How do aspects of law, regulations and/or policy impact on teacher inquiry?

Throughout my teacher inquiry I will take into consideration the Code of Professional Responsibility and Standards for the Teaching Profession ‘Our Code, Our Standards’. I will unpack this document and discuss how this will help to guide and identify aspects of law, regulations and policy relating to teacher inquiry. I will consider how professional relationships, learning-focused culture, design for learning, teaching, Te Tiriti o Waitangi partnership and professional learning will have an impact on my teacher inquiry.

‘Our Code, Our Standards’, has influenced the way I inquire into my practice, I will unpack several of these standards:

• Developing a learning-focused culture is central to my teacher inquiry. The students are active participants in the process of their learning, they have agency in the iPad apps they wish to use for learning and have ownership over their learning and sharing i.e. which apps they choose to use to showcase their work. Furthermore, the environment the students are in allows them to collaborate with others, this fosters respect and cooperation, thereby maintaining learning-focused relationships.
• Design for learning is a further standard that has influenced my practice. Throughout my teacher inquiry I have ensured my students interests and needs were considered i.e. using iPad apps that would interest them such as ‘Puppet Pals’. I also took into account curriculum and pedagogical knowledge when designing my inquiry - I knew literacy was an area that I wanted to see progress, therefore I would need apps that would support this. Furthermore, my inquiry was situated around the use of technology in the classroom, I knew that with the emerging digital curriculum, technology was going to be essential to my teacher inquiry. 
• Professional learning has had a huge impact on my inquiry. I have engaged in professional learning through The Mind Lab and school PD and have applied this to my practice. Research specific to the digital learning discipline and pedagogy has provided me with evidence which has informed my inquiry (research articles linked below). 

I believe these standards are evident in my schools policy and practice. Our school uses research to inform teaching which ensures professional learning is ongoing. As a result of this teachers are teaching in a knowledgeable and adaptive way and are designing learning tasks based on appropriate curriculum content, pedagogy and progressions for learners.

TKI states teacher inquiry is used as part of the appraisal process and policy in schools across New Zealand. It is used to provide evidence of accountability against the registered teacher criteria. This enables schools to show that standards are being met. The aim of this is to provide a link between teacher appraisal and school development, the aim is that teacher appraisal should be used to look into the relationship between teaching and learning, so teachers can improve their practice.

Using teacher inquiry as part of the appraisal process can present some challenges. Due to appraisal being an outcome dominated activity, an issue with teacher inquiry being linked to the appraisal process in schools is that teachers may choose inquiry topics where they know they will achieve the best outcome.

Furthermore, Wood (2015) states that using student achievement data as a starting point to the inquiry process could have an impact on making the teaching inquiry process outcomes focused and “nullifies the essence of inquiry of discovering other potential legitimate areas of practice”. It is apparent that teacher inquiry across schools is interpreted differently, i.e. it could be individual or collaborative. Thereby making the application and impact of teacher inquiry different across New Zealand schools despite the same regulations and policy being in place.

Resources

TKI - Appraisal and Teaching as Inquiry

Education Council - Our Code, Our Standards

Wood, C. (2015). Teaching as Inquiry: form, purpose and application in New Zealand Secondary Schools (Master's thesis).

Readings specific to my teacher inquiry:

Dobler, E. (2012). Using iPads to promote literacy in the primary grades. Reading Today, 29(3), 18.

Flewitt, R., Messer, D., & Kucirkova, N. (2015). New directions for early literacy in a digital age: The iPad. Journal of Early Childhood Literacy, 15(3), 289-310.

Marsh, J., Plowman, L., Yamada‐Rice, D., Bishop, J., Lahmar, J., & Scott, F. (2018). Play and creativity in young children's use of apps. British Journal of Educational Technology, 49(5), 870-882.

Woloshyn, V. E., Bajovic, M., & Worden, M. M. (2017). Promoting Student-Centered Learning Using iPads in a Grade 1 Classroom: Using the Digital Didactic Framework to Deconstruct Instruction. Computers in the Schools, 34(3), 152-167.