Supporting teachers' and schools' use of inquiry and evidence

ISTEs also learn alongside school communities as they support those communities to identify for themselves the changes that they need to make to their practice if they are to enable their students to achieve their potential. This requires ISTEs to establish mutually trusting and respectful relationships with the schools they work with, as discussed in the chapter on Communication and Relationships. ISTEs can also contribute to greater coherence across the system by making links between inquiries that are taking place at different sites and levels of the system.

In schools, the work of ISTEs involves supporting the use of inquiry and evidence at two levels. At the classroom level, they support teachers to collect, analyse, and use a range of information to make decisions about how well individual students are doing and how they can improve their teaching practices in order to help each student achieve to their potential. At the whole-school level, ISTEs support school leaders who wish to create cultures of inquiry to drive improvement in their schools. They help schools to mine their data, using it to challenge beliefs and assumptions and to help teachers and leaders to understand that it is in their power to help their students achieve higher levels of learning.

A useful way of fostering evidence-based inquiry at the school level may be to link it to the Planning and Reporting (PAR) framework that became mandatory when the National Administration Guidelines were gazetted in 2003.¹ A report by NZCER researchers Hipkins, Joyce, and Wylie (2007) into the implementation of the PAR framework includes a useful summary of its intentions. The report describes how the planning and reporting framework is linked to some of the key reform ideas found in many other Ministry of Education documents:

• The focus is on improving achievement for all students.
• The teacher has a central role in improving student achievement.
• The focus is on student outcomes and the evaluation of the impact of “interventions” on these outcomes. Therefore trustworthy evidence needs to be used.
• There needs to be coherence across school policies.
• Improving student outcomes is a shared responsibility.

Hipkins et al. report that there have been generally positive shifts in awareness of the intended outcomes of the PAR process, with schools identifying the focus on raising student achievement and setting goals with their students’ learning needs in mind. However, their report also identifies gaps. They suggest that schools need more support in:

• setting clear and measurable reporting goals;
• making data-supported teaching decisions.

In 2006 and 2007, ERO released three reports that raised similar questions about schools ability to “self-review”. Their focus was on the collection and use of assessment information to ensure that teaching decisions are meeting students’ learning needs. Like Hipkins et al., the ERO report concludes that schools need more support if they are to increase the effectiveness of their assessment practices.

Referring to the challenges and opportunities of self-review, a principal puts it well:

A guiding focus needs to be what the school needs to reflect on and subsequently enhance so that there is a positive impact for student learning.

… self-review that is not developed from need, or involving those who will be implementing any suggested changes, can be a bit like sitting on a swivel chair, going around in circles with nothing achieved. This becomes a mere ticking of the boxes without purpose, and in today’s climate there is the ultimate possibility that we could “fold up” instantly.

Marion Fitchett, 2007

English (in development) and her colleagues have begun to explore how and why it is that linking evidence-based inquiry to the PAR framework may support schools to achieve the planned outcomes of specific professional learning initiatives while also enabling them to see the coherence across a range of reform ideas. At the time of writing, their ideas about what this might mean for ISTEs in their work with schools include:

• seeking a shared understanding and language to describe the effective use of data, linking to the “Teacher inquiry and knowledge-building cycle to promote valued student outcomes” diagram in the TPLD BES (Timperley et al., 2007, inside front cover);
• engaging in constructive talk and using “smart tools” (Robinson and Timperley, 2007) that enable people to explore and improve the assumptions and theories that underpin their practice;
• linking the notions of accountability and professional learning (see pages 165–166).

English proposes the use of the inquiry cycle outlined in the TPLD BES: another option is the use of the “Teaching as inquiry” diagram on page 35 of The New Zealand Curriculum. Certainly, it is essential that all ISTEs check teachers’ understanding about the key message in the curriculum that teaching is based on inquiry.

Return to top