Our school has a program of collaborative inquiry teams for professional learning: teacher inquiry groups. Proposals are submitted by teachers who would like to lead an inquiry and teachers sign up for their preference.
TIGs are inspired by the action research model of teacher inquiry and their intention is to sharpen focus on an aspect of teaching in order to improve classroom practice.
image from the Santarosa Professional Development Centre, https://www.santarosa.k12.fl.us/pdc/inservice/followup/ar.aspx
This year, I led an action research inquiry into ebooks. Our common focus was reading, although we each took a slightly different line of inquiry, investigating the impact of one instructional intervention on student learning in our library/classroom. My line of inquiry related to ebooks and reading promotion; another investigated ebooks as learning resources; another looked at ebooks and improved reading outcomes; and another investigated a range of reading promotion activities.
The libguide for establishing this inquiry can be accessed here.
The report for our inquiry group and my inquiry into ebooks and reading promotion is available in the video below:
Our school has implemented Teacher Inquiry Groups for practice-based professional development this year. Teachers were invited to volunteer and nominate a topic for inquiry and many were activated.I am enjoying leading a group exploring social networking as a tool for professional development and web 2.0 tools for learning and teaching in the 2012 Personal Learning Network programme facilitated by the State Library of Victoria.
The guiding questions for our inquiry are:
1.How can web 2.0 tools support and inspire student learning?
2. How can social media facilitate my professional growth?
3. As we engage in a new digital environment, what matters of global citizenship are important to my students and myself?
We will meet every 3 or 4 weeks to review and discuss our progress and the tools explored. Each group member has created a blog and will write a post after each session, perhaps even more. So will I.
So, what are my hopes and expectations for this group? Essentially, I hope that after this 12 week programme, these teachers will come to
appreciate the power of social networking to inform and inspire their practice; make some enduring professional contacts through tools like Twitter, Ning, blogging.
sustain a curiosity for the power of the internet, social networking and web 2.0 tools in education.
discover new tools for their classrooms and try them out.
continue to be reflective, collaborative practitioners.
