Yesterday was a big day for me! About a month ago I had been invited to speak to student teachers studying at Otago University in Dunedin about the process of scaffolding research and guided inquiry as part of their Literacy Across the Curriculum paper. I was a little nostalgic and it felt even more surreal walking into a lecture theatre I had sat in during my year at teachers college back in the early 1980’s, only this time I was the one standing at the front talking to students, some of whom had already completed degrees and were now training to go into classrooms as teachers.
The time allocated just wasn’t long enough! There was so much to tell them, share with them and discuss with them. I easily had enough content to spread across two sessions, but we were constrained to one and so I made the best of it. My hope is that our short 50 minutes has only just opened up potential discussions as they all contemplate graduation and beginning in their own classes next year. To that end I have invited them to join me in the new Scaffolding Research and Guided Inquiry Group on the Virtual Learning Network. I hope we can continue to discuss what guided research and inquiry can look like in classrooms, as these skills are relevant to all subject disciplines in all schools across every year level.
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