My inquiry this year is to see if a focus on spelling conventions foster an environment where word consciousness strengthens connections to the learning? By creating a causal chain this helped me see what I wanted to focus on, where I was and where I wanted to end. This then helped me fill in the chain with my thought processes, data, strategies, interventions and outcomes. In short what is the purpose of my Teacher Inquiry and how can I change my teaching to foster the desired outcome. Working backwards in the map allows you to have a vision and work out step by step how you could get there. It is important to know that not everything will work but when that happens it is a learning opportunity, an opportunity to change your thinking and teaching practice and move on to the next strategy or intervention to get you closer to your inquiry focus.
My Causal Chain (backward map) is shown below.
Robyn and I are doing a collaborative inquiry as we share a class. We have the same vision but we have different groups of learners which means our approach is different yet aligned. We have noticed the same behaviour overall from our learners. When writing they revert to words they either know or can spell rather than expanding their vocabulary by using unfamiliar words. Our hunch is that if our learners have opportunities to have a timetabled sessions of Word Consciousness - understanding the connections of the words, the chunks, decoding the words and spelling conventions, the learners will gain the confidence to begin to use the 'new' words with confidence in their everyday learning.
