In for the Long Haul: The #PYP Year-Long Who We Are Unit of Inquiry

Today we are making Unicorn Cupcakes. I wonder if my friend Amelia is as excited and nervous as I am about it. She’s going to be leading the activity and already has 5 friends who she is going to work on the project.  Last time our friend, Martin, researched “potions” and after reading several science experiment books, decided on recreating a volcanic eruption. He created a sign-up sheet and enlisted several friends to help him with the project.

You see, on Friday afternoons, students have time carved out to work on personal learning projects in our Grade 1 class, which we generically call our “personal inquiry time” others may call it “genius hour” or “golden time”. In the beginning, it was a generic exploration, and we just let the children play, but now we want to refocus this time a bit more so that we move from an interest into a passion, developing true skills and knowledge.

Despite this unit of inquiry being sprinkled over the course of our calendar year, as a team, we have decided to devote time consistently to this Who We Are Unit, whose central idea is: Our choices and actions as individuals determine who we become as a community. In particular, we are exploring the line of inquiry, ourselves as learners (reflection) during this allocated time.

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We believe that not only will we develop a culture of curiosity and wonder, but also really get to know the hearts and minds of our students.  I am also interested in documenting how we are creating a “powerful learning environment” that I think is beautifully captured in the following quote:

When I think of a powerful learning environment, it has a number of different aspects to it. One is that, when you walk into it, there is a sense of engagement and excitement and purposeful learning. I think that there is attention given to, not only the content, but what is often referred to as the four Cs–communication, collaboration, creativity, and critical thinking. 

Mary Beth Banios, quoted from Launching Innovation in Schools course.

Undoubtedly I will use this blog to demonstrate progress and innovation in this area. I feel that we are on the path already. Of course, I also feel that this is our first step developing agency, the new buzzword that is now central to the “Enhanced PYP”.

So what do we know about “Agency”? Although I love reading blog posts that demonstrate innovative approaches to it, I always proceed with caution because I know that meaningful and personalized learning requires structure and organization. In our context, we are dabbling with students pursuing interests; it is not anarchy nor is it obedience. It’s the power to act with initiative, and we are looking for ways to support them in their efforts.

In Personalized Learning in a PLC at Work: Student Agency Through the Four Critical Questions by Timothy Stuart and Sascha Heckmann, the myth is debunked that not all progressive personalized learning initiatives result in student learning.  “Learning progressive schools” need to combine effective structures with a clear direction of the essential student learning outcomes. As a teacher who is promoting open-ended inquiry during our precious class time, I wholeheartedly agree with their recipe to build in an organized approach to our learning.

Structures of Inquiry 

Timothy Stuart and Sacha Heckman advocate for using 4 questions in a PLC to drive a more personalized approach to inquiry.

The 4 Questions: (Worded in the perspective of a student)

1. What do I want to know, understand and be able to do? (What is my learning goal?)
2. How will I demonstrate that I have learned it?
3. What will I do when I am stuck? (How will I get out the learning pit?)
4. What will I do when I have already learned? (What will be my next learning challenge?)

We are beginning to introduce this structure, however, right now we are considering how we can not only help students plan their learning but how we can effectively document and assess it–and whose job is it to do so?

The Learning Outcomes

Perhaps since I’ve spent the bulk of my career in the Early Years, “proving” that kids are learning isn’t a hard pill to swallow. Since we are a bit off the map, we are using suggestions to release control gradually when students can confidently and competently articulate their learning. Stuart and Heckmann propose a teacher-led learning approach in which teachers determine what disciplinary skills that will need to be mastered, answering the first 3 critical questions of a PLC, and leave the 4th question to the students to answer.  In a nutshell, this is the advice:

When targeting essential disciplanary outcomes, the collaborative teacher team is responsible for the path and pace of learning.

Because we are dabbling with this, determining specifics with “what do we want all students to know and be able to do?” becomes a bit of a challenge since it’s not anchored in developing content knowledge. Plus, since this is a Who We Are unit, it’s hard to peg content-specific goals to it anyhow.

That said, I believe deeply about the need to have “skin in the game”, and intend to co-create success criteria along with students, assessing the development of Approaches To Learning (ATLs). Our school has slightly revised the popular Approaches to Learning document which will be helpful in describing how students are developing these sub-skills within the year-long Who We Are. There are some of these areas in which our students will have no experience or understanding of–they are in first grade after all!  But I believe that if we create a focus on some key areas and develop goals around them, this can be quite potent.

So, we’re in for the long haul now, excited by the possibilities and power of a year-long unit of inquiry. Perhaps if other schools are considering doing an extended unit of inquiry, this post might have inspired and given you some food for thought. I sure hope so because, in my mind, this can be foundational for developing a life-long approach to learning.