The Inspiration - Initial Post.​



In my experience as a secondary-trained, visual art teacher, inquiry learning has always been implicit in how I teach and how students learn within the arts.  My initial readings about inquiry learning strongly echo visual art making processes where a strong emphasis is placed on exploratory phases, captured in visual journals and folios. The most recent Queensland Senior Syllabus for Visual Art indeed states that “Inquiry Learning is fundamental to Visual Art” (Queensland Curriculum & Assessment Authority, 2018) and thus forms the pedagogical and conceptual frameworks for this syllabus.  Yet, although I have a solid understanding of Visual Arts inquiry, I feel my long absence from permanent teaching has created many questions about best practices.   In my teacher-librarian studies, I have also developed a passion to explore multimodal literacies, greatly fuelled by my interest in visual literacy, which has led me to my first question:

 

​1.  What does inquiry learning look like in Visual Art whilst exploring multiple literacies?

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I am also curious to find out how inquiry learning can be transposed to other contexts including primary education and a future role within a library.  My next question arises then, from my mixed experiences in educational contexts, where I have observed a diverse spectrum of student functioning and independence. Student agency is dependent on many factors including intellectual, social and emotional backgrounds to name just a few. Inquiry learning presumes that students will, at least at some stage, take on independent roles and functioning in their learning. A strong focus of inquiry learning is that the student is central to the learning, so student agency is core to this model (MacKenzie, 2018).  It is vital that we consider how we cater for all students when implementing inquiry learning frameworks so that no one is disadvantaged. My second question is:

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2.  How does inquiry learning look and work when engaging with a group of students who have varying (and sometimes vast) degrees of agency?

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Finally, my questioning reflects on the possibilities and practicalities of inquiry learning in a school educational context. The attributes of connected learning (Ito et at.,2013), which include being ‘learning oriented’, ‘interest powered’, ‘production centred’, ‘peer supported’, ‘openly networked’ and having a ‘shared purpose’, align closely with the curious and exploratory nature of inquiry learning.  If we are to ignite student inquiry through connected frameworks, we need to consider both the physical and online environments that are required to support this learning. In those educational environments, many restrictions and limitations may make it difficult to reach the true potential of inquiry learning.  My final question then is:

 

3. What strategies can be implemented so that the fluid nature of curiosity and questioning, in inquiry learning, is not stifled by rigid structures and times, inherent in classrooms and schools?

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During the next phase of my inquiry process, I will focus on one of the questions above and employ expert searching methods, using a range of digital search tools and platforms, so as to increase my understanding and attempt to answer the question that has been posed.

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