Authentic Enquiry is an approach to learning which begins with the learner’s interest and experience, rooted in concrete place object or artefact and moves from there through a process of faciltiated knowledge construction, to a particular negotiated outcome which meets publicly agreed assessment criteria. It’s bottom up, rather than top down. It’s authentic because it is ‘authored’ by the learner and because it is ‘real and genuine’ in their life story. A special issue of the Curriculum Journal was dedicated to this approach in 2009.
The ideas began with Professor Milan Jaros in the University of Newcastle and influenced the work in the learning power programme of research at the Graduate School of Education at the University of Bristol. In fact, Milan would say the ideas began with Walter Benjamin and the Arcades project to be fair.
We then applied them to our work with Gifted and Talented 16 year olds, young offenders and NEET learners. After that they became the focus of a unit at M level in the Graduate School of Education at the University of Bristol, and they now form part of the new MSc in Systems Learning and Leadership.
The ELLI learning power profiles allow a conversation about the Self, and the personal qualities necessary for learning, which is particularly helpful when the outcome is not predetermined from the start. Then the learning power dimensions scaffold the process, which requires the use of particular thinking and learning capabilities. These are not necessarily linear – rather they are recursive and cumulative – but they are necessary for constructing knowledge. They are different to the procedural steps which teachers or tutors facilitate or frame enquiry – for example the Enquiry Cycle.
These are some of the ideas which inform enquiry blogger.
three dimensions of enquiry
Another way of putting it – which is more linear can be seen in this document attached. It describes the steps as procedures, with their accompanying thinking and learning capabilities, and the learning power dimensions which may be most useful. Authentic Enquiry Process 2011. We call this a pedagogy of place because it is local, authentic, owned and embodied – and honours diversity.
I have questions about authentic enquiry (AE):
a. Is it the only way to develop the 7 elements of ELLI – or perhaps more specifically, how do we more fully demonstrate that ELLI elements/Learning Power will be developed using AE?
b. Does AE have to be collaborative? It seems to me it can be a solo activity.
c. In an organisational setting, I can see how ELLI will be used to identify an individual’s profile. How would you then use AE to develop Learning Power?
I can see that AE can be used to develop the learning power of an individual by asking that individual to carry out their own enquiry. This could be repeated for as many individuals as you wanted to develop.
But how might AE be used for process improvement, or wider organisational development?
Say you wanted to improve the recruitment process because it was too slow, or recruited the wrong people, or both? In current approaches to process improvement, you would bring together a group of stakeholders with an interest in that process. Could such a group find and implement a solution via an authentic enquiry?
In AE, you might begin by taking a recruitment advert as your starting point, although this might not be what some members of the team would choose (indeed, some people might not want to participate at all). Assuming you get agreement to a shared starting point, I see how AE works up to the point of generating shared questions.
Do you then give each person a specific question to investigate, or does everyone go off and do their own thing? Would this be acceptable in an organisation?
When you combine the answer stories, can you be sure you will get a full enough picture of the issues? I can see how the fish-bone step could be used to bring together all the material and to develop headings. A drawback of the fishbone technique is that it does not explore relationships and inter-dependencies, so perhaps another step is needed to ensure a consideration of the system as a whole takes place.
At the end of this process, do we have issues, or solutions? I suspect we are still focused on defining the problem/understanding the nature of the system, although this analysis may also suggest possible avenues for solutions.
So, I can see that AE is useful for a thorough investigation of the issues.
How do we then move to defining possible solutions, selecting a best fit and implementing it? Systems thinking would suggest a collaborative and iterative approach to this, open to emergence. The cycles of action and reflection suggested by Action Research would offer a way forward here. In fact, I suspect there is potentially a very exciting marriage to be formed between authentic enquiry and action research in the context of process improvement, provided we can find a way to bridge the identification of issues and the formation of solutions.
This reaffirms the need for a full understanding of systems theory and how leadership of change might work in these circumstances. Tim’s idea of the leader as facilitator/author of an emerging organisational narrative is very attractive.
It feels as if this needs a thorough discussion where we bring together knowledge of AE, Action Research and Organisational Development / Process Improvement.
Martin
Many good questions, which will need good answers as we evolve AE into a mature organisational learning tool.
I’m sure others will have some responses, but through my lens, the bridging from a cloud of issues towards convergence to collectively owned action can be scaffolded with practices such as Dialogue & Issue Mapping, and Conversational Modelling, with digital support from tools like Compendium.
These have been shown to be effective in myriad authentic, wicked problem contexts, but does require fluent facilitation, a practice engaging an intruiging mix of skills and orientations which we believe to be part of the future skillset for deep learning and sensemaking: listening, aesthetics, ethics, technology, visualization, narrative, coherence…
Simon
Martin and Simon,
In the research into learning power authentic enquiry has proven to be a profound way of enabling learners to ‘narrate’ their own pathway in learning, to identify their interests and to build learning power in the process. The process of knowledge construction – where the outcome is not determined from the start – requires scaffolding for most of us, and the learning power dimensions provide some ways to scaffold that learning. For example when you are doing knowledge mapping, you need your creativity and your meaning making, or when you are identifying and meeting negotiated assessment criteria you need your strategic awareness and a sense of your ability to change and learn.
I think one of the challenges for applying this in the corporate sector is in harnessing collective intelligence through the process, to provide business solutions. It’s actually about leadership.
[...] Authentic Inquiry is a particular form of inquiry-based learning, which emphasises the motivation that a pupil can get if hey;re allowed to choose their own topic, rather than have it decided for them. In the coming days, you’ll hear more about the exciting Yr.6 Authentic Inquiry Projects (AIPs), which will run for 9 continuous days now that SATS are over (hooray!). Pupils will choose they’re really interested in — maybe something the staff know very little or nothing about! — but their job is to help pupils conduct their inquiry, and reflect on their progress using EnquiryBlogger, a blogging tool made into a learning journal, developed at the Open University. [...]