they express themselves. This is something I have improved at over the years but, despite my good intentions, I have not made as much progress as I would have liked. It has not been easy for me to get away from the industrial model of teaching and learning. Part of this is institutional: I have had to teach classes that culminated in provincial exams, and thus felt I would be doing students a disservice if I didn’t teach to the test in a rigid way. Thankfully, BC has gone almost entirely away from standardized tests and towards increased flexibility (Ministry of Education 2015); additionally, I now know that inquiry-based teaching can help students succeed on standardized tests (McTighe & Wiggins 2013). Part of my lack of progress was due to the expectations that I perceived were on me: students, parents, and administrators, I assumed (and other teachers ingrained this in me as well), wanted easily measurable activities so that grades were clearly objective entities that were easily justifiable. Looking back, I probably perceived more pressure in this regard than actually existed, and one of the many valuable takeaways from this class is that it helped give me the knowledge to articulate how I can properly facilitate learning and assess students without using the industrial model to those who disagree with inquiry-based methods. This course gave me a blueprint for hastening the shedding of my bad teaching habits and replacing them with tools that allow my students for a much deeper and richer connection to the subjects they are studying. In this sense, students will be motivated because they are undertaking work that has intrinsic meaning to them, not because of the rewards and consequences associated with grades (Bailey 2013).
As far as the specifics of my unit plan, while there are definitely some things I will change, I absolutely will bring much of this into the classroom. I love the use of essential questions as touchstones to continually revisit and evolve responses to over time. I think the writing process lends itself well to the inquiry cycle, as there is plenty of opportunity for asserting and expressing one’s own worldview while revising and growing this viewpoint throughout the process. When classroom activities are part of a larger inquiry, their relevance becomes apparent to the students. Additionally, I like that students are asked to confront diverse viewpoints and challenge their own perspectives; questioning and expanding one’s worldview can be a very valuable activity (Van Kessel 2019). For my English Language Arts class, looking at the art of storytelling cultivates connections to history, students’ day-to-day lives, and the diversity of those around us, including the First Peoples.
Reflecting on my project, I think that it may be valuable to make the topic more broad. The deeper I delved into this undertaking, the more I realized that the strongest points were the connections between storytelling and the asserting of one’s worldview, including the sharing of a personal message with others in an engaging and memorable way. Instead of focusing on asserting one’s moral philosophy, it may be more valuable for students of this age to assert a message they would like to share or spread with readers without the constraints of having to focus this strictly on morality. This broadening would allow me to tie the essential questions in seamlessly to every story we approach during the school year by asking questions such as: What is the worldview displayed by the author? What is the primary message (theme) of this story? Extending the inquiry to be flexible enough to apply to most of our activities allows for it to be a semester-long inquiry, and for the culminating activity (writing a short story) to be something that the students have on their mind for months, ruminating and evolving their ideas as we approach storytelling from different angles. The students will be able to approach the inquiry from different perspectives that are more meaningful to them with more flexibility. My activities can easily be used towards these ends with some modifications. Issues of moral philosophy can certainly be present in this inquiry, but they can be a smaller part of a larger exploration.
As I am re-entering the classrooms after a year of TOCing, I am genuinely excited to bring inquiry into my practice. I look forward to more open-ended discussion in my classes, and to give students the opportunity to have their unique voices heard and shared with their peers. I want my students to be doing work that is meaningful to their contexts, and to display growth that matters to them.
Bailey, D. (2013). Outside the Lines: Student Perspectives on Inquiry Learning. Savouring the Ish. https://savouringtheish.wordpress.com/2013/03/20/outside-the-lines-student-perspectives-on-inquiry-learning/
McTighe, J., & Wiggins, G. (2013). Essential Questions: Opening Doors to Student Understanding, Association for Supervision & Curriculum Development. ProQuest Ebook Central http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/sfu-ebooks/detail.action?docID=1164262.
Ministry of Education. (2015). Introduction to British Columbia’s Redesigned Curriculum. https://moodle.tru.ca/pluginfile.php/1366944/mod_resource/content/1/BC%20Curriculum%20Introduction.pdf
Van Keseel, C. (2019). The Grim Educator. Open Education Alberta. https://openeducationalberta.ca/grimeducator/front-matter/introduction/