Today on Blooming Curious I am chatting not to one but two amazing educators.
This is new territory for me interviewing two people on the same
call and I'm really excited and just also a little bit nervous.
So today I'm welcoming the creators behind Squish Resources, Alana and Meg.
Each of these ladies have over a decade of experience having taught in IB, PYP
schools, which means they know a thing or two about inquiry based learning.
So welcome to Blooming Curious, Meg and Alana.
Thanks.
We're happy to be here.
So let's start off with both of you giving listeners some insight into
who you are and tell us a little bit about yourself and how you
came to be teaching in IB schools.
So let's start with you, Alana.
Yeah, so I've been teaching for over a decade and during my time as a teacher,
I worked, uh, overseas in London for the first couple of years of my career.
Um, when I returned to Australia, I worked in a few different private schools, both
in rural Queensland and in Brisbane.
I've taught, I've taught all the grades, including, uh, nursery age kids
at around four through to year six.
But I have been told many a time that I'm a natural upper primary teacher
and really found my stride and sort of year five and six, , which is where
I also fell in love with inquiry.
I ended up in a school that is an IB PYP school, which is where I met Meg.
Meg, what about you?
So I have only ever taught in an IB school.
So for my 10 years of teaching that I've done thus far, um, I've taught
the PYP., I finished off my PRAC.
Um, to the final year of my practical uni, I also did at the same IB PYP school.
So when people ask me, Oh, you know, what's the difference?
I can't actually say, because I haven't taught in a non IB school since,
you know, 2010, something like that.
Um, and that would literally only be as a prac student.
So I actually don't, know what I'm missing by not missing,
but do you know what I mean?
Like it's something that is so ingrained in how I teach.
It's not anything out of the ordinary.
That's just part of who you are.
Inquiry is just part of how you function in other words.
She lives and breathes it.
Let's chat a little bit about inquiry.
So Meg, obviously for you then, it's not like you were
inspired or anything like that.
You fell into this IB school and IB schools, for those who don't know, are
very much inquiry based learning driven.
So what did it mean to you when you started in this IB school
and you had to teach inquiry, did it come naturally to you?
Did you struggle?
What was your whole feeling about the whole inquiry?
I found it quite natural actually, because it's so everything is linked.
So like when I would speak with friends who were at other schools and that
kind of thing, they go, Oh, you know, we're doing this in science and we're
doing this in HASS, we're doing this in math, we're doing this in English.
And I was like, well, ours is all kind of in together, like obviously we teach
English and Maths, but then for us we would teach Inquiry, which was, some of
our inquiries would have Civics and HASS and, oh sorry, and History and Science
all in the one sort of learning journey.
, So rather than having everything standalone, it's quite natural
to then have everything together.
And if you're doing writing, , it was all about the topic, like, but not.
Thematically.
So it's not like we're doing, you know, dinosaurs, so we're
just writing about dinosaurs.
It would be, you would maybe write an information report and that
would be your genre for the term or the unit or that kind of thing.
Um, so it's very difficult to explain that sometimes if someone's never done it.
Does that make sense?
Yeah, totally.
That makes total sense to me because that's, I guess, for me personally,
although I, I've never really taught an IB school except for kindergarten, which I
taught actually in an IB school in Dubai.
But not here in Australia ever.
And that was a long time ago.
So I also feel that inquiry is just a natural part of me.
And it's just how I teach.
So I see the links everywhere.
But what about you, Alana?
Because you weren't IB originally, so you've actually had the experience
in both IB and I guess we can call it a traditional school environment.
So what about you?
How did you become involved or how did your thinking really change
, when you started getting involved with inquiry in an IB setting?
I think because I, I taught overseas in London and I know that this is might
not always be the case, but I found a really great school, um, that I taught
over there for two years and I taught at that same school and they were very, I
wouldn't say they were an inquiry school, but they will very student centered.
And that was amazing to have straight out of uni.
And I was very confused.
This is back in the day, but they didn't have textbooks.
They didn't have Um, many of the resources that I had come to rely on
during my practice and I had seen my mentor teachers use, uh, and I was
very confused how they actually taught.
So I had sort of hit the ground running over there and they use a lot of, yeah,
like I said, student centered, a lot of differentiation, um, a lot of student
voice just very naturally in, and that's sort of how I started teaching.
And then when I returned to Australia, I was, Like kind of shocked to find
that, you know, we, the kids still got the math textbooks out and they
turned to the next page and we would, do the lesson, they do the worksheet.
And I just really missed that, that student voice and essentially inquiry
learning, but I didn't know what it was.
And I just thought, you know, this is just Australia.
We're backwards.
And I hopped around a couple of schools due to moving and personal circumstances
and ended up teaching at the school where I met Meg, where it was a PYP IB school.
And, um, I do remember one of my very first lessons that I had
as an observation, my principal saying to me, you know what, you
are a natural inquiry teacher.
And that sort of hit me because that's just my style and
that's how I love to teach.
And don't get me wrong because when I fell into this school, I didn't have
any training and, um, I thought inquiry meant sort of like, we're learning
about space, write a question and go find out and just like let them at it.
And it was shocking what they came up with.
So, I really learned a lot while I was at that school and, really found my,
yeah, really found my straps with it and just the learning that was happening.
You know, you just,
when you nailed a lesson and you, the kids came out just with a buzz
because not only had they learned what you had intended them to learn,
but they had driven it and they had
voice in it.
And that's, I find that it's not hard to achieve an upper
primary, but It's not the norm.
So that's when I was like, we need, we need more of this in more schools
everywhere in our country, I should say.
, I absolutely, and 100 percent agree with everything you've just said, I
think as inquiry teachers, we naturally all have that same feeling about,
you know, the child's voice and the integrating across the curriculum.
So I don't understand because life is integrated.
I don't understand this whole teaching in separate boxes, which
I actually really struggled with.
I just, it's not me and I couldn't do it.
So if we really define inquiry based learning, and what distinguishes
it from traditional learning?
Meg, what would you say?
What makes it different?
Is it just children's voice or do you think there's something else?
It's a lot about getting a depth of knowledge rather
than a breadth of knowledge.
And so really getting deep, rich, meaningful, all of those
synonyms that go within them.
Um, it's about getting all of that understanding in there rather than just
knowing bits and pieces about everything.
Like you can think about it in so many different ways, like especially
with PYP, you talk about conceptual understanding and all of the
approaching things in different ways.
Um, but yeah, so depth rather than breadth would be my response.
Allanah, what about you?
Do you wanna respond there?
I think if you were to define it, it would incorporate quite a lot.
You know, we've talked about now breadth and depth over, no depth,
over breadth, and then student voice.
But something that I took away from like inquiry learning that's very
different to traditional learning is the structure of a lesson.
And this is, I think what really drove me to create Sqwish because
structuring a lesson, um, is something that any teacher can do.
But how you decide that I think depends on whether you are going to
teach it in an inquiry way or not.
So for me, upper primary is very content heavy and very,
like extremely content heavy.
And you can't force children to have an interest in A topic they
don't have an interest in, but we have to teach the curriculum.
So this is where I think that inquiry learning has to become quite creative
from the teacher, where you actually need to create the environment that
ignites the curiosity, that creates the students to have these questions.
And once you've got that, then that learning comes with the depth over the
breadth, you know, like that's when they want to find out if I don't want to find
out they're going to be forced to learn it and they're going to not, it's not
going to stick, but you know, igniting that curiosity and withholding answers
until they want them is what I think is so beautiful about inquiry, because then
you share the answers and they're like, yes, we finally have figured it out.
Or, you know, even better, they come to the answers themselves and that's
all just about structuring your lesson and thinking about how I'm
going to get my students interested.
In this horribly boring topic that I have to teach because the curriculum
tells me to, and then seeing what they come up with and guiding
them to get them where we need to.
So for me, it's, it's less about, um, chalk and talk and all those things.
Although there is a place for that within inquiry , , it's making sure
that our kids really have that drive to want to learn because they do.
We all want to learn something.
I think even as adults, we all still crave learning something new.
So for our kids are walking into class every single day, trying to
get them excited is a big thing.
Yes, I've been actually talking about this quite a lot on the podcast, and
that is about that desire to want to learn, that nurturing of the curiosity,
because there is quite a lot of statistics coming out that shows that
yes, we are all born innately curious, But that curiosity wanes over time.
So how do we keep kids curious then?
How do we, and Allanah, you said that so beautifully, structure a lesson
where we actually have to hook them so that they are interested in the topic
or interested in the concept or what it is that we're trying to teach them.
So I think that's what makes it different is that we don't go in with
just Oh, I've got to teach this today.
It's all, Oh, how am I going to hook these kids so that they actually
want to learn what I have to teach?
Would you agree with that?
Yes, definitely , and I think that's why inquiry lends itself so easily
and in the early years, younger years, because, you know, it, we really are
just following the lead of the child.
When they start getting older, you can see that sort of curiosity.
They lose a little bit of that spark.
, I mean, I can't count the amount of times I've been in a class and said,
right, we're going to do some maths, and then the collective grown in the
class, like it's just, you know, that's the worst thing to hear as a teacher.
You don't want that because you just know that if they're already going
in there with that mindset, what are the chances of them actually learning
the thing that I need to teach them?
So, yeah, I think, nurturing that spark, not just in the early
years, but continually through to, , Primary upper primary and beyond.
Um, that's the dream.
I am wanting to add something I had a lesson last year, we were talking about,
you know, that withholding answers until they actually want to learn about it.
Um, year five class all boys, and we were doing, decimals, percentages,
fractions, all of that within number.
And, we're just placing, you know, some fractions, some decimals, some percentages
along a number line and going, okay, how does this work, blah, blah, blah.
And they're going, Oh yeah, well, we know that's equivalent
of all that kind of thing.
But watching them figure out, I think it was how 25 percent matches
as how that turns into 25 out of a hundred to then become a quarter.
, and watching their little faces.
I remember them going, Oh my goodness is that how it works?
Yes, and so the lesson was supposed to finish or whatever it was,
and they're like, no, no, no.
We want to have a look at the rest of them, and so by that stage, they
actually wanted to know how it all worked
How did you , in that specific lesson, what was the hook?
Why did they enjoy learning about those fractions so much?
What is it that you used?
I think, I'm trying to remember, I'm pretty sure we had a masking tape
number line along the floor and we had all of these little cut out, this
is in grade five, so not in early primary, um, we had just, I think it
might have even been, we were talking about probability within this as well.
And like just little post it notes that had different things written on them.
And so we were going, okay, where do these belong on the number
line and that kind of thing.
And then when, okay, how does this work?
Like, let's line them up properly.
And watching them go, oh, okay, so there's all my percentages and there's
all my equivalent fractions and there's all my decimals and that kind of thing.
And watching them go, oh, that doesn't fit there because, those numbers
don't line up and that kind of thing.
So starting with manipulatives, so starting with stuff rather
than just on the board.
That was just the word I was waiting for.
Manipulatives.
So people always think that manipulatives
, whatever they are, whether they are counters, whether they
are pebbles, whether they are something on a sticky note, that
all equates to hands on learning.
And I think it's shocking that you don't even find them very often
in an upper primary classroom.
It's true.
Yes.
Well, not at, you know, the IBPYP school we worked at, but.
I was going to say, really?
Yeah.
That's all I had.
Yeah.
Well, that's the thing is that, you can take that example in many ways
is that kids want to be involved.
You know, the alternative to that lesson would be that you drew with a number
line or you had it projected on the board and you would say, right, kids,
listen, this is how it's going to be.
And you would stick it all up and you would show them straight away.
And they would be like, yeah, whatever, like, how is it going in their heads?
But what Meg's done there is, , the children have things in their hands and
they're talking about it with each other and they're trying to problem solve.
And you have, it's like less talk from you.
It's way less talk from you.
You just have to ask a couple of questions and give them the post it notes.
Like that's, that's the beauty of that situation.
Well, I think they are doing the work
Yeah
that's how you learn, you learn by doing.
I mean, we know this from our university studies, you learn
by doing, kids learn by doing.
And then they get to year three and four and five, and then we
take away the manipulatives because now we think that they, that they,
, they can now think abstractly.
And that's such a huge mistake because they need those manipulatives
even in upper primary.
So that's an amazing thing and I love that you said that Meg.
I went to a PD a couple of months ago with Cath Murdoch actually, and she was
speaking exactly about this, that she was in a class and I think it was a year
three class if I'm not mistaken, and she was doing an activity with them and there
were no manipulatives in that classroom.
So I think this is a really important point about inquiry is that it is hands
on and that children really need those hands on manipulatives to show their
understanding and to go through their thinking so that they get the concept.
And so Meg, that must've been an amazing lesson because obviously
the kids didn't want it to end.
And that's what inquiry is about, isn't it?
Yeah.
That's the dream.
Meg, how do you go incorporating student voice and choice?
Why do you think it's so important in inquiry?
It lets students have, like we, it's actually voice choice and then the
third one that we use is ownership.
So they have the voice, they have the choice and they have
ownership over their learning.
And therefore they want to learn.
Does that make sense?
If you have, ownership over a project that you're working on, then
you want to be able to drive it in the way that you want, so that you
actually want to be successful.
The three of us are trying to do is to get everybody to do inquiry, because
we've seen what a fantastic strategy it is to get kids to love learning.
But when we talk about student voice and choice and giving them
ownership of their learning, which I think is so important because it's
only when you know that your results are because of what you've put in.
What would we say to non IB or non inquiry educators when they're saying,
well, we've got to drive the curriculum?
And this is what kids need to know.
Where does student voice going to come in then?
And so how do we say to these teachers that, hang on a minute, if you try this
way, you might actually find you're going to be doing less work, perhaps.
So yeah, I wouldn't say it's necessarily less work.
I find that it's actually the pre work is where you're having to do,
like, in our IB school is, even though we might be teaching a unit
of inquiry, that kind of thing, say, how the world works, we're still
trying to teach all of the Australian curriculum descriptors for that year.
Um, so which makes it quite tricky if you are trying to make links.
But if you're able to make authentic links to begin with.
Then you can use the curriculum and rather than having that as an answer
is use that to ask your questions.
Does that make sense?
It's not free for all.
It's very specifically the prompt or the hook.
I'm trying to think of the word Allanah you might
remember what it is.
Provocation.
There we go.
Provocation is so important to then drive the rest of your inquiry.
Because it's all that pre work, as you say, the pre planning, the
figuring out the provocations, the figuring out the questions.
But then once you're into that learning, the kids do the work.
Alana, do you have something to add there?
Well, yes, because, I've taught in both different types of schools.
Um, and this is where, , Sqwish was born for us because, and this
is why I coaxed Meg to come on because she's such a gun at inquiry.
But, , in our non PYP schools, I think to become an inquiry teacher, I had to
go, I sort of had this natural, , way of teaching in an inquiry method, but
when I started teaching at this IB PYP school, I had training, you know, we
had days out of the classroom to learn the IBPYP, how it works as a structure,
how we do embed the curriculum in it.
And it's very complex.
You can't just do a quick PD online and you're done.
No, it's, it's ongoing and it changes every year.
And for me, , I thought.
We can make inquiry so much simpler so that our everyday teachers, because
then this is another thing that sort of drove me to want to do this, is
my own children will not be going to an I-B-P-Y-P school, and I want them
to have just as good a learning as those kids who are in that school.
So my endeavor is to make inquiry so much more accessible and easy for teachers
who haven't had bucket loads of training.
And this is where the idea for Sqwish came from.
And it's just to try and make it easier.
So yes, if you're going to teach a singular lesson on, I don't even
know anything, a singular standalone lesson, you can still make an inquiry.
It doesn't necessarily have to be embedded across everything.
That would be lovely.
And it's great that there are schools that do that and it's
brilliant to work with them.
But the reality is, is that most schools in Australia are not IBPYP
schools and so I want to find this middle ground where we can help.
Teachers find an easy way to make learning so wonderful within their
class because it's just going to stick better for our kids.
I guess then if you're thinking about that, helping non PYP schools integrate
inquiry into the existing lessons, it's, would it, would you agree that it would
just be a change, shift in perspective?
Absolutely.
And then just questioning, getting the question right, because that's what it's
about, the questioning, and then not jumping in with the answer, but allowing
the kids to go through the struggle, which is not really a struggle, but to
get the kids to go through that whole problem solving hands on and finding the
answer for themselves before you jump in.
It's just flipping the structure of your lessons, which is what I keep
going on about, because I think that's one thing that teachers, can control
is how they teach a singular lesson.
Sure.
They might not be able to embed it.
So like we've been talking about, I think that like how Meg was saying, you
know, if you're doing a whole beautiful disciplinary theme unit, that's amazing,
but it's just not the reality for most of our schools and most of our teachers.
But one thing we can suggest that is easy is just following a structure that
flips your lesson where you firstly start with igniting that student curiosity.
And then you let them explore whether that's through manipulatives,
through reading, through talking, through brainstorming, whatever it
is, let them explore that concept.
Let them have that opportunity to voice their thoughts, make prior connections,
have a go, fail, um, or not fail.
They might already know it might, you know, it might strike them, but
you're holding back until they're literally like, tell us the answers or.
You know, they've found them out themselves and then they can practice.
That's when the practice comes in and then, , round it off at the
very end with that reflection.
And, you know, and if they need to a little bit more extension, a little
bit more delve a little bit deeper.
Um, and it's just, if we could just get teachers to follow that structure,
I just think inquiry could be easier,
and you don't have to do bucket loads of PD and, , know, all the
jargon that comes with PYP IB.
I mean, people listening to this might be like, what are they on
about with all this IB, PYP stuff?
Because it's so niche.
It is.
Maybe we should just tell everybody that IB stands for international baccalaureate
and PYP and PYP is the prime.
What is it?
The primary years.
Primary years program
All those acronyms and all that jargon that Meg and I are across it.
But It turns people away from it because it's like, I don't know what that's about.
I know what I know.
And teaching is one of those, you know, jobs where you can't get ahead
of the curb, and your to do list is as long as it's ever going to be.
And it's never going to get shorter.
So how are they going to have that time to look into it, to research it, to
find out those acronyms, to figure it all out, unless they have, you know,
support from their admin team and from their school is just not going to happen.
So.
That's our dream with Sqwish , is to use, you know, the 5e structure
to help, empower teachers
in inquiry learning.
So you've just read my mind because that was going to be my very next question.
Two things.
First, you've got to tell people about Sqwish and because
you've mentioned it a few times.
And secondly, inquiry is often driven by this inquiry cycle.
And if people know Kath Murdoch, she has her inquiry cycle, but there's
also a different model of inquiry, which is the five E model of inquiry.
Now with all your resources, now I'm just.
Assuming, or maybe I shouldn't, is that you guys were probably
doing the five, were you doing the 5e model in your school?
No,
no,
We weren't.
Funnily enough, our school actually goes off the Kath Murdoch model.
So we're tuning in, finding out, sorting out, making connections.
I'm sure I've missed one in there somewhere.
However, I find that, um, cycle is less achievable in a lesson.
I find it.
It's a very, it's great for a whole unit of work and that kind of thing.
However, if you're trying to go through that many stages in a cycle in one lesson,
it can feel rushed and that kind of thing.
So that's why for us, we've been using to at least for our
products and calling products.
Yeah.
Our lessons.
Yeah.
For digital products we've, been using the 5Es model.
So that's what Allanah said before, where you engage, you explore, you explain, you
elaborate, you evaluate, and then we've got extension in there as well, obviously,
that's added on a little 6th E.
But I was thinking back to, I know when Allanah tested, or, asked teachers
to trial the original lessons, some of the feedback that she got was,
Oh, you know, but , they need to know how to do that before you teach a
lesson on that, before they do it.
Yes, but not really.
That's where, like, you've got your engage in your explore phases
for them to be actually curious about what they want to learn.
And then you do actually tell them in the explain phase.
That's what the explain is there for.
You're not, letting them go off on a complete tangent if they're
trying to, you know, learn about time or something like that.
You are actually explaining it.
It's just not the first thing you do.
Two things there.
I remember on that course that I went on with Kath Murdoch just a few months ago.
She actually also said that inquiry, of course, when you go through that
cycle, it can be in a lesson, but that inquiry could go on for a term.
It could go on for several terms.
It could go on for a whole year.
I think that
Freaks other teachers out, you know?
I think if we start saying that, that then this whole open ended,
beautiful ordeal, like, when do I stop?
And it, you know, we are very confined by the curriculum.
And I think that in an ideal world, yes, it would go on
like Meg's beautiful lesson on percentages and equivalent fractions, et cetera.
I'm sure she could have done more on that, but we are so You know, confined
by time, especially in upper primary because of how intense our curriculum
is that I think that that idea when we start talking about how it can go on
forever and it can in the Kath Murdoch cycle is really great like Meg said in a
unit , but I think that that can be a bit of a deterrent to non inquiry teachers.
Like how, how long do I give my students then, you know, and
then it becomes a bit stressful.
So we stuck to our five E's model because it, sort of wraps things up nicely.
And then the idea with our extension task is never like an add on task.
It's usually delving deeper if you have the time and if you want
to, or if your students really are asking for more, our extension task
always links back into the lesson.
Yeah, it's building on authentically what you've actually learned in that lesson.
I don't know if you know that there's science resources called Primary
Connections, and they use the 5e, model.
And I think that's probably where I first came across the 5e model.
And because they applied throughout a unit of science.
So whether it be, you know, growth and change or whatever it might be, that whole
inquiry cycle goes across that unit, which for me, that would be across a term or
even two terms with growth and change.
And if you were thinking about following, let's say someone's sibling
or with a little baby, you could actually go through that for the entire
year that you were in that grade.
So you can see how certain things naturally apply themselves to an extended
inquiry cycle, whereas other things you could, cover that in a lesson,
like your fractions, for example.
Yes.
And that's, that is where I also first saw it in Primary Connections,
but you're, you are right
it does go over a unit and, you know, Yeah, we love the Kath Murdoch cycle
for, for a unit, but it does lend itself so beautifully to a singular lesson
because it has that winning formula of, you know, hiking student curiosity.
Why can't we do that for every lesson?
Um, allows them to have a go and formulate their own questions.
It then moves on to that explicit teaching, which I think that a lot
of people don't think is inquiry.
If you don't know about it, but it is because we do need
to get the content across.
And just like Meg said, it is the, when that is important, it
should be step three, not step one.
And then, you know, move on to the reflections and elaborations and the
practicing of that understanding.
That's pretty much what that cycle is and a good lesson should also.
reflect that.
So, and it makes it easy.
Five steps.
Beautiful.
So for us, it's taking that inquiry, making it fun, making
it easy, making it meaningful.
And that's our motto.
That's what drives us to help other teachers, you know, achieve that goal.
It also lets students ask questions earlier on , in the lesson cycle,
because if they're holding on to these lessons until I do have any questions
right at the end before you're going to go out to lunch, nobody's going
to want to , ask questions then.
They want to go to lunch.
Whereas if you're asking questions and actually, you know, engaging them that
way earlier in the lesson, they're more likely to have that ownership over it
like they were talking about before.
And in any case, between those two cycles, they dovetail, so, it's very
similar, but I loved how, Allanah, you've also just brought up another thing,
because so many people, and you see it in the media all the time, and there's
this whole new thing that came out of the government recently, ah, explicit
instruction, explicit instruction, I was going to bring this up earlier.
Just think that if you're an inquiry person, we don't know how to do
explicit instruction or it doesn't exist in an inquiry classroom.
And what nonsense, explicit instruction, everybody, if you're worth your salt
knows that that is how children learn.
Especially when you're teaching new concepts and new skills.
Oh my gosh.
It's anything like if I wanted to learn how to sew, I can't just
figure it out on a sewing machine.
I need YouTube.
I need someone to show me
. Your early years as well like you're not just going to let them play with numbers.
They need to know how the numbers work.
They need to know how that the letters go together to make the words that have
the sounds and all that kind of thing.
There's definitely has to be a place for explicit instruction
for them to, learn the rules, but
the way that you can do that is very different in that sole
explicit instruction model versus in an inquiry model.
And , the other place, of course, is that you're going to be teaching your
writing, like your report writing or your.
narrative, whatever.
You're teaching that explicitly.
And then you're going to be using that, let's say, in upper primary, or
even from year two, they're already writing reports, they are doing that.
Yeah.
You're using those skills that you've taught them in an English lesson,
for example, on your guided writing lesson, that skill, they're then
applying to an inquiry project that they might be doing in science or
in HASS or in whatever it might be.
This used to be my favorite unit in grade one that I taught for many,
many years is we would do sharing the planet and it was living things.
So, you know, you're looking at, their habitat, their
diet, all that kind of thing.
And so you're, I honestly can't even remember the curriculum's changed anyway,
so I can't remember the descriptor, but we would spend a whole term going through all
of the characteristics of living things.
And then we would also be writing information reports and like, you know,
information report is it's very, very simple at grade one, but they're still
having to find out information on a given animal and that kind of thing.
It's not just standalone English.
Do you know what I'm saying?
Yeah.
So that's where that integration comes in.
Yes.
Because now they're understanding that, okay, oh, so this
is how you write a report.
And then they understand that I actually use this knowledge that I've gained
when I'm applying it to writing about this animal or whatever it is.
So , that's where the integration comes in so beautifully.
Yeah, exactly.
Meg, you mentioned earlier with the 5e model that you've actually
added on, what was it, extension?
Extension, um, yeah.
I'm assuming that would include, Reflection?
No, not necessarily.
Your reflection would be in your, evaluation step, in your last step.
So before you would go on to it.
To the extension.
Yeah.
So you would go for
us optional.
Like it's yeah.
Yeah.
And add on, um, because I have found, I'm sorry, Meg, I'm totally jumping in here.
I have found in, non PYP schools that, oh, yuck, fast finishes are a thing.
What can I do once my kids have got through X, Y, Z. Do
some coloring, read a book.
I need fast finishes.
And it's just frustrates me because if your children are finishing fast, if
the students are finishing fast, then has their learning been deep enough?
You know, um, are they rushing through their work?
Are those pathways truly formed?
Are they all on the flip side?
Are they taking care with their work?
Like it's one of those two.
It's either they're not taking any care with their work, or they're
not giving it enough time to sink in.
And so for us, extension was important to add in there, as we
would like to help other teachers who are not in an inquiry school.
We wanted to show and add in our lessons that extension can be
something to do with the task they've done to deepen their knowledge.
So I think I'm trying to think of an example of one of our
lessons, Meg, do you have one?
I was, I've got one that I'm in the middle of writing at the moment, which
is that one speaking and listening.
It's, um, about retelling stories , and manipulating
stories and that kind of thing.
And so I'm looking at it.
It's, , about fairy tales, , the students for speaking and listening,
they have to, um, retell a story as part of a speaking and listening, for
report cards and that kind of thing.
, So you've got all five of our steps in the five E's.
Um, however, is for extension, we're looking at, , comparing and contrasting,
um, how could you make a different adaptations of the same fairy tale?
Or, , can you use technology to tell the story in a different way?
Or can you act it out?
Can you do, like, what can you do that's still to do with.
What you've done.
Um, right.
In another way.
Yeah, that's
it.
Yeah.
And I think we did one.
I'm trying to think of one too.
We did an area for grade five where the students jump out a square and then they
measure it and they calculate the area.
And if they're like, I'm done.
I figured it out.
Well then let's think about what else could we measure that isn't
a square right in front of us.
What if we were to measure the area of our classroom?
And it's just asking more questions to deepen the understanding
that they've just gained.
And it's also, can they apply the understanding that they've just gained?
To a different, you know, context.
Yeah.
So that was really important for us to include.
Um, even though it's technically not in the five E's, it's just
to try and kill fast finishers.
Yeah, because I think, We've got a blog post forming on why fast finishes.
That's also what you just mentioned there.
As you said, you question, right?
You ask more questions and that's very much an inquiry mindset and inquiry
mindset is just, you ask more questions.
Just ask more questions.
And that's hard to do if you're not practiced in it.
Like that's very hard to think on your feet.
And it can be when you have kids staring at you like, Oh, I'm finished.
I don't know what to do.
And.
And they also, like, I also have found students who, who are not
from an inquiry classroom, they can then struggle to go deeper.
Um, yeah.
And it's hard to think on the spot, like you, you know, You've
got so many things in your brain.
You've got 10 minutes till lunch.
You've got to get the marking done.
You've got all this stuff going on.
It's hard to think of those deeper questions.
And so we are trying to do it in advance for teachers.
Listen, I think that so many of us, Something that's always been with me
since I was a kid, I think, but so many of us go through life and we don't really
take time to reflect on our choices.
And not just in our role as teachers, but just in life too.
And what I love about inquiry is that it does make space for reflection.
And even in the 5E model, it does that.
Can you discuss the role of reflection and metacognition in inquiry based
education, how you support students in developing those skills in your 5E model?
Is this the thinking about thinking?
That's a big question.
I think I'm, the word metacognition is like setting off alarm bells for
me because traditionally, because traditionally, in the PYP, they
used to be your, um, your skills.
And so there were all of these different skills and metacognition
was one of the skills in the PYP.
And you would sit there and go, what on earth does that mean?
Yeah.
Like you go, you know, we're doing metacognition in this unit.
Okay, sure.
Like, whatever.
Google's it, real quick.
Siri, hey, Siri.
Yes, exactly.
Um, they've actually changed that now to, they no longer call it
skills, they're your approach, the way that you approach your learning.
, if I think more on reflection, reflection was always, um, again,
I'm talking about the PYP was its own standalone key concept.
However, when they updated the PYP about five years ago, they realized
that actually we don't want to have reflection as its standalone concept.
We want reflection to be embedded.
Yes, exactly.
Embedded within the inquiry.
So it was interesting that the IB, like the international baccalaureate,
they reflected on their own practice and went, no, we actually need
students and teachers and everything to be doing that authentically all
the time, all of their lessons.
Um, Because it can be really hard to reflect, reflect authentically
on your lesson as a teacher, but also to get kids to reflect on their
learning authentically rather than just, Oh yeah, I did a good job.
So why, how did you do that?
What were you thinking around why you did that?
How did you come about writing it this way?
So I think that's that part where You get kids to take responsibility for
their own learning is when they can start thinking about why they do things
in a certain way, why they approach their learning in a certain way.
And I think for teachers, , you're so busy, right?
And at the end of the day, you're like, Oh, kids have left.
No, now you've got your marking and 4 million emails and
admin and all the rest of it.
And sometimes it doesn't leave space for us to actually reflect on
how, how did I actually do today?
How did the kids do today?
Was I effective in what I did?
Did they actually learn anything?
Did they enjoy what they learned today?
Did I learn anything?
So I think that we need somehow to find the space as educators and
as students, for that reflection.
Because otherwise, like I always say to kids, you guys, you can't go through like
those little, what, and I always have to ask them, because I never remember,
because of my menopause brain, what you call those guys in star wars, a
little, you know, they're like robot y things that just keep marching.
Droids?
The droids.
You can't go through life just being a droid, you know, you
have to actually say, hang on a minute, how do I feel about this?
Or what about this?
And how do I, or what am I struggling with?
Or what do I find easy?
So I was interested in how you applied that through that 5e
model, because it does make space for that, which is pretty cool.
I'm thinking as well, A very obvious plug for our business, we actually
have um, a download that's for free is a bunch of exit tickets that allow
teachers and students to reflect on their learning for that lesson.
Um, whether it's to collect it as a formative assessment, it's up to you,
but by having that opportunity to reflect and for want of a better word, making
them reflect, um, is really powerful.
It's a learned skill and I think
it's kind of the
reason to have it.
And we didn't call it reflection in our, in our five E's.
It actually comes under evaluate and it's meant to be at the end of the lesson.
And you should really, take 10 minutes at the end of your lesson, and if you
don't have that 10 minutes at the end of your lesson, because the kids are so
into what they're doing, then you come back to it beginning of the next lesson,
you have to make time for it somewhere.
And it's something that we, you know, we're trying, I think it's one of the
hardest things about teaching because, um, It is one of those things sort
of like formulating the questions.
It's hard to know what kind of reflection do you want from your
children, from your students?
And that's another reason we put these exit tickets together
because some of them are about making connections to their world.
So like one of our exit tickets says, um, how would you apply what you have learned
today to the world that you live in?
Where might we see, you know, , Meg's example of the math's percentages and
equivalent fractions, where might we see these numbers in the real world?
They have to write down a quick sentence and they can go out to lunch.
You know what I mean?
It's that quick reflection.
And with our exit tickets, it might not be, that might not be applicable.
It might be more a reflection on how well do I think I did this lesson?
Did I communicate effectively with my peers?
It might be an intrinsic sort of assessment on their skills of
that, you know, during that time.
And we do, I think it should be embedded into every lesson.
That's the reason why we've offered these, um, you know, those exit
tickets up for free, because I think it's such an important thing for
teachers and students to have.
I feel like it also allows them to cement their understanding and their learning
into their brains rather than just going, Oh, look, we just finished maths off.
I go to lunch, ask them when they come back, Oh, what did you learn about?
I don't know.
So actually making them reflect helps them to make the connections
within their minds as well, and to hopefully commit some of it to memory.
And I'm just thinking as you said that you can just imagine you're getting to an end
of a lesson and now the bells about to go and now you want to ask kids to reflect.
It ain't going to happen.
Right?
Absolutely.
Timing is everything.
Yeah.
And so that's why actually flexibility is everything because that's when you have to
think, well, you know, next after lunch, I was going to do this and this and this,
but actually we didn't quite finish there.
And maybe you just have to can what you were going to do after lunch.
That's right.
That you actually can finish up and actually end that lesson.
Properly.
Properly and get that reflection in and tomorrow's another day.
You know, and I think sometimes we're so bound by the curriculum and our
timetables that we forget about that flexibility, which is so essential when
we're teaching young children because their thinking and their time spans are
not like our thinking and our time spans.
And as we all know, everything takes longer.
When you're working with kids, right?
It's never what you think.
It's never going to be 30 minutes or 50 minutes.
It's always going to be two days.
So you may as well just plan for that.
Yeah, it's true.
When , I started teaching grade three and it was like, okay, great.
End of grade three, you basically got grade fours.
And then I moved from grade three to grade one.
And so the beginning of the following year, you don't really have grade ones,
you have preps or, you know, reception, foundation, whatever you want to call it.
And I could not even tell you what the lesson was that I taught on my first
day of grade one, because it took like three sessions to finish off like an
about me activity, like just the time it takes little people to do stuff, but
also I'm reflecting that sometimes you think something is going to take them,
20 minutes to do even at a grade five or six level, but then they surprise you and
it takes them, as you said, three days.
Or something that you expected to be, you know, really challenging for them
to understand and then they surprise you and it takes only takes them 20 minutes.
The flexibility that you need is astounding.
Like is that I've seen a meme go around where it's teachers make
more split second decisions in a day than what a brain surgeon does.
It's something ridiculous like that.
That's why you're tired all the time.
And then you still have to juggle everything else, right?
Like little babies and all the rest of it.
Listen, ladies, can you share a success story or an anecdote that
demonstrates the impact of inquiry based learning on student achievement?
I think about some stories that could show just how amazing inquiry is and
how kids have done so well with it.
I would say it's the fact that something that you might have taught in, in term
one, When one of the kids comes back and say, turn three or four and goes,
Hey, remember when we did this, So when I used to teach grade one, one
of the first units that we did was how we organize ourselves and my lovely
teaching partner at the time, she doesn't work at that school anymore.
She's gone off to do fantastic things as a curriculum leader.
Um, we decided to expose the students to what it would be like
if our classroom wasn't organized.
So we trashed our classrooms.
They had no idea.
So these little grade ones, it was like their second day of grade one.
And they walked in to tables turned over And, um, you know,
all the books were all over the floor, the blocks were everywhere.
And it was just total mayhem when they walked in at the end of second break.
And for them to experience that, this was the provocation for them to experience
total chaos and disorganization for them to then make the connections
to go, Oh, well, this is why we need organization was fantastic.
So not just wasn't watching a video or that kind of thing.
It made them feel disorganized and feel stressed and that kind of thing.
And then that's how we could go, well, this is why we need to be organized.
But then on the flip side, seeing those boys, you know, like later in the year,
they go, Hey, Miss Anderson, remember when you and Mrs. Guy trashed our classroom
and go, yeah, mate, like, and like, that's what it looks like now, right?
Like, yes, it does.
That's why we need to reorganize.
Yes.
And those little boys would be in what grade, grade seven or eight now.
They probably still remember
it.
Yeah, exactly.
And
aren't those the experiences that kids remember?
They don't remember sitting at the desk.
I mean, if you think back, , to your own school years, you don't remember
anything about sitting at a desk and filling in a sheet of paper.
You don't remember those things.
You remember the hands on stuff.
That's true.
The things that you were doing, you remember.
You know, like I remember in high school dissecting a rat, that was the
most fun I've ever had in my life.
I'm looking for the skolex, the head of the tapeworm.
It was awesome.
Yeah.
I think I was sitting outside at that point.
Yeah, me too.
I'm not a biology person.
Love science, not biology.
So, those are the things I remember.
Those hands on things.
Yeah.
It's The experiences that stick with the students rather than like half
the time, rather than the actual, you know, rote learning they
remember the experience rather than what it was actually linked to.
Like those kids probably have no idea what we actually learned, like why we do it.
They just remember
But they would remember the feeling and they would remember the skill, like they
would have those skills from that lesson, um, regardless of whether they like
really understood the curriculum behind it, it's still so valuable because It's
just so memorable to them that's, that learning would be so deeply embedded.
So ladies.
Together you created Sqwish, which is an online company.
That provide digital resources to educators.
I'd love you to share with the listeners why you started Sqwish, I think you've
already alluded to it a bit during the interview, but why you started Sqwish
and what's your mission with Sqwish?
Sqwish was born in my brain.
Um, a few, quite a few years ago now.
I just believe that there's not very many brilliant inquiry based
resources for upper primary out there.
The, the templates that are out there are either, you need to know
everything about IBPYP or a different inquiry model to be able to access, or
they're just not designed very well.
They're just like a bit ugly.
Outdated.
Since I left the full time classroom teaching, I have learned so much
about the power of design and how a well formed template can empower
students to structure their thinking.
Isn't that what inquiry is about?
So to be offering resources to our students, I was either like remaking
resources or giving them such terrible designed resources that it just fell flat
and I knew there could be something more.
So.
Sqwish for me marries a couple of loves, which is inquiry for me in upper years,
you know, Meg's jumped on board and I'm so glad she has because she has so
much more knowledge than lower primary.
So, you know, it can be transferred even further, , I'm
a fully trained graphic designer.
So being able to create, uh, professionally designed resources, that
use the same fonts, styles, layouts, they empower students to become
familiar with that resource type, which enables them to then predict how
the resource is going to be set up.
And it frees their cognitive energy to interpret the task they need to
do rather than actually interpreting the task itself, if that makes sense.
So Sqwish came about to kind of pull all of those things together.
I want to help other teachers who are not in inquiry school and
make inquiry learning accessible.
I want to use design as a really powerful tool to help our students
help out teachers to get down to the nitty gritty of actually learning.
Um, I think that a lot of the resources that are out there are not in education
in general, are just not designed by professional graphic designers.
And I want to ask why it's such a powerful tool and how many times
do you have a worksheet that just has random clip art on it for, for
what reason images are so powerful.
We have so many visual learners now class.
If the images aren't adding to anything, then get rid of them.
It's just deterring away from what they need, which is just, white
space, like templated designs that help structure their thinking.
And it can, it also makes learning so much more accessible.
I have witnessed firsthand upper primary where I've had maybe a student with
learning difficulties and I've had to sit down and create a very intense template
for them to be able to access the learning that was occurring in my classroom.
And then it occurred to me, if I'm doing this for one student, why
can't, they all have access to it.
And lo and behold, the learning that came out from one particular, lesson
or a unit or whatever I was teaching was almost so much better because
students could see, I start here.
I end here.
Um, And I could just see the power of this and how it could just free
our students more cognitively, help those who struggle with structuring
their ideas, their learning.
And that's why Sqwish was born.
I walked away from a full time classroom position to basically upskill in graphic
design so that I could achieve this and the resources that we have on the site,
we, pour so much time and energy and love into them because I want them to be
perfect because often it's not perfect
in a classroom You have to make do.
Um, and I don't think that's good enough.
Meg, would you like to add anything to that?
I think Allanah's just about said it all.
I know I found when you log on to another website to go, okay, I need
something maybe to support how I'm going to teach,, probability and you
log on and half the time, the stuff that you download is just rubbish.
Like you have no idea what you can only use half of it.
Like you might go through a PowerPoint or that kind of thing
and go, well, that's rubbish.
Why would I teach that?
They already know that, or you download something you go, I
don't actually understand what they want me to do with this.
So that's what we are making is it's a whole lesson.
So if you were to download one of our lessons, it would be and have
a full lesson plan within it that goes through the five E steps.
It has what you need to do some prior, like any teacher preparation,
um, any information that you need, all of that kind of thing.
It's all Australian curriculum aligned.
Um, so you know that you're ticking off the right kind of
things that you need to teach.
It would have, um, templates.
for students to work on.
It might have posters, it might have a PowerPoint to work
through, it might have a game.
There's all sorts of things that we've put in basically all of the
effort to enable you to Teach that content descriptor to the best of your
ability in an inquiry way as well.
I love how squish just like Blooming Curious I think it supports educators to
try and lessen the load for educators and also to give them quality resources
because as you see, there's so much rubbish out there and I found children
love something really beautiful.
They love working on something really nice and so why would you just give them
some horrible blurry thing , to do a task.
I think that's really important and kudos to you guys.
Thank you.
That's what, Allanah and I spoke about a few weeks ago when we were
getting ready to launch our business and all that kind of thing we were
wondering how much time actually went into each lesson that we've created.
And some of them have actually taken about 40 hours to create one, lesson
that's give or take about an hour.
Um, and, but as a teacher, I don't have that time to be able to create such
a wonderful resource for my students.
I'd love to, but I also need to, you know, eat and breathe and sleep.
We're trying to take the jargon, Allanah's favorite word, um, the jargon
and the questions out of what do I actually need to teach this lesson?
What's their enduring understanding?
What do I need and what can I get rid of?
That's going to be like white noise for them.
Yeah.
And we really look at a lesson and I'll write one and then send it to Meg.
And she'll say, do you need that?
Do we need this instead?
And, you know, I think we also need posters and I also think we need this.
And then it just becomes this big thing.
We've just tried to think of everything.
So you download something about, I don't know, you need to teach subjective
and objective language and bias.
We've thought of everything.
There's posters, there's a student template, it's digital,
it's print, it's whatever is going to work in your classroom.
We just want it to have thought of literally everything because often when
you're teaching, you just don't, you just can't, you just throw some stuff up on the
wall that you've just done really quickly.
You've written it up before on a blank piece of paper before recess and run out.
Like, um, yeah, we've just really tried to think of everything to make it easier
I know Allanah, you've, I can't remember if you said it already today was that
when you did some supply teaching and you said just the dribble that that the kids
were having to do was pretty atrocious.
So if you're giving them that real quality lesson and understanding, then you're
going to engage them and they're actually going to want to be there as well.
And you know, they might be able to learn something in the process.
Just to finish off, just tell people where they can go to
get hold of Sqwish's resources.
We have a, we have a website up.
It's sqwish.
com.
au.
Um, all our resources are up there.
We don't have a lot because we are about quality, not quantity.
However, one day we do hope to have many up catering for lots and lots of grades,
but we can only do what we can do when we are really honing in on that quality.
You can find our resources on there.
We're also on Instagram as squish underscore resources on
Instagram and the same on TikTok.
And we've just started a Facebook.
I think that's just squish though, isn't it, Meg?
Yes.
That one's just a just straight squish.
I will put the links to your website and Instagram and everything onto our
show notes so that listeners can go there very easily and click and go
and look at your wonderful resources.
And to finish off, what advice would you give to educators who are just
coming into inquiry based learning?
What would you say to them?
I would say be patient with yourself.
Continue to reflect, and just enjoy the ride.
It's wonderful.
And ask other teachers, you know, ask the teacher next door.
If you can sit on, on their lesson, go and see how other teachers are doing
it even if you have to sacrifice some of your beloved planning time, it is
so, so worth it because that is how I have grown as a teacher the most is
having an open door and walking into other open doors within the school.
Not everyone's door is open but find those teachers who have that open door
and learn as much as you can from them.
Meg?
Um, I was going to build on what Alana said and say that there's not actually
many wrong ways to teach inquiry.
There's lots of right ways to do it and your way of doing it might be different
to the person next door and that's okay.
It's not as hard as you think it is.
Absolutely true.
It's not one way of doing it.
You find your own way of doing inquiry that fits with you, with your personality
and with your cohort of students.
Because you could have a way of inquiry that works really well for one cohort
and then the next year it doesn't at all.
And you have to really rethink the wheel anyway.
So Meg and Allanah from Sqwish Resources, I think this has been a wonderful
opportunity to chat to you both.
I'd like to thank you both for coming on Blooming Curious and I look forward
to us perhaps meeting up again at a later stage and I wish you all the
very very best with your business with Sqwish resources and I hope everybody
goes there and also to Blooming Curious and go and have a look and see how
the ladies at Sqwish can actually help lessen your load in your classroom.
So thank you very much.
Thanks so much for having us.
I had such a great time.
It's always nice to talk about your why and your passion.
So we've loved it.
Thanks, Edwina.
Yes.
Thank you.