Partnership for Inquiry Learning

PARTNERSHIP for INQUIRY LEARNING By Dr. Susan Adamson

20 YEARS and COUNTING…

It’s May 15, 2020 and I am working from home where I have been now for the past seven weeks. It’s impossible not to be reflective, as the COVID-19 pandemic is raging and life seems especially precarious. I am also on sabbatical, releasing me from my University responsibilities so I can redirect most of my energy to the work of the Partnership for Inquiry Learning (Partnership). In the almost twenty years that I have served as director, the Partnership has changed a lot. We have been diligent in strategically planning for growth and responding to the demands of our profession. But, the force of this crisis means we will need to be nimble in ways we have never been before to stay present and relevant in the professional lives of teachers.

REAL READING, WRITING and MATHEMATIZING

To affect long-term impact on student performance, the Partnership focuses its resources on professional development and support for teachers, helping them integrate knowledge about curriculum development and learning, with the habits and authentic processes that experienced readers, professional writers, and expert mathematicians use.

The Partnership typically relies on face-to-face meetings with teachers to do this work in a variety of contexts – and this year (at least the start of this year) was no exception. We hosted six full-day workshops inviting national literacy scholars, Kate Roberts (@teachkate), A Novel Approach for teaching reading grades 3-8; Matt Glover (@Mattglover123), Craft and Process Studies for teaching writing grades K-5; and Tasha Laman (@TashaLaman), Growing Literate Identities – Strategies for Multilingual Learners for teaching literacy in the primary grades. We also hosted a Math Summer Institute with regional math scholars and Butler University alumni Ryan Flessner (@ryanflessner) and Courtney Flessner (@CFless). In three consecutive days of professional development K-5 teachers could choose to attend any or all of these workshops: Introduction to Balanced Mathematics; Math Workshop & Creating a Mathematical Environment; and The First 20 Days. The Flessners extended their support to teachers into the school year with Math Fest and Math Textbook Infusion workshops.

To engage smaller groups of teachers across Indiana in teacher-research, the Partnership convenes Math Leadership and Literacy Leadership groups. In these monthly meetings (September – May), we work together with teachers to deepen pedagogical understandings through readings, discussions, and critical analysis of practice. Ryan Flessner facilitates the Math Leadership Group; Libby Duggan (@DugganLibby) Partnership Coach and Program Manager and I (@scadamso) facilitate the Literacy Leadership Group. In these think tank-like settings, teachers can pursue their own professional growth in meaningful ways, and the Partnership benefits by coming to know directly from teachers how we can best support them in the work they wish to do.

We also provide tailored on-site coaching to five IPS Partnership schools: Butler Lab Schools #60 and #55, and Center for Inquiry Schools #2, #84, and #70. This targeted coaching made possible: grade-level support in planning reading and writing curriculum in PLC meetings; mentoring individual teachers through in-classroom demonstration teaching and co-planning sessions; and guidance in grappling with school-wide reform initiatives such as assessment and grading during discussions at whole school staff meetings.

FALLING IN LOVE WITH BOOKS

Importantly, the work of the Partnership complements the teacher education program in the College of Education (COE), in effect functioning as a professional development arm. For example, as a faculty member I authored the COE proposal to re-establish an early childhood/mild intervention licensure program—embracing the spirit of our College vision to ‘challenge the status quo and advocate for the rights of (even the littlest) students.”

Likewise, the Partnership developed programming for inservice preschool teachers with on-going funding from the United Way of Central Indiana (UWCI). These funds make it possible for us to serve low-income families in preschool ministries in the UWCI network, where teachers impact an estimated 1,500-3,000 preschoolers, roughly 70% of whom receive assistance. This year, we spent 20 halfdays in classrooms in two pre-K ministries supporting teachers in nurturing young writers through bookmaking. We have come a long way in improving our own culturally relevant pedagogies in these settings, helping us establish pedagogical principles that lead to achieving success for all students.

Our collective work in early childhood education at the Partnership and in the COE is more than just a logical extension of existing programming. It’s desperately needed. An upward national trend in enrollment of 3-4 year olds in pre-primary education is creating a greater demand for early childhood educators, even while there is currently a shortage of qualified preschool teachers. In Indiana, this shortage is projected to reach 8,195 by 2026.

@INQUIRELEARN

And then, on March 20, 2020 students and teachers left their school buildings… and never went back. We were compelled to cancel or postpone indefinitely workshops and on-site coaching, but still conscious of our responsibility to support teachers in thinking about how to preserve the authentic, thoughtful teaching they had been doing in their classrooms. We offered planning meetings with literacy and math scholars, and convened our Leadership Groups through Zoom. We produced and posted resources for remote learning on our blog and website https:// partnershipforinquirylearning. org/, through Twitter @ inquirelearn and Facebook @ partnershipforinquirylearning. We are fortunate to be working with the Indiana Department of Education to produce professional development video content for Indiana teachers with the intention of providing a vision for high-quality teaching in reading, writing and mathematics—online or in the classroom.

There is no way to know what might have changed forever because of this crisis, but this I know for sure. We will stay true to the pedagogical principles that got us here. We will continue to wrap our arms around the Partnership schools and preschools that have long been a part of our urban network. We will learn from and with them about racial and economic disparities that persist in schools – disparities the pandemic has laid bare. And we will continue to improve our collective practice, taking up in earnest the crucial need to effectively teach well every child in the communities we serve.