Santa Cruz/Silicon Valley New Teacher Project (Santa Cruz)

Inquiry Action Plan Team

Protocol for Sharing Inquiry at Sites

Rationale:

This process was developed as a method of providing new teachers witha formal structure to share the Inquiry with colleagues, reflect on progress and receive feedback for future work

Details:

When:

  • Spring, when second Inquiry Action Plan (IAP)is complete.

Who:

  • Each teacher selects 2-5 colleagues to serve on the team.
  • The team must include the teacher’s mentor and a site administrator. If a site administrator is not available, a designee (agreed upon by teacher and administrator) may attend. Other team members may include teachers and support staff at the site.

How:

  • 30-45 minute meeting (see sample agenda below).
  • Mentor or teacher facilitates the sharing of the inquiry as determined.
  • Role of the mentor:
  • Plan discussion questions with teacher prior to meeting
  • Time keeper
  • Note keeper (records on CAL)
  • CAL to be turned into Office Staff to verify completion of Site Share
  • Debrief afterwards individually with teacher
  • Materials
  • Mentor and teacher determine which key documents of the inquiry to copy and share.
  • Mentor and teacher determine how to share documents: hard copies, document camera, PowerPoint, Google Drive, etc.

Key Considerations:

  • Teacher chooses members of the panel.
  • Teacher and mentor develop (2-3) discussion questions to support the teacher in deepening and extending the inquiry.

Sample Agenda

Inquiry Action Plan Team
  • Introductions (5 min)
  • Teacher introduces teaching context (3 min)
  • Teacher shares Inquiry (10 min)
  • Team members discuss the teacher’s questions to deepen and extend the inquiry. (See possible questions below)Teacher may take notes on CAL (10 min)
  • Teacher reflects and summarizes new learnings in response to discussion (5 min)
  • Mentor facilitates each team member in sharing a positive comment regarding the inquiry (5 min)
  • “What growth in teacher effectiveness and student learning did you note in this inquiry?”
  • “Which instructional practices might you want to try in your class?”
  • “How might a department/grade level team apply the learnings of this teacher’s inquiry?”
Possible questions to guide group discussion:
How can I support the learning needs of the students who exceeded meeting the standards?
How can I support the learning needs of the students who did not make significant growth?
Any other suggestions of how to take the inquiry to the next level?

SC/SVNTP (SC) 3-11. Revised 3-6-14; 3-15-17