A Culture Of Enquiry

This volume collects a wide range of papers discussing all aspects of Therapeutic Community (TC) research. An invaluable resource for anyone involved in the field, it considers questions of which methods are most appropriate in the TC environment, how research studies affect this, as well as practical and ethical questions.

Children and young people with Complex Learning Difficulties and Disabilities (CLDD) have co-existing and overlapping conditions which can manifest in complex learning patterns, extreme behaviours and a range of socio-medical needs which are new and unfamiliar to many educators. Their combination of issues and layered needs – mental health, relationship, behavioural, physical, medical, sensory, communication and cognitive – mean they often disengage from learning and challenge even our most experienced teachers. This book provides school practitioners and leaders with an approach and resources to engage this often disenfranchized group of children in learning. The Engagement for Learning Framework has been developed and trialled by over 100 educational settings (both special and mainstream) with learners from early years to post-16. It gives practitioners from a range of disciplines a shared means of assessing, recording and developing personalized learning pathways and demonstrating progression for these children. The focus on inquiry means that however complex a young person’s needs, educators will be able to apply the approach. This practical and engaging book provides literature, tools and case study examples outlining who children and young people with CLDD are, why their engagement for learning is important and how the Engagement for Learning Framework can be used effectively by teachers and other professionals to ensure the best possible outcomes for these children.

What are "essential questions," and how do they differ from other kinds of questions? What's so great about them? Why should you design and use essential questions in your classroom? Essential questions (EQs) help target standards as you organize curriculum content into coherent units that yield focused and thoughtful learning. In the classroom, EQs are used to stimulate students' discussions and promote a deeper understanding of the content. Whether you are an Understanding by Design (UbD) devotee or are searching for ways to address standards—local or Common Core State Standards—in an engaging way, Jay McTighe and Grant Wiggins provide practical guidance on how to design, initiate, and embed inquiry-based teaching and learning in your classroom. Offering dozens of examples, the authors explore the usefulness of EQs in all K-12 content areas, including skill-based areas such as math, PE, language instruction, and arts education. As an important element of their backward design approach to designing curriculum, instruction, and assessment, the authors *Give a comprehensive explanation of why EQs are so important; *Explore seven defining characteristics of EQs; *Distinguish between topical and overarching questions and their uses; *Outline the rationale for using EQs as the focal point in creating units of study; and *Show how to create effective EQs, working from sources including standards, desired understandings, and student misconceptions. Using essential questions can be challenging—for both teachers and students—and this book provides guidance through practical and proven processes, as well as suggested "response strategies" to encourage student engagement. Finally, you will learn how to create a culture of inquiry so that all members of the educational community—students, teachers, and administrators—benefit from the increased rigor and deepened understanding that emerge when essential questions become a guiding force for learners of all ages.

Communication is essential in a healthy organization. But all too often when we interact with people—especially those who report to us—we simply tell them what we think they need to know. This shuts them down. To generate bold new ideas, to avoid disastrous mistakes, to develop agility and flexibility, we need to practice Humble Inquiry. Ed Schein defines Humble Inquiry as “the fine art of drawing someone out, of asking questions to which you do not know the answer, of building a relationship based on curiosity and interest in the other person.” In this seminal work, Schein contrasts Humble Inquiry with other kinds of inquiry, shows the benefits Humble Inquiry provides in many different settings, and offers advice on overcoming the cultural, organizational, and psychological barriers that keep us from practicing it.

Noted leadership coach Jill Harrison Berg offers a comprehensive guide to help school and teacher leaders amplify the power of collaborative inquiry as a means for identifying, interrogating, and addressing instructional inequity. At the center of the book is Berg's i3PD Planning Map, an invaluable tool for enhancing inquiry-based professional development experiences so that they become engines for schoolwide transformation. The map guides teachers to recognize and reform ways their instructional practice may be contributing to inequity, bolsters facilitators' abilities to help their colleagues become more effective agents of their own learning, and cultivates a culture of organizational learning in schools. Berg lays out the process in four parts: 1. Establishing a solid foundation for your improvement cycle with a deep understanding of the three components of your instructional core: content, participants, and facilitators. 2. Attending to the three Rs—relevance, rigor, and relationships—representing the connections among the core components. 3. Designing your improvement cycle and planning it out as a series of session agendas. 4. Planning for impact by thinking through what you will accept as evidence of success and how you will use that information to take your school to the next level. If you're ready to see your school start to work smarter toward instructional equity, and if you're eager to be a part of that change, Uprooting Instructional Inequity provides the design principles and sample tools you need to get the transformation started.

FirstSchool is a groundbreaking framework for teaching minority and low-income children. Changing the conversation from improving test scores to improving school experiences, the text features lessons learned from eight elementary schools whose leadership and staff implemented sustainable changes. The authors detail how to use education research and data to provide a rationale for change; how to promote professional learning that is genuinely collaborative and respectful; and how to employ developmentally appropriate teaching strategies that focus on the needs of minority and low-income children.

Want to make learning more meaningful in your classroom? Looking to better prepare your students for the world of tomorrow? Keen to help learners create authentic connections to the world around them? Dive into Inquiry beautifully marries the voice and choice of inquiry with the structure and support required to optimise learning for students and get the results educators desire. With Dive into Inquiry you'll gain an understanding of how to best support your learners as they shift from a traditional learning model into the inquiry classroom where student agency is fostered and celebrated each and every day. This book strikes a perfect balance of meaningful pedagogy, touching narrative, helpful processes, original student examples, and rich how-to lesson plans all to get you going on bringing inquiry into your classroom. After reading this book educators will feel equipped to design their own inquiry units in a scaffolded manner that promote a gradual shift of control of learning from the teacher to the learner. Exploring student passions, curiosities, and interests and having these shape essential questions, units of study, and performance tasks are all covered in this powerful book. Learn to keep track of the many inquiry topics in your classroom and have students take ownership over their learning like never before! Trevor MacKenzie provides readers with a strong understanding of the Types of Student Inquiry and proposes a framework that best prepares both educators and learners for sharing the unpacking of curriculum in the classroom as they work together towards co-constructing a strong Free Inquiry unit. Helpful illustrations for in-class use, examples of essential questions from a variety of disciplines, practical goals for making progress in adopting inquiry into your practice, and powerful student learning on display throughout, Dive into Inquiry will energize, inspire, and transform your classroom!

This edited collection provides an introduction to the emerging interdisciplinary field of cultural mapping, offering a range of perspectives that are international in scope. Cultural mapping is a mode of inquiry and a methodological tool in urban planning, cultural sustainability, and community development that makes visible the ways local stories, practices, relationships, memories, and rituals constitute places as meaningful locations. The chapters address themes, processes, approaches, and research methodologies drawn from examples in Australia, Canada, Estonia, the United Kingdom, Egypt, Italy, Malaysia, Malta, Palestine, Portugal, Singapore, Sweden, Syria, the United Arab Emirates, the United States, and Ukraine. Contributors explore innovative ways to encourage urban and cultural planning, community development, artistic intervention, and public participation in cultural mapping—recognizing that public involvement and artistic practices introduce a range of challenges spanning various phases of the research process, from the gathering of data, to interpreting data, to presenting "findings" to a broad range of audiences. The book responds to the need for histories and case studies of cultural mapping that are globally distributed and that situate the practice locally, regionally, nationally, and internationally.