PME 801 COLLABORATIVE INQUIRY
Collaborative InquiryIn this course I have been learning and reflecting on the process of Collaborative Inquiry, how best support Collaborative Inquiry in my classroom and with technology. I have also participated with my peers in the collaborative inquiry process to learn more about how about the process.
A digital artifact which describes me as a collaborator:prezi.com/2ewovoehep_j/untitled-prezi/?utm_campaign=share&utm_medium=copy To find out your collaborative personality type visit: https://get.imeetcentral.com/quiz-9-collaborators |
Collaborative Inquiry -
A concept map to explain tradition and non-traditional learning environments.
Wondering what is Collaborative Inquiry? This concept map will help you explore the idea and main concepts associated with Collaborative Inquiry.
Technologies that can support Collaborative InquiryI have created a short video to share with you the types of technologies that I feel best support collaborative inquiry in my classroom, school and school district. I look forward to being able to use these technologies more!
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How I like to Collaborate with Professional Communities... Facebook!
Teaching the Reggio Emilia Philosophy can be challenging but also very rewarding. It comes with many struggles but also many inspiring moments. One way that I keep myself on track with Reggio, expand my ideas, inquire about problems and share successes is with an international Reggio group on Facebook! This group of educators is an excellent support and helps me to link to others teaching in this philosophy so that we can all better our practice. Here are some examples of what we collaborate about!
To view a Prezi of my Professional Community Engagement Project visit: http://prezi.com/_ycrdre4e4tt/?utm_campaign=share&utm_medium=copy |
Experiencing the Collaborative Inquiry Process
As part of our Collaborative Inquiry Class we created groups based on professional interests to launch ourselves into the collaborative inquiry process. Myself and two other educators set out to answer the question "What is the best age for students to start school". This was a lofty project to undertake but as a grade 1 educator it is an issue that is near and dear to me. Below you can find a description log of our Collaborative Process as well as links to our research. Finally you will be able to see the results of our collaboration in the form of handouts for parents, teachers and schools to help lead them to the best starting age for each child. To see these resources please click here: http://moniquewebb.weebly.com/school-readiness.html or read on below.
Is my child ready?
Research and Resources for Parents and Teachers
In Canada starting school is an exciting time for most children and their families. Once a child turns 4 most families begin looking at options for schooling that will suit the needs of their family and their child based on values that are important to them. Yet how often do we look at the long term outcomes of our decisions of when start to our child in school? Are we really considering the right factors of readiness?
Queens University PME Masters students Allison Gorloff and Kali Sinden and I teamed up to take a look at one of the more controversial subjects around school readiness, the Relative Age Effect. Using the Collaborative Inquiry process we set out to explore what age is most advantageous for children to begin school. Below you will find the process of our Collaborative Inquiry as well as resources that we created to help parents and teachers make decisions regarding school readiness.
Queens University PME Masters students Allison Gorloff and Kali Sinden and I teamed up to take a look at one of the more controversial subjects around school readiness, the Relative Age Effect. Using the Collaborative Inquiry process we set out to explore what age is most advantageous for children to begin school. Below you will find the process of our Collaborative Inquiry as well as resources that we created to help parents and teachers make decisions regarding school readiness.
Framing the Problem
Student Learning Need: Students need to have a ‘level playing field’ physically, mentally, and socially. They deserve every advantage they can have to engage and succeed in their learning and school experience.
Purpose Statement: The purpose of this inquiry is to explore what age is most advantageous for children to begin school.
Problem Framed: Finding an age to recommend students begin school that will result in the best situation for each child to succeed academically, socially, and physically.
What would success look like? What are our desired result/prefered future?
We (Educators and Researchers) want:
Purpose Statement: The purpose of this inquiry is to explore what age is most advantageous for children to begin school.
Problem Framed: Finding an age to recommend students begin school that will result in the best situation for each child to succeed academically, socially, and physically.
What would success look like? What are our desired result/prefered future?
We (Educators and Researchers) want:
- Children to thrive
- Parents to have as much information as possible when deciding when to start their child in school
- Children to not have avoidable disadvantages in their learning
- Children to have a positive experience in their education
- Children to have as developmentally appropriate experiences as possible
Collecting Evidence
Research Findings:
We reviewed findings from the last several decades as well as more current education and sociological research.
Anecdotal Findings:
To collect anecdotal research we polled teachers from a variety of teacher collaboration pages on social media.
Do you agree with the following statement? Yes or No? Borderline age students (could start school this year but could wait till the following year) student waits 1 year to enter school they will be more likely to have a better, more successful school experience.
Teachers made the following suggestions and comments:
To view our full research findings visit: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Exdev2vSwSOW4uugWR-tp9kkzbu77GP_x7o4f-7XghA/edit?usp=sharing
We reviewed findings from the last several decades as well as more current education and sociological research.
- Overall outcome was that children who started Kindergarten at a later age (even by just one year) had less behavioural problems until the fifth grade (this grade is when the study went until)
- Having that extra year at home gives students family nurturing time as well as biological maturation
- Relatively older students are 4-11% more likely to be leaders in high school.
- “Although initial age effects may be large, they should dissipate over time unless there is a mechanism that perpetuates them. This mechanism arises from the difficulty in separating innate ability and maturity”
- “... relative age effects persist in the development of soft skills in much the same way as others have shown they do for cognitive measures that directly affect academic performance and achievement”
- “We found that delaying kindergarten for one year reduced inattention and hyperactivity by 73 percent for an average child at age 11 and it virtually eliminated the probability that an average child at that age would have an ‘abnormal,’ or higher-than-normal rating for the inattentive-hyperactive behavioural measure.”
- In Finland and some other developed countries, formal academic education don't start until the age of 7, when children are deemed to be mentally and physically ready for the challenge (though students in Finland have access to high quality preschool, which would affect their performance in Kindergarten).
- Many U.S. parents hold their children back a year - especially boys - so that they start kindergarten at age 6 rather than 5, giving them a chance to mature.
- When children have educational experiences that are not geared to their developmental level or in tune with their learning needs and cultures, it can cause them great harm, including feelings of inadequacy, anxiety and confusion. (Washington Post)
- “...students who entered kindergarten at a younger age performed better than older students.”
- When they tested third grade students on reading they found that: “... age, birth date, and gender did not impact reading achievement scores at a statistically significant level.”
Anecdotal Findings:
To collect anecdotal research we polled teachers from a variety of teacher collaboration pages on social media.
Do you agree with the following statement? Yes or No? Borderline age students (could start school this year but could wait till the following year) student waits 1 year to enter school they will be more likely to have a better, more successful school experience.
- 458 teachers responded: Yes
- 119 teachers responded: Depends on the individual student (emotional maturity and natural academic abilities)
- 3 teachers responded: No
- 0 teachers responded: Unsure
Teachers made the following suggestions and comments:
- Parents and administrators should default to teacher professional opinion.
- December should be the birth date cut off.
- January should be the birth date cut off.
- September should be the birth date cut off.
- Younger students (those born between December and March) should wait to enter school.
- Youngest (those born between December and March) always struggle in some way (academic or social).
- Parents who chose to wait almost never regret waiting.
- Teachers still see noticeable differences in younger students in Junior High.
- Rules that exist now around ECS programs almost always disadvantaged at risk students the most.
To view our full research findings visit: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Exdev2vSwSOW4uugWR-tp9kkzbu77GP_x7o4f-7XghA/edit?usp=sharing
Analyzing the Evidence
Has the results of our research produced the results we expected? Has our research turned up any possible solutions to the problem?
- The youtube commentary on the book the “Outliers” proposed an interesting solution. Kindergarten should have 3 entry points in a year. That closes the age gap between students.
- But what would this look like long term? Year round schooling? *[on a side note this may be the solution to the idea that kids with lower socioeconomic backgrounds are at a disadvantage staying home], more organic movement between grades? [when would kids progress to the next grade? Students would be moving grades 3 times a year?]
- Is there anywhere that is doing this?
- Australia has a school year that follows the calendar. School starts in January and ends before Christmas. They have only a 6 week break in between and other breaks throughout the year. Is this more advantageous. Should we expand our research to determine if they have the same issues with younger students? {i think they do… my cousin lives there and has 2 children and when I visited them this summer they were having many talks with me and with their friends about when their children should start and cut off dates etc… I just think that while we consider borderline birthdays to be january to march, they would consider borderline birth dates to be Sept-december
- Australia has a school year that follows the calendar. School starts in January and ends before Christmas. They have only a 6 week break in between and other breaks throughout the year. Is this more advantageous. Should we expand our research to determine if they have the same issues with younger students? {i think they do… my cousin lives there and has 2 children and when I visited them this summer they were having many talks with me and with their friends about when their children should start and cut off dates etc… I just think that while we consider borderline birthdays to be january to march, they would consider borderline birth dates to be Sept-december
- The National Foundation for Education Research suggested the following strategies to reduce the relative age effects:
- Referral for special needs and psychiatric support – try to avoid relative age being mistaken for developmental delay. Raise awareness of this issue among those responsible for decision making. Make sure the process of identifying special needs takes into account the Relative Age Effect (https://www.nfer.ac.uk/publications/QSB01/QSB01summary.pd)
- Pedagogy – use developmentally appropriate pedagogy, especially in the early years of school. Make teachers aware of relative age effects and aware of which children are the youngest. Enable younger children to have leadership opportunities and encourage them to value their own achievements rather than to compare their progress with that of older classmates.
- Curriculum – ensure curriculum is appropriate for relatively younger children
- Assessment – use age standardized tests; enter children for assessment when ready.
Solutions: Resources for Parents and Teachers
We have agreed that it is probably not realistic to have multiple entry/cohorts of students. That wouldn't be possible with our current model of education in Canada. We have decided to best deal with the problem we should have all involved parties informed of the Relative Age Effect. To help share this information we created a series of 3 research based materials for schools, parents and teachers. These resources could be used as print materials such as posters or brochures, or they could be used as web-based graphics on website or social media.
For teachers: |
For Parents and Teachers: |
For Schools: |
Celebrating and SharingWe were excited to share our results with those professionals who took the time to participate in our survey. We also thought it would be interesting to see what a broad spectrum of teachers thought of our materials. We chose to celebrate and share our materials with the following professional learning communities on Facebook:
Here is some of what some teachers had to say: Haley Robyn Hi, I was hoping to be able to share your brochure and posters with my parents for next years kindergarten registration. Is that okay? Sara Lynne Visually it looks great though! A nice,clean infographic! Maria Murray Wowsers! What a lot of work compiling it, way to go! Kight Pruszynski This is terrific. Susan K. Verwys Hmmm...I wonder if any of the teachers/classrooms have adopted a multi-age philosophy.... Michele Lifshen Looks amazing. |
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