The Sweet Song of Creativity in Inquiry Learning

“The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes”, Marcel Proust.

For me the longing to create is born from curiosity and imagination. One of my passions in high school was visual arts. I could play with colour and form, and bring ideas and interpretations into being. It was a deliciously solitary pursuit and I loved nothing more than getting lost for hours with my acrylics and pallet knives as my friends. When it came time to choose to pursue it post high school my introvert nature became rattled by the social cliques, and the measurements used to 'pass or fail' at tertiary level were daunting. Years of fixed mindset education did nothing to prepare me to take that leap of faith. I panicked and 'quit.' I still dabble in it when the time and inclination strikes though, but the passion and drive (time) required to do it justice no longer fits into my life.

Still, this blog endlessly resonates with how art still drives my teaching career, none more so than my love of learning as Inquiry. A decade of teaching through inquiry has convinced me that it is an art form. I would argue that there is no template to it and can come in many forms, and it's rather a set of guiding principles that the teacher will use to create the conditions of an inquiring environment to engage students. I would also venture to say that if you are following a very prescriptive methodology then it is likely it is not inquiry learning yet- the wonderful heutagogy conundrum!

Why? The purpose of inquiry learning is to develop cognisance and understanding in the learner. Therefore the learner needs to be in the driver's seat.

How? Through experiential learning, doing, that develops critical thinking. Creating the environment for this to occur is where the teacher really needs to be cognisant of the level and type of input needed. Too much input or structure and you have taken the steering wheel off the learner and you are now in control of the vehicle, while the learner becomes a secondary participant. Direct teaching is important but it needs to be carefully implemented. No one learns how to drive a car by watching someone else do it.

What? Now, that's an interesting question, because what students learn (Nuthall G. 2007), depends entirely in how the journey progresses and the foci along the way. The context and content are the vehicles, not the journey or destination. Anyone can learn how to drive in any car, but experiencing different contexts to drive in is what grows expertise. Whatever framework is used (PBL, Design Thinking, etc), needs to meet the Heutagogy litmus test.

- Inquiry learning is a team sport and the teacher is part of the team not a spectator.

Whenever teachers 'plan' an inquiry and decide on a a set of skills, contexts or content to be covered, there are two ways the journey can go:

On one hand, students are led through the process and so surface knowledge of what the teachers wanted to get across occurs. I call this transmission learning, not inquiry learning. Students learn stuff and reproduce (often in fun and very fancy ways) what teachers have assessed to be valuable learning prior to the learning taking place. If inquiry learning is about students growing their internal locus of control (and I believe that it is), this will be hard to do when the learning is driven externally. (This blog post from Peter Skillen is about locus of control in education).

The alternative is that teachers create the conditions, through sets of experiences, that help both teachers and students slowly paint the landscape and together construct the content that will ultimately express what the students have learned about themselves and the world around them in the process. There is no quantitative end in mind, rather ongoing reflections of understanding: "I used to think that.., now I see how..." The learning is personal and contextualised by the learner. What fascinates me about this approach is that I, the teacher, become a learner. While I observe, question and listen (i.e formatively assess) students learning through inquiry, I consider what challenge they need to move onto the next step. My challenge is then how to best create, modify, adapt, or structure the learning experiences to challenge them from where they are to where they might go next. (An example of this is here)

In inquiry learning (and planning) there is questioning, failure, creativity,  discussion, reflection, challenge, uncertainty and above all, curiosity. Mine and theirs. So before I plan an inquiry, I like to think of it as I approach art:

- Context, deep understandings and concepts: the inspiration and fuel or curiosity to get us going.
- Possible skills to grow in the learner: the palette or the tools- always negotiable.
- The initial provocations or experiences: Ways we can begin to create a shared landscape in the blank canvas and that provide a degree of challenge- including for me.

References:
Nuthall, G. (2007). The hidden lives of learners. Wellington: Nzcer Press.