Inquiry and knowledge-building cycle 1 (IKBC 1)

This inquiry cycle started immediately after familiarizing teachers with the PL model in our first meeting and through later informal conversations. Almost all the learning activities for IKBC-1 were planned during the second meeting with teachers. During her participation in this first inquiry cycle, Lucy identified the goal of helping her students to promote their learning of History by teaching them effective reading of History texts. Lucy engaged in a series of learning activities to address this goal as indicated in Figure 5.1.

5.3.2.1Identifying the students’ learning difficulties

At the beginning of the inquiry cycle, teachers were asked to identify the learning difficulties experienced by their students and to suggest aspects of their teaching they might focus on to promote their professional learning need. This task initially seemed challenging for the teachers and the great amount of time needed to better understand students’ learning needs. Similar to other teachers, Lucy indicated a number of barriers for her students’ learning. She referred to a number of these issues in her field notes:

Students are weak, they shy away from tests, they hide assignments, it is hard to make them submit their assignments… they can’t write essays, reading is worse, maybe, because there are no books. Their language [English] is worse beyond repair, they are hopeless and… (Lucy/RES/Diary).

Lucy proposed a plan that she hoped might overcome her students’ learning difficulties. In discussion with me, Lucy was advised that dealing with multiple objectives was unrealistic, given the limited amount of time and resources at hand. This reflection prompted a revision of time allocated for teachers for pursuing their PL. It was agreed that people from inside or outside the school, particularly those who could assist in identifying or refining the PL challenges, need to be consulted. The extensive use of evidence was strongly recommended for identifying and analysing the learning issues. Lucy’s inability to clearly articulate and focus on one specific learning aspect was also reflected in my journal:

I think the three teachers were very passionate about the PL programme. It seemed that they wanted to see all issues in their classes solved immediately. The teachers also thought that this programme could make just a simple fix to their teaching problems. However, after our discussion, they now realise the

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importance of focusing on a specific learning/teaching aspect. It’s difficult to touch everything at once (Rehema/REF/J)

During the meeting for planning the PL activities for IKBC-1, Lucy finally decided on her teaching goal. She had understood the importance of focusing on one learning aspect at a time. Reaching this conclusion had not been easy, as it happened after a series of conversations with colleagues, the researcher and further analysis of her students’ work. In so doing, Lucy decided to work on her students’ reading, particularly reading History texts. She was assertive about what she specifically wanted to focus on, as captured in the following extract:

Lucy: We eventually agreed to support my students in their reading. To help students do their reading effectively.

Rehema: Just reading!

Lucy: Not just a mere reading, but it is reading History literature…

Rehema: But we expect them to learn these... from English or Swahili teachers

Magdalene: Reading is a complex skill

Lucy: The English teachers cannot teach them everything… students are not reading books… I have discovered that it is necessary for my students to learn and develop interest in reading… to understand the History language and terminologies… and do better in internal examinations… However, where should they read from? (MT-2).

5.3.2.2Deepening professional knowledge and refining skills

The next task was for Lucy to explore the skills that she needed to develop in order to teach her students about reading History texts for understanding. In this part of the cycle, the teachers explored what to teach and how to teach. They brainstormed and suggested PL strategies that could be utilized by Lucy when familiarizing herself with teaching reading skills. Reflecting on Lucy’s teaching goal and her students’ nature, the other teachers suggested several ideas for her to consider. Importantly, learning new

teaching techniques was emphasized, in contrast to maintaining their usual teaching practices. The discussion which attempted to identify the appropriate teaching skills for Lucy is exemplified in the extract below:

Lucy: But still I see the problem on how the books can be accessed. I will need photocopies of books, however, it is expensive.

Rehema: What else have you thought about? I still say that you know your students better than I or other teachers do.

Lucy: That is what I can do for now. I have just thought up to that level! Ha- ha! End of thinking capacity! Unless there is someone who wants to tell me what to do,add on what I have already described.

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Rehema:Yeah! That is the benefit of group learning.

Mourine: If I were you, I would try to give them [students] individual tasks in order for everyone to feel that he/she is responsible. Because some of them are lazy…

Magdalene: According to the situation, you can see now she needs to

understand the reading techniques… there might be several ways of teaching it (MT-2).

No one had provided the perfect solution; nevertheless each member was trying to address Lucy’s learning focus and offered her numerous options. In conclusion, Lucy was advised to learn about how to teach reading skills regardless of the subject content. Although the comments provided were not exhaustive, these helped Lucy to continue thinking about the new skills she needed to learn, so as to improve her students’ reading skills. The other teachers also suggested some other strategies that might assist Lucy in her own learning as well as her teaching of students. The discussion below shows some contributions given to Lucy:

Rehema: I am not sure, but let me ask you [Lucy]. Have you ever thought about what other teachers are doing on a similar aspect?

Lucy: No! I just know what is actually needed on this, but frankly speaking, I had never thought about finding out what other teachers have been doing. I normally give them work and tell them what to read

Magdalene: Maybe by asking others, but where shall she direct her queries?

Tausi: can learn new things just through Google

Rehema: I usually use “YouTube”. There are many tutorials…

Mourine: I think the teacher should find out from let say journal articles

Lucy: But, how do I get these journals?

Rehema: Don’t worry. I will help you for the benefit of others as well. (MT-2)

The extract above reveals that Lucy had no exact idea of how she might go about learning pedagogical strategies to teach reading skills. Regardless of the suggestions provided by other teachers, Lucy ultimately had the responsibility for synthesising the ideas and coming up with a workable solution. I also reminded Lucy of various strategies which she might employ like seeking help from other schools or contacting resource people outside our PL group. I emphasised:

When you want to learn a skill, for example, any skill related to teaching, you are not limited to sources of information, provided you are not breaking the school rules. You should also check if time allows you to engage in such activities (Rehema/MT-2).

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The actual acquisition of new teaching skills was the hardest part, not only for Lucy, but for all the teachers. The learning process was initiated by individual teachers in collaboration with other peers and took place mostly outside the IKBC formal meetings. Since learning could not possibly be completed in one or two IKBC meetings, teachers were advised to continue learning at their convenience. This PL phase has considerably strengthened each teacher’s skills to carry out her PL. After exploring several opportunities, Lucy decided to learn about new teaching skills by chatting with other teachers and reading relevant literature, such as “Reading strategies for the Social Studies class”, byGretchen and Fitzpatrick (2010). She also learned from tutorials via

You Tube about how to encourage students to read. She promptly consulted me whenever she needed advice. Lucy continued to learn about the appropriate skills through personal reading and informal conversations.

Therefore, Lucy applied different forms of PL, particularly through reading online articles, questioning and talking with other teachers, before deciding to implement new teaching strategies in her classroom. The following comments from the third planning meeting show how Lucy acquired her new teaching information. She stated:

From the Website! Yes, that tutorial you shared…. from the University abroad was inspiring. I didn’t get it all, but I captured it in my teaching.

I got it from the Website… ‘Essentials for language teaching’ so I thought that could be useful in teaching my History students.

You know what, I read different resources, but I found it difficult to apply them to my students. So, what I did after I had read two or three readings, I constructed my own stuff, which I knew would be okay for my students. I also shared with Magdalene and she gave me good advice. I really, appreciate your contribution (Lucy/MT-3).

5.3.2.3Implementing the new teaching skills

When reporting to other teachers in the third meeting about the implementation of her learned skills in the classroom, Lucy narrated how she introduced reading skills in her last teaching period. She also explained that the lesson about reading was integrated in the topic of “Decolonisation in Africa”:

We agreed that we should be teaching based on the topics we have with our students. That is what I did…. During the last period, before you visited, I talked

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to them about the skills required for effective reading. Previewing, predicting, paraphrasing are the important things I emphasized. This is what they were instructed to do. So when you visited me, I started by presenting the lesson, which was about “decolonization process in Uganda”. That was the first part followed by reading (Lucy/MT-3).

Lucy learned that it was important to start by teaching the criteria to be considered when reading. She mainly used questions and students’ group work to teach her lesson, as I observed: “Towards the end of the lesson, students were divided into groups of five to six to read the book chapter about decolonization” (COB-1/Lucy). Lucy went on clarifying the lesson:

This means that the reading was accompanied with some tasks. Reading for understanding… I gave them an exercise immediately after the lesson. These were the questions from the chapter they read from the book, but most of the questions I gave them required the reference to be made from the reading (Lucy/MT-3).

Lucy’s understanding of the progress of her students’ learning was crucial to assess the impact of her learning and teaching efforts. She commented after the class: “It was a

nice experience to learn and teach and learn… perhaps, will lead me to more learning” (Lucy/RES/Diary). When the other teachers asked Lucy to provide an overview of her students’ lesson progress, she reported: “They did the exercise, and let me say that they performed well. However, still, there is a percentage of students who didn’t perform well” (Lucy/MT-3). However, Lucy was occasionally challenged in the meeting about her lesson as I noted: “It is not very clear!… It seemed that the students were not reading… what do you have to say?” (Rehema/MT-3). Another teacher, Magdalene, also commented that: “I have not understood the way you taught your lesson

(Magdalene/MT-3). In addition, during a quick lesson reflection after teaching, I challenged Lucy’s lesson plan document, as it probably did not reflect the reality of what had happened in the classroom, in terms of time spent and learning activities undertaken. These results suggest that all these challenges appeared to assist Lucy to reflect more on the lesson she taught and therefore our questions prompted her to engage in further learning about teaching reading strategies.

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5.3.2.4Reflecting on the PL practices in IKBC-1

An evaluation of the SBPL was done at the end of the first inquiry cycle, mainly through a focused group interview. Among other things, the teachers were asked to explain how they had engaged in the whole PL process and to identify the challenges they had encountered. In addition, teachers’ opinions were sought to see if there was a need for a second inquiry cycle.

In response to two questions during the interview, Lucy mentioned several factors that had affected the effective implementation of her learning plan (see details in Chapter 6). She commented:

As a teacher, I am rushing to make sure that I finish teaching topics on time, at the same time introducing the new skills to students… So it is still difficult to strike a balance, considering the fact that we have just started this PL (Lucy/FGD-1).

Integrating reading skills with the lesson topic was a big challenge for Lucy, as I observed during implementation of her lesson and commented: “The teacher should

have started by helping students to learn some techniques on how to read by using the topic of Decolonisation … instead of separating the two aspects” (COB-1/Lucy). On the other hand, asking students to read the whole chapter appeared to be unrealistic. Thus, Lucy needed to modify her teaching strategy so that she could effectively apply the new teaching skills she had learned to facilitate students’ reading competence.

Lucy, however, noted that there could be other new techniques for helping students to read, which indicated that she wanted to continue engaging in more PL. Her desire to learn more skills is reflected in her statements: “Sure, there is a need to modify some

aspects and putting things together for the next period. Maybe, we can talk more about it when we start arranging the next learning programme” (FGD-1). The need for more PL marked the beginning of the second inquiry cycle (IKBC- 2).