Discovery Friday - End of Term Reflection

This term has been an exciting time for the students in our team - Te Ako Kahikatea. A while ago I posted about a new idea my team had about using student voice to guide their learning on a set day that we named Discovery Friday. This was something we had thought about for a while and now that we are 10 weeks in, I can express how overjoyed I am at the success we have had.

The students are engaged, they want to be here, they are thriving on being able to direct their learning, they are producing full, insightful reflections and recognising their own steps independently. All of these things to me are incredible and I am so pleased that, on the surface at least, the programme has worked.

However! There is always a however... The purpose of our Discovery Friday workshops was to give our students the tools they needed to drive their own inquiries. We had been telling the students frequently that the time was fast approaching where they had to think of their own inquiry. We decided that week 11 would be a 'Discovery Week' where the students would come up with their big question (that hopefully they had been thinking about all term) and create a proposal for their inquiry to begin in term 3.

What. A. Headache!  I was sorely mistaken when I assumed the students would all be prepared to undertake their own inquiries. Asking a big question that can't be googled or answered by the teacher? Building a timeline of goals and milestones for their project? Figuring out what resources will be required? This is a really big ask! How could I not see that earlier?

So while we have around 20 students who are prepared to go through with their independent inquiries, we still have the majority who are not sure what direction to take there ideas... or even know where to start.

We reflected on what we could have done differently in the process and agreed that we could have had more 'formal check points' where we had the students note down what they had learned and thought about what topics grabbed their interest, rather than waiting until the end of the term and assuming they would have one ready to go. On several occasions it was bought up in discussion, but it was never recorded. Therefore, partially a result of a busy term, the outcomes of these discussions were forgotten or not fully actioned.

In response to this we decided to give the students their subject area, and came to the conclusion that we would stick to the concept focus we had planned for term 3 - Adaptation and Survival. As a group we brainstormed all of the different topics we have done during Discovery Friday, then what we thought Adaptation and Survival was. With our two brainstorms we started looking at how we could merge their ideas and workshop experiences together. For example: An instructional video about surviving in the wild, coding a game in Scratch where the player must adapt and change to suit different environments. One student took a different approach, deciding she would work on a project to help new students at school, specifically those who are ESOL students, adapt to their new environment.

Their ideas are now flowing, and they have direction. Even though I had to push them with a topic choice, they were able to take what they had the most interest in and work with it to produce an inquiry question and propose a desired outcome.

So yes... things didn't go entirely to plan - but they're working. The students are absolutely loving Discovery Friday and having a say in their learning. We will keep on persevering with the questioning and thinking skills of those who require it, and give guidance and resources to those who are already there.