Inquiry, Collaboration and Reflection

For the past couple of weeks I haven't blogged much.  Partly this is because we're coming up to the end of our school year - there is just so much to do.  There are orders to be put in for next year, reports to be written,  rooms to be packed up and so on.  On top of that I've pushed myself to finish my second book about living in Switzerland and have been preparing for my first workshop as a PYP Workshop Leader, which will start in Paris later this week.  Oh, and did I also mention that I've been planning a tour of Scottish universities with my daughter too, starting the day after I return from Paris.  Phew!

Anyway, back to the title of this post.  As I've been preparing for the Paris workshop, I've been planning a number of different sessions.  There are 12 sessions in total spread out over 3 days and each of them has its own central idea.  For example here are a couple of them:

• Responsibility for learning is shared within a learning community through collaborative and reflective planning
• An inquiry process allows students to revisit and revise prior knowledge in the light of new experiences in order to extend their learning

The more I'm planning this workshop, the more these three words keep coming up - inquiry, collaboration and reflection.  To me they represent the heart of what we are doing.  They've moved on from just words in our curriculum framework documents,  to being a deeply embedded part of my professional life - I cannot do my job without them.  All of the units I support through tech integration, 49 different ones in total this year across the 2 campus where I work, are driven by inquiry.  It's only possible to support these inquiries through collaboration with the homeroom and specialist teachers.  This process cannot be successful without reflection:  thinking deeply and carefully about what we are doing.

Photo Credit:  The Dance of Joy by Garry Schlatter