Professional Inquiry Project Report

Focus
The original focus for this Professional Inquiry Project was on the impact that effective questioning has in
supporting student engagement and understanding in literacy. During the initial days of the practicum
experience it was realised that not enough time would be provided to sufficiently investigate this inquiry
subject. Upon reflection, it was decided that it would be more beneficial to change the focus of this project
to a numeracy-based outlook. The school’s strong focus on improving student agency, particularly in
mathematics, and the significant shift that would be required in pedagogical thinking and teaching during
this practicum, resulted in a new inquiry question.

“How does the implementation of student agency impact student engagement in Mathematics?”

Justification of teaching behaviour & curriculum area focus

21st century education is very much based around theoretical perspectives such as Vygotsky’s Social-
Constructivist learning theory. This theory is based on the understanding that knowledge construction is an
active, rather than passive, process, and that human development is socially situated. Other common and
practised theories are based on the knowledge that students enjoy learning when the subject is student
centered, their voices are heard and when there is a focus on investigation (Skamp & Preston, 2014).
However, the concept of student agency goes deeper than student centered learning and personalization
(Core Education 2015). Student agency, as explained by Goldspink (2016), is a pedagogical approach
impacting specifically on student engagement. Research has found that typically there is often a significant
imbalance of power between teachers and students, and whilst educators say they believe in certain
pedagogies, there is a big difference in what actually occurs in their classrooms (Goldspink 2016). The
implementation of student agency shifts the ownership of learning from teachers to students, providing
students with the power and choices in order to take meaningful action and become life long learners
(Leonard 2017).

Context & curriculum area

This Professional Inquiry Project has taken place is the context of a year six class at a Category 7 school
located in the northern suburbs of Adelaide. Overall behaviour in this class is of a high standard with
minimal issues. Within the class there is few learning difficulties, with only two students presenting with
undiagnosed concerns of Autism Spectrum Disorder and a speech disorder. The class structure has an
implemented flexible seating layout, allowing students to sit in alternative seating options as opposed to
traditional desks.

As a result of the school’s External Review conducted in 2017 by the Department for Education and Child
Development, the main focus within the school is developing student agency, and in particular
incorporating student voice within the classroom. Student voice audit cards are a primary focus currently
in many schools (DECD 2017). The school’s other main priority is developing powerful learners in
numeracy. These two key factors provided the direction and rationale behind the change in focus for this
Professional Inquiry Project.

Within the mathematics curriculum, the content focus during this investigation was on data. The content
descriptor concentrated on was: Interpret and compare a range of data displays, including side-by-side
column graphs for two categorical variables (ACMSP147) (ACARA, 2017). The achievement standard
required students to interpret and compare a variety of data displays including those displays for two
categorical variables. The main focus is on the interpretation of data, however, due to the school’s
overarching emphasis on numeracy, they are working towards closing learning gaps and fixing
misconceptions and as a result the focus of this unit stretched to cover other elements of data including
collecting and presenting data.
Design and data collection techniques
Throughout the 23-day placement block, a range of student agency techniques and behaviours were
implemented with the aim to increase student engagement and positively impact student learning.
Student agency can be implemented in a variety of different ways and occur at different levels. Given
student agency is all about providing students with choice, strategies included allowing students to choose:
where they sit or work, and whom they do so with, what they are learning, and the means to which they
achieve the learning attention (Leonard 2017). The level of student agency occurring within individual
lessons varied considerably depending on the learning intention and the explicit/instructional teaching
required.

The data collection process during this inquiry project was carried out in a triangulation method using
three specific techniques to ensure verification from a variety of sources. There was a delay in data
collection due to a change in focus, and a reduction in the desired amount of data collected due to pupil
free days, PAT testing and sports day. Data was collected from both the supervising teacher and students
in the class, as well as through a self-review. Proforma for the three methods have been attached as
appendices and include a collection of both qualitative and quantitative data. These three methods of data
collection, along with respected insights into the analysis of the data provided by the supervising teacher
influenced the direction of practice and further strategies to implement in order to successfully engage
students and impact student learning.

Data results and analysis

Throughout the practicum experience, data was collected across seven lessons and continuously reflected
on in order to direct teaching practice in following lessons and in future practice. Students filled out exit
slips including a quantitative sliding scale and qualitative comments. The average sliding score for each
lesson was collated and can be viewed in a graph as an appendix. A collection of sliding scale data
collected from the supervising teacher can also be viewed as an appendix.

Both graphs indicate a gradual increase in perceived student agency strategies being implemented.
However in the fourth lesson there is a significant decrease in the level of student agency perceived by
both the students and supervising teacher. Upon self-review, and qualitative data collected from the
supervising teacher, this was as a result of the need for explicit teaching and whilst not ideal “students still
appeared to be engaged”. Initial data collected at the beginning of the unit indicated that students enjoyed
“talking and interacting for thinking” however wanted to choose who their partners were for activities.
This was noted and implemented in all future lessons. In the second lesson, the self-review and data
collected from the supervising teacher indicated that whilst there were explicit teaching elements, student
agency was still evident in much of the lesson in terms of where students work and who they worked with.
Data collection from students indicated that they wanted to collect their own data rather then be given
data. As a result of this feedback, this element in particular was focused on in future lessons.

The final three lessons through which data was collected presented the highest levels of perceived
implementation of student agency from all three methods of data collection. The self-review indicated the
“need to give the power and choice back to students as much as possible”. As a result, an inquiry
investigation was established which provided students with the opportunity to entirely self-direct their
learning, work at a level and pace suitable to them, and work where and with whomever they dictated. It is
evident that once this investigation was underway, the perceived level of student agency, engagement and
enjoyment went up. When asked if anything could be improved, exit slips indicated comments such as
“nothing, it is brilliant” and “No, you have incorporated enough student voice”.

Reflection
When reflecting upon student feedback in particular at the conclusion of this investigation, and paired with
summative assessment results, it is evident that the implementation of student agency within the
classroom has had a positive influence on student engagement and their overall learning. Students
expressed that they were more engaged when presented with more choice and given a voice in their
learning and test scores reflected this also. Initially, the student agency approach to teaching and learning
was somewhat overwhelming; being unfamiliar with this method and needing to “let go of control” was a
challenge to begin with. However, having focused so strongly on altering the teaching strategies used
within the classroom to reflect student voice and student choice, it was clear just how much it benefited
students across all levels. Moving forward, continuing to provide students with a flexible learning
environment, ensuring that learning is open ended and student directed, and that the classroom
environment and curriculum reflects student voice, as done on this placement, will be imperative.

Conclusion
The inquiry focus of this project has had significant impact on my own professional learning as a pre-
service teacher, providing an opportunity to explore a deeper level, pedagogical approach and to evaluate
and reflect on the implications on student learning. It has reinforced knowledge about the need for
learning to be student-centered but provided the opportunity to practice this at a greater depth.
Reference:
Australian Curriculum Assessment and Reporting Authority, Australian Curriculum, Mathematics, Viewed
25 September 2018, URL https://www.australiancurriculum.edu.au/f-10-curriculum/mathematics/

Care Education Tatai Aho Rau, Learner Agency, Trends 2014, Viewed 25 September 2018, URL http://core-
ed.org/research-and-innovation/ten-trends/2014/learner-agency/

Department of Education and Child Development, Student Voice Audit Action Tiles, Activating Student
Voice to Accelerate Learning, Government of South Australia, Viewed 25 September 2018, URL
https://blogmoore2017.edublogs.org/files/2017/05/StudentVoiceAuditCardsA6Postcards-1gind9q.pdf

Goldspink, C 2016, Student Engagement and Quality Pedagogy, Department for Education, Government of
South Australia

Leonard. B 2017, How Can Schools Use Student Agency to Optimise Educational Outcomes for Students,
Principal Sabbatical Report, St Josephs School, Temuka

Skamp, K & Preston, C 2014, Teaching Primary Science Constructively, 5th Edition, Cengage Learning,
Victoria
Appendix 1: Teacher feedback template
Appendix 2: Student feedback template
Appendix 3:
Self-review

1. Were students engaged in the lesson? Signs that show this

____________________________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________________________

2. Did you feel as if you used student agency within this lesson?
____________________________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________________________

3. Do you feel as if you could have used more student agency?

____________________________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________________________
Appendix 4: Data samples
Appendix 5: Results

Student Feedback
10.5

10
Average scale 1-10

9.5

8.5

7.5
1 2 3 4 5 6 7
Lessons

Supervising Teacher Feedback

10
9
8
Sliding Scale 1-10

7
6
5
4
3
2
1
0
1 2 3 4 5 6 7
Lessons