Week 26. Discuss how aspects of law, regulations and/or policy impact on teacher inquiry

The idea of teacher inquiry is to maintain and enact the concept that teachers are lifelong learners. As a teacher, my obligation to the profession of teaching, and the students I teach is to be improving my pedagogy to reach all students and improve their learning experience at school. The code highlights the trusted position I have and the influence I have on learners, for the wellbeing of our society. My job requires that I continue to learn to understand my students and help them achieve as strongly as possible both academically and socially. The booklet; Our Code, Our Standards mentions on the opening page, “…recognise the influence we have on learners, their understanding of the world and the future wellbeing of our society (Teaching Council, 2017).” The fact is society and its demands are wide and varied. One example is the increasing importance of changes to our local, national, and world environments, and the impacts on various peoples. I must continue to understand how this might affect my learners, and therefore teacher inquiry is a perpetually ongoing aspect of life as a teacher. My responsibility is to continue to learn and improve how I teach a broad curriculum; spelling or implement a new maths resource, or teach a child who’s passion might be visual art. With teacher inquiry, we would not be reaching our diversity of learners.

Page 18 of the standards from the regulation ‘Our Code, our Standards’ have been a significant influence with regards to how my school adheres to Te Tiriti o Waitangi partnership, and teacher inquiry practice.  Importantly I feel that we/I are more understanding of how we include students voice and agency in how learning might look in the school and the classroom.

Student's voice is reflected in the evidence teachers provide in our appraisals.  Student’s voice can include evidence from surveys, in my case a spelling survey about how students best learn in class with the resources we have, or my current survey into students perspective on the use of online digital apps such as Flipgrid.  Professional Learning is continually encouraged at my school.  Professional Learning is well supported by our leadership Exec team which has included significant financial support for this current Mindlab course. This Mindlab course has focused me with the need to be more critical of my approach to using tech devices and apps in the classroom. I have engaged in professional learning through Mindlab, become better informed through research, and sought feedback, particularly from my students.  

In the wider context, the regulations from the document Our Code, Our Standards’  impact on teacher inquiry in a manner that I believe is viewed as extra work on top of the current classroom teacher workload.  It is debatable how often teachers would pick up the document to remind themselves of their responsibilities.  In the article Teaching as Inquiry by Wood, there is the argument that teacher-led inquiries are an expectation attached to schools' appraisal systems, and therefore not teacher-driven or teacher owned (Wood, 2015).  Therefore, it is debatable the value teachers gain if an inquiry is solely aligned to the schools' wishes.  There is great value in teacher-led inquiries in schools’ appraisal systems, however, more needs to be done by leadership to encourage teacher inquiry in teams, and as individuals to encourage teacher ownership.  We need to step back (but not altogether) from relying on data-driven results, influencing what teachers need to explore, and remind ourselves that teaching is about relationships, and how we interact daily with our pupils; the whanaungatanga.

References

Teaching Council, N. (2017). Our Code, Our Standards: Consultation Summary. Retrieved from https://teachingcouncil.nz/content/consultation-summary

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