Impact of Inquiry

I have come to the end of my inquiry and am now using evidence to form conclusions and evaluate the impact this inquiry has had on my current practice and the impact it will have in the future. I have followed the Spiral of Inquiry to guide my inquiry, this is broken up into six different phases and follows a very explicit process of developing professional agency (Educational leaders n.d).

At the end of the ‘learn’ phase of the Spiral of Inquiry one of the impacts I anticipated was that students would become more confident users of digital technology and they would have more autonomy over their learning that allows them to be creative. I collected evidence in the ‘take action’ phase of the Spiral of Inquiry. As discussed in my previous post this evidence has been identified from various forms of my qualitative and quantitative data collection methods. This evidence suggests that the students are much more confident using the iPad apps to help with their literacy, they enjoy using digital technology and they believed it helped them with their literacy tasks. Furthermore, the iPads were allowing for transformational learning as students were using the iPads to create their own videos and books collaboratively (Using the SAMR model, n.d). Evidence that supports these observations were noted in the students interview questions, the tally chart but also in the learning tasks they were creating.

A further anticipated outcome I identified was that teachers would have a better understanding of how to incorporate digital technologies into their practice and this would allow for changes in the classroom pedagogy. This impact is very different to the actual impact, I don’t believe that I gave teachers enough support to incorporate digital technologies into their practice. Support was given to the students and while they have an understanding of how the iPads can be used, more support is needed for the teachers so they understand what iPad apps will work best with their learning goals.

However, the evidence does suggest that parents were supportive of the use of iPads in the hub, as long as they were for educational use. Although, it was apparent they lacked understanding on how they can be used in transformational ways that would support creativity and collaborative learning. Evidence to support this was noted in the parent survey questions.

Learnings that I will take from these impacts is that many different impacts can come out of the inquiry process whether they were anticipated or not. It is important to continually reflect on the process and make modifications. In the next cycle of inquiry I would give more support to the teachers and look into ways that digital technologies can better integrated in as opposed to being separate from the learning programme. They need to be viewed as not just a tool we can bring out occasionally, but a fully integrated device to improve learning outcomes. I think this inquiry is well supported in the school I am at. Our school culture is very future focused and supportive of changes to practice to ensure we are providing students opportunities to be innovative, creative and competent digital citizens. I would like to continue building on this inquiry as i know the benefits it will bring to students learning.

References

The spiral of inquiry / Evidence-based leadership / Pedagogy and assessment / Home - Educational Leaders. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.educationalleaders.govt.nz/Pedagogy-and-assessment/Evidence-based-leadership/The-spiral-of-inquiry

Using the SAMR model. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://elearning.tki.org.nz/Professional-learning/Teacher-inquiry/SAMR-model