What does an inquiry focussed teaching team look like?

The language of learning

What happens when the unexpected happens is often a real insight into the character of a learner. Curiosity, creativity, persistence and camaraderie require vulnerability. Putting yourself out there, being brave in every sense of the word, is a way into exploring something new and not giving up, even when the ‘new’ is tricky. Whether learning is inside the intricacies of making and being a friend, writing letters that at first are so difficult, exploring our natural world with the wonder that comes from deep within or when an ‘actual’ spider falls into your gumboot, how we respond keeps us open to further inquiry or not…. hearing the language of learning helps to build resilience, resourcefulness and reflective inquiry, three of Guy Claxton’s learning power words. And the fourth, so very powerful for learning, is wrapped up inside social learning where we bump ideas around together and come up with innovative, collaborative efforts that are far more than individuals can muster on their own. 

Guy's latest book, the Learning Powered Approach has expanded these original ideas and has a chapter on 'learning elements'. These dispositional words are easily transported into your Learning Stories. Obviously they need to be meaningfully connected to the narrative, however, they are extraordinarily useful when we are considering what kind of language to use to alert families and children about learning, and give specific feedback that grows learner identity. For example: 

Today, Jasper, you maintained your focus, despite the many distractions around you. I think that you were so engrossed in the learning goals you had set for yourself that you ‘locked’ your mind onto learning…..

This is the way Guy describes dispositional aspects of learning and what these mean in terms of how learners respond to learning opportunities. If you are 'curious' then you will have an inquisitive attitude towards life and you will wonder, question, explore and experiment.

Curiosity: Having an inquisitive attitude towards life

Wondering: Being alive to puzzles and incongruities

Questioning: Seeking deeper understanding

Exploring: Actively and adventurously investigating

Experimenting: Trying things out to see what happens

Attention: Locking your mind onto learning

Noticing: Being attentive to details and patterns

Concentrating: Maintaining focus despite distractions

Contemplating: Letting perception unfold

Immersing: Being engrossed in learning

Determination: Sticking with challenges that matter to you

Persevering: Staying intelligently engaged with learning

Recovering: Bouncing back quickly from frustration

Practicing: Mastering the hard parts through repetition

Imagination: Creatively exploring possibilities

Connecting: Using metaphor and association to leverage new ideas from what you know

Playing with ideas: Allowing the mind to bubble up with possibilities

Visualising: Using mental rehearsal to refine skills and explore consequences

Intuiting: Tapping in to bodily based nuances and inklings

Thinking: Working things out with clarity and accuracy

Analysing: Reasoning with logic and precision

Deducing: Drawing inferences from explanations

Critiquing: Questioning the validity of knowledge claims

Systems thinking: Thinking about complex states of affairs

Socialising: benefitting from and contributing to the social world of learning

Collaborating: Being an effective and supportive team member

Accepting: Being open to ideas and feedback

Imitating: Being permeable to other people’s good habits

Empathising: Adopting multiple perspectives

Leading: Playing a role in guiding and developing

Reflection: Standing back and taking stock of learning

Evaluating: Appraising the quality of your own work 

Self-evaluating: Knowing yourself as a learner

Witnessing: Quietly watching the flow of your own experience

Thinkering: Blending doing and thinking together 

Organisation: Being methodical and systematic about learning

Learning-Designing: creating your own learning activities

Planning: Anticipating the needs and pitfalls of the learning journey

Resourcing: Building your bank of learning resources  

The Learning Story below has these ideas embedded into it. Once we thought Learning Stories were written primarily for the child, however, over time we have come to realise what a valuable resource they are to engage families in wider conversations about ways to nurture children's learning identities. When these stories form part of teachers ongoing conversations with families, they support partnership, so children's deeply invested interests can flow between home, centre and beyond.