BRINGING INQUIRY INTO THE CLASSROOM

After being introduced to practitioner inquiry through the Fellowship and her graduate studies in education, 2014 Knowles Teaching Fellow Sarah DiMaria desired to bring inquiry to school. During the 2017–2018 academic year, she was placed in charge of managing professional development for her campus. In this role, she proposed a year-long plan to focus on school improvement through the use of inquiry. As proposed, Sarah led four groups of three teachers through six cycles of inquiry aimed at designing effective collaboration (amongst teachers and students) and supporting English language learners during the 2017–2018 academic year. Their inquiry work was supported by a Teacher Action Research Grant from the New Technology Network that provided funds for the purchase of texts that furthered participants’ understanding of inquiry. In a post-inquiry survey, the mean score for participants for the statement “I found value in examining my teaching practice through inquiry” was 4.6 out of 5. With some minor modifications, inquiry will continue into the 2018–2019 academic year. Sarah shared learnings from this experience with the Knowles community in the form of a poster on inquiry during the 2018 Knowles Summer Meeting.