How can I contribute to my community of learning through my teaching inquiry?

Kia Ora, 

I have used Jay and Johnson’s Model of reflective practice to structure this reflection (of describe, compare and critically reflect).

Wegner (2000) shares that a Community of Learning is defined by three elements: joint enterprise, mutual engagement and a share repertoire. My Community of Learning, Manaiakalani, demonstrates these attributes. 

As a community of learning we have identified the deficit in oral language of our learners. Closer to home, within Glen Innes School, we have have focused on our junior school and creating a culture of language in abundance. In term 2 of this year, we tested for the first time our learners oral and vocabulary language in years 0-4 (follow this link to see our findings). We discovered that the 

“Average” oral language chronological age is 5 years. 

“Average” deficit of -1 years and 5 months. 

I will be using my teacher inquiry, as an opportunity to explore how the tools I have picked up along this “digital and collaborative” Mind Lab journey can be used to support the oral language and vocabulary learning. 

I will centre my teacher inquiry around our Community of Learning achievement challenge #3: To lift the achievement in Reading for all students, with a particular focus on boys and Maori students (both genders) in years 1-13. 

I will be using the Manaiakalani Community of Learning, Teaching as Inquiry model, 

Fitting under this umbrella of oral language and vocabulary, are the topics that I have explored in the first half of the Mind Lab. 

After scanning through all the topics, the two potential topics that  caught my interest were   disruptive technologies, and gamification (games and education). In my teaching inquiry I will explore these topics through the lens of accelerating the oral language and vocabulary learning.
Follow the links to see my blog posts about these topics, written during the first half of The Mind Lab. 

The teachers within the Manaiakalani, Community of Learning, and within my school we have all been exploring ways to grow the oral language and vocabulary of our learners. A blog by Core Ed, highlights the importance of the collaborative nature of teaching as inquiry, as it creates a collective responsibility for our learners. 

As my wider community of learning is Manaiakalani, taking the approach of Core Ed, my teaching as inquiry team would be the teachers I work alongside at Glen Innes School. Other members of my community of learning  have looked at growing our learners oral language and vocabulary in different ways, as they have different knowledge that they bring to the table, like TESOL studies, reading recovery training, and expertise in the area of literacy. I think I contribute a new flavour to this ongoing inquiry, by looking at it through the lens of what I have learnt at The Mind Lab. 

Manaiakalani is a community of learning, that is enthusiastic about the idea of innovation and accelerating learning using digital technologies. Although, I think, my school team is new to the idea of working collaboratively rather that just “cooperating”. I have used the Microsoft Learning Rubric by ITL for collaboration to see what genuine collaboration look like, and I think, as teachers we …”work on teams with others to accomplish tasks that are too complex for individuals to do on their own”. I think, that yes, inquiries we work on are too complex for us to face on our own, but we often do. 

Kia kaha!