Podcast Episode
Episode Description
In this episode of The Balance, I chat with educator and author Trevor MacKenzie about how inquiry-based learning creates accessible entry points and personalized pathways that build student agency, curiosity, and deeper engagement.
Trevor shares practical strategies, unpacks the phases of the inquiry process, and offers guidance for aligning inquiry with curriculum goals. We also explore how AI can support questioning and deepen engagement. This is a powerful conversation for anyone looking to create more student-centered classrooms.
Episode Transcript
This transcript was generated using AI transcription tools to support accessibility and provide a searchable, readable version of the podcast. While we’ve reviewed and lightly edited the content for clarity, there may still be occasional errors or omissions.
Catlin Tucker
Welcome to the balance. I’m Doctor Catlin Tucker, and today I have the pleasure of speaking with Trevor McKenzie, an educator in British Columbia, Canada. He works all over the world. He has done research consultancy. He’s authored several books from dive into inquiry, inquiry, mindset, Elementary Edition, Inquiry Mindset Assessment Edition, Inquiry Mindset Questions Edition. So he is doing some really incredible work around inquiry based learning in K-12, and I was just really excited to have him on the podcast talking about the value of inquiry based learning and and how we get this done in classrooms.
Catlin Tucker
Well, I am super excited to have this conversation. So grateful you made time to be on the podcast. So I usually just invite guests in the very beginning. Tell us a little bit about yourself. What led you to inquiry based learning? You know, how has it become kind of the foundation of the wonderful work that you’re doing?
Trevor Mackenzie
Yeah. Thank you. Catlin, I think I just I’m very fortunate, you know, early years. This is my 23rd year of teaching and early years. I landed at a school that was just really collaborative in terms of the staff, you know, staff engage in collaborative discourse, collaborative professional development, really good conversations that were informal spaces, but also informal spaces, you know, around the coffee maker or in the staff room.
Trevor Mackenzie
I love that, and without even knowing it, I think I was learning about collaborative inquiry. And and how do you collectively best meet the needs of the students that we were serving? And we were serving a diverse group of students. You know, the demographic was a little bit of everything. So I think early years, I was slowly cutting my teeth and being curious as a practitioner and and asking big questions of myself.
Trevor Mackenzie
And then I think that that type of climate or temperature of professional learning dropped into my classroom, where I really wanted students to be curious and engaged and find their time in classroom really, really relevant and meaningful and exciting. So I think back to those early days, and although I didn’t know the language of inquiry, I was slowly learning it.
Trevor Mackenzie
And figuring out how there was attached to certain values. And definitely over the years, finding the body of work, you know, the school of thinking. And, you know, I think back to certain books that, you know, are just foundational to my beliefs and my practices and, you know, authors that were once mentors are now, you know, critical friends in this work.
Trevor Mackenzie
So I’m grateful for those first five years, Catlin. They really gave me a solid footing in terms of what I wanted my teaching practice to look like. And then slowly, it’s just been adding that language and that repertoire to my practice, if you will.
Catlin Tucker
Yeah. It’s so interesting how the culture on a campus can have such a big impact on kind of the direction of our teaching practices. Like, I think that sometimes school leaders don’t focus enough on those things, like what kind of culture or what kind of things do we prioritize on this campus. And I, like you, got really lucky my second year of teaching to end up on a campus where we taught in teams.
Catlin Tucker
So I taught with a history teacher and science teacher, and we shared the same population of learners and just that cross-disciplinary, that again, collaboration. It’s it’s really special, especially as a new teacher.
Trevor Mackenzie
Yeah, yeah. You know, in most schools I work with, we see a tipping point eventually. And sometimes it’s sooner or sometimes it takes a little bit longer. But the tipping point is where staff begin to see that inquiry. Just as it’s something for students. It’s not just something in the classroom. It’s something that we engage in. And when we engage in whether it’s PLC work or collaborative inquiry or professional development, like you said, that is very much connected, cross-disciplinary.
Trevor Mackenzie
Those are the factors that lead to that tipping point. And then you just find yourself in a space that is much more agent tech, much more curious. You hit the ground running with a lot of the strategies in the classroom, because teachers are living and breathing that space as learners themselves, for sure.
Catlin Tucker
And I love that. So we’re going to talk a ton about inquiry based learning. So what would you define that for folks who are listening, who may not have a real background in this work? And also kind of articulate what you feel are the benefits of an inquiry based approach to learning.
Trevor Mackenzie
Yeah. Yeah. Well, you know, we could have a whole podcast just on defining inquiry. And and it’s fascinating. The research tells a tale of kind of two stories, you know, inquiry can be really effective and supportive of deeper learning and certain competencies in our students. Growth as learners. And inquiry can be really not so beneficial. And it’s fascinating because the research is actually telling, talking about two different types of learning.
Trevor Mackenzie
You no one is kind of deep in throwing the kids into circumstances where they feel overwhelmed and uncertain. And and that’s certainly the type of inquiry that we want to avoid. And so, you know, the defining piece is, is important. I would say it’s critical for a school to come to terms with. What do we mean by inquiry?
Trevor Mackenzie
If I were to boil it down, Kotlin is something very simple for listeners to grab on to and maybe consider what this looks like in their classrooms. It would be that inquiry is curiosity. If we’re getting our students curious about the curriculum, if we’re getting them curious about the standards and the learning, we are already on our way to embracing an inquiry approach, getting them to ask questions, getting in the show, see real world relevance.
Trevor Mackenzie
You know where these standards in this curriculum is around us, in our community, or perhaps even broadly globally, you know, just fostering curiosity towards the curriculum. If teachers are doing that, we’re already well on our way. And then we can look at different strategies, we can look at different things we do to build a classroom of inquiry. So it’s not just merely a project or an assignment.
Trevor Mackenzie
It’s something that we’re living and breathing every day with our students. And the benefits are great. It’s not just what we’re learning about, it’s how we’re learning. You know, those competencies, those dispositions, those skills. And gosh, it’s 2025. And we’re still talking about, you know, 21st century skills, Kotlin. But they’re so important like in India, they are so important that our students are curious and can collaborate and can communicate effectively and can be critical and divergent thinkers.
Trevor Mackenzie
And so inquiry really is a model, a stance in which a lot of those dispositions are going to bubble up more fluidly and readily in a child’s experience in a schooling setting than if I were to just explicitly teach 100% at a time and talk out a group. And no teacher does that right. No teacher does that solely all the time with students.
Trevor Mackenzie
So inquiry is curiosity is something I’d love for listeners to consider. What does that look like in their practice? And then if we go further with that curiosity, come all these amazing outcomes dispositional growth and competency development. Yeah.
Catlin Tucker
Yeah. And I love that you the connection to I because I think the best gift we can give students is to nurture their curiosity, help them to ask really great questions, and then set them up with the skills to start to answer those questions and dig and discover and explore. And I mean, just the ability to continue learning, I think, is going to be the best skill kids have.
Catlin Tucker
But if they’re not comfortable asking questions, if they are not used to, like, how do I try to answer a question I have that might be complicated? Or, you know, trying to make this bridge between what I’m learning over here and the world outside this classroom. I just worry, are they going to be prepared for this kind of life that is waiting for them outside of school that is changing so rapidly?
Trevor Mackenzie
Yeah, frankly, I don’t think they’re going to be ready. Right. I think in a traditional school setting, students are waiting for teachers to ask the questions, and then their job is to find the right answers. But in an era, you know, we truly are at a watershed moment with regards to AI, the questions students ask matter now more than ever, you know, do they ask the right question, the wrong question?
Trevor Mackenzie
What? It’s a myriad of questions that they can ask to kind of create a pathway, create a journey, and in doing so have a bunch of agency, but without them having the ability to ask a myriad of questions. Well, I don’t think we’re setting them up for success at all. So I think questioning would be a skill that teachers are mindfully, you know, supporting students in developing, you know, how do we have our students become more question competent over time so that they understand, you know, the role questions play in determining next steps in learning and finding information and deepening understanding.
Catlin Tucker
Of for sure. So I got you sent me a copy of your book, dive Into inquiry, which is fabulous. I was reading it just feeling like so much of my focus around student led learning. I was just feeling like this is so aligned, which was exciting. And you said something about, you know, this isn’t just projects earlier. And I think this is important because in the book you wrote, you said inquiry is not a project.
Catlin Tucker
Inquiry is how we show up in a classroom. Inquiry is a stance from which we teach, which I just like highlighted start. I loved it, so I love this point. That inquiry isn’t relegated to a project, but it’s something that we are engaged in every single day. And can you kind of describe you’d refer to them as like inquiry moves in the book that teachers can make to integrate this work into their classrooms every day to make learning more meaningful, more engaging for students.
Catlin Tucker
So what are some of those everyday kind of inquiry moves teachers can start to consider to pull this into their classrooms?
Trevor Mackenzie
Yeah, well, I’ll begin by just encouraging us to consider all those competencies and dispositions we want for students are important for ourselves as well. There’s amazing research and authorship and writing around, you know, our curiosity has a huge impact on their curiosity. You know, our ability to make our thinking visible has a huge impact on the thinking in the room.
Trevor Mackenzie
So, you know, our dispositional growth is is a part of this kind of domino, this chain of events, if you will. And then you know that the moves we make are so important because they they create a different learning experience for our students. If I were to just tune into one move, one kind of umbrella of moves, it would be Co-designing and co constructing and co-designing and co constructing.
Trevor Mackenzie
It’s trying our best to build the learning with our students, build the parameters of learning with our students. And this could be done in so many different ways. That’s why I said it’s an umbrella right. There are so many different ways that we co-design with our students. You know, early on in a school year, we might co-design the essential agreements or the norms of learning or, you know, classroom expectations.
Trevor Mackenzie
But that’s not a series of rules that Mr. Mackenzie is proposing. Those are questions I ask students about. I facilitate discourse and conversation. We map out their ideas, and we co-design what the learning might look like and sound like and feel like. It’s so much more than a class contract, right? And I know many teachers do that kind of practice.
Trevor Mackenzie
We want to authentically engage our students in building the parameters of learning, and that’s an early move we make. Why? Because that’s that’s high yield. It’s low hanging fruit. Many of our students are going to be new to co-designing, new to being invited and invited into a conversation where we’re building the parameters of learning. You know, later on in the year, we might co-design, you know, indicators of particular skills.
Trevor Mackenzie
If we really value those dispositions. Catlin, we might ask our students, what do strong collaborators do? What are a few indicators of people who are on a strong team? And they’re a good teammate, and they’re generous in how they work with one another and with our class, we might create an anchor chart of those indicators. Again, that’s a co-design experience.
Trevor Mackenzie
I know the answer. I want to make sure they know the answer and this themselves in building this learning together. Those are two early co-design moves we can add on to that. In some spaces, we co-design success criteria with students. In some cases we co-design projects and assignments with kids, if you will. But we don’t go to that kind of more sophisticated co-design without doing some of those initial moves.
Trevor Mackenzie
So just even co-designing as an umbrella has a bunch of practices under it, and that would be one move, one family of moves we make in an inquiry classroom. And there are several others. But just for the sake of time and ease, you know, the listeners are thinking, now, how do I co-design? What do I invite my students in on?
Trevor Mackenzie
A question I ask myself all the time? Catlin in the classroom is, am I doing something for my students that they should be doing for themselves? Yeah. And if the answer is yes, there’s an opportunity for co-design. And it’s such a simple shift like, yeah, all of a sudden I relinquish control, I facilitate something different, and I’m most likely going to be really surprised and impressed with what happens in inviting them into that conversation.
Catlin Tucker
Oh my gosh. So one of the things I say all the time when I’m speaking or I’m working with teachers is we ask the question, how can I as an educator all the time? Like, how can I get my kids writing more? How can I get them more engaged in this aspect of learning? How can I communicate more with my my students families?
Catlin Tucker
And I just remind teachers, every time you’re tempted to ask a how can I question? Like pause, take a breath and reframe how can my students? Because the answer to that question sets the student up to do the work, or the kind of that heavy cognitive lift? And so really is reimagining all of these things that we have kind of owned as educators that we don’t have to anymore.
Catlin Tucker
And actually we stifle student growth by not pulling them into the process and teaching them the skills to lead those things, which I think is really what you’re what you’re talking about right now.
Trevor Mackenzie
Yeah, yeah. And you just modeled something so beautiful for us. Catlin, which was, as you’re encouraging teachers to pause and reflect so that that’s the dispositional work, it’s reflection. It’s. Yes, it’s in the moment of teaching. We have some inner dialog, you know, some kind of voice, whenever we might name that inner voice as a teacher who’s saying, wait a second, this, this doesn’t feel great, or wait a second, what would happen if or wait a second, maybe?
Trevor Mackenzie
I pause and I consider a shift over in this direction. So you know, the move is co-design. But above that move of co-design is the disposition of being a reflective practitioner. So without those dispositions within our work and without us being aware of those dispositions, we might miss those rich opportunities to engage in one of those moves which is co-design.
Trevor Mackenzie
So we want to kind of be turning both wheels, right, that the practices, but also the dispositional work and you sharing that with us and what you encourage teachers to do. Pause when you feel that way. Here’s a question you might ask. And then the watershed moment the decision is made afterwards. Yeah.
Catlin Tucker
Yeah. And I think to your point, when you start to really partner with students and co-design aspects of the learning with them, which is, I will say there’s another wonderful way to really lean on and leverage AI is that now kids can really ask questions about how they want to do things and create pathways for themselves with the support of AI.
Catlin Tucker
But every time I’ve ever partnered with students or I remember I had students design an entire unit of study, I was like, here’s this, here are the target standards. This is what we have to learn. I want you to work together to design it. Those are the best units of the entire year. You know what I mean? Like, they’re so incredibly capable.
Catlin Tucker
It’s unreal when you start to really allow them into these processes.
Trevor Mackenzie
Yeah. And you know, I think as an objective, we want to partner with our students more often. So when we say an inquiry stance, it’s not just a project. How do we create the conditions for more opportunities for that partnership. You talked about Co-designing, a unit. You know, that’s a significant endeavor. You know, if I’m mapping out my school year, I might not start with that move of, oh, that might be it was it.
Trevor Mackenzie
Exactly. And so as we as we think about our year as a progression, as we think about our year as start a year, what can I partner with them on? It might be co-designing essential agreements, but what is your North Star? What are you working towards? It might be co-designing a unit of study. That progression actually reflects an increase in student agency.
Trevor Mackenzie
Slowly over time, they’re taking on more ownership over parameters of learning that we certainly don’t kick them into the deep end of the inquiry pool, which tells us, again, the research try to avoid that, like don’t kick them into the deep end too fast, too soon. So keeping in mind what that progression might look like and how they can feel like in really practical ways, like don’t overthink it.
Trevor Mackenzie
But how do you partner with students in an ongoing fashion where your North Star is more agency, more ownership, more relevance, more independence?
Catlin Tucker
Yeah, I love that. And in the book. So one of the things that kind of struck me, and I think as teachers are, is thinking about integrating inquiry into their classrooms. You kind of send the message that inquiry offers both entry points kind of into the learning, but then also can create almost like the way I was reading, it was like personalized learning pathways for students, right?
Catlin Tucker
As they’re starting to really embrace, like asking questions and pursuing kind of answers. And it feels like such a simple way to think about the value of inquiry as these entry points and pathways, to kind of support learning. So I’d love for you to just kind of speak to kind of inquiry in that in those two modes or how they function to be these entry points and these pathways.
Trevor Mackenzie
Yeah, yeah. So my most recent book, it’s titled Inquiry Mindset Questions Edition. And and within the book we talk about what we call the power of a provocation. And so an inquiry in many listeners of this language is going to really resonate with them in terms of, oh, I do some of that, you know, maybe I didn’t name it that or I’ve tried some of this on or, or pre-COVID.
Trevor Mackenzie
I used to do a lot of that. I need to do more of that now. But but provocation, a well-designed provocation. The intention is to get your kids curious about the curriculum. So that’s your entry point is what’s an experience? What’s an image? What might be a video? How can you perhaps use AI to get your kids curious about those standards, whatever your outcomes are?
Trevor Mackenzie
So that’s the well planned and in mind, whatever your end in mind is, that entry point is a curious one for your students, and that could look like so many things. So teams of teachers I work with, schools I work with, we sit around the table intentionally planning provocation to get our kids curious because once we have them curious, a byproduct of their curiosity, our questions student generate questions by design about the curriculum.
Trevor Mackenzie
So if the provocation is the entry point to the curriculum, an outcome will be we have a bunch of AI, a bunch. So whether they’re open or closed or deep or shallow, we’ve got a lot of different questions about the curriculum. And that is where the pathways begin to surface for us. That’s where the pathways begin to kind of jump off the page or off the whiteboard in our faces.
Trevor Mackenzie
We can begin to see how we can use their questions to map next steps. Now that book questions Additions talks about what we call question routines. And there are a series of activities. There are ten of them where students begin to actually sort and map out their questions in a variety of ways. Hence, there are ten question routines.
Trevor Mackenzie
And so students are taking on a little bit more ownership in that that pathway part of the learning. So if I were to break it down, it would be from provocation and intentionally planning provocation as an entry point to the curriculum, to student generated questions, and then using a question routine to plan our next steps, kind of a four part process.
Trevor Mackenzie
That’s not a unit framework. That’s not something that’s going to last five, six weeks. That’s something we’re going to spiral to and around every couple of days in learning to keep the learning relevant, to have questions, generate next steps and to show a progression. Again, you know, at the start of a unit, our students might ask very different questions than they might three weeks later or a month later.
Trevor Mackenzie
The first year, going through this little spiral from provocation, questions, question routine, and planning next steps is something that just breaks down. What inquiry might look like for teachers in a really simple way? I’m running. Does that all make sense to you? Catlin? As I describe it, I said.
Catlin Tucker
No, I love it and I love the idea of it. It’s a spiral practice and that we’re coming back to it because yeah, when we start a unit of study, kids are going to have totally different questions. And to your point, they’ve once they’ve had discussions and readings and they’ve watched things, now they’re going to be having a very different level of questioning in some respects, maybe much more kind of specific or, you know, and giving them those opportunities to surface and kind of invite questioning throughout the process.
Trevor Mackenzie
Yeah.
Catlin Tucker
That to me is like the key to deep learning. Great.
Trevor Mackenzie
That spiraling, that spiraling. Yeah. Oftentimes we see teachers engage in a provocation and and sadly merely they use it as the hook or, or the anticipatory set and then they never touch it again. And, and part of why they never touch it again is while students didn’t ask rich enough questions and, you know, it got some questions, but you know, it didn’t work, and maybe it didn’t work because we didn’t spiral back to that routine that that feeling and that.
Trevor Mackenzie
Yeah, progression across time. And so all the routines are meant to be just that used in a consistent fashion. And as we do that, we should begin to see more rich questions, more diverse questions and questions that become more meaningful to students. Because as learning is occurring, they’re spiraling back to asking more questions.
Catlin Tucker
No. Well, and I think sometimes as educators, we’re not like putting ourselves in this students position, right. If you have a provocation or a hook and it’s something totally new and unfamiliar, even as adults, are we going to really feel confident going out on a ledge and making like a are asking a really big question? We probably going to like department and be like, well, I wonder about this, or I’m curious about this and it might not be the most interesting deep question, but then as we get into more of like the weeds of learning, then the questions obviously are going to improve.
Catlin Tucker
And I think sometimes we don’t give students the grace to be like, yeah, so this is where they’re starting. But like with this routine, with this spiraling, the questions are just going to get better and better. And I could see opportunities where students start to have questions, where there’s time in the work for them to kind of like pursue a question that’s really interesting to them, that maybe another student is kind of pursuing something that’s a little different, related to the umbrella of whatever they’re learning.
Catlin Tucker
But that’s slightly different, but more interesting for them, you know.
Trevor Mackenzie
Yeah. And a brilliant move teachers make is again, these routines are visible. You know, they’re on the walls of our classroom to a certain degree. And a movement a teacher might make is step back away from the questions and have a look and see where your curriculum is in these questions. Where are the standards and how might you package some of their questions up in a little bit of an assessment.
Trevor Mackenzie
And that assessment could look like many things in terms of assessment design. Right. What a beautiful experience for students to see that their questions. Well, number one they’re interesting to them. And number two, they’re genuinely shaping next steps and learning. Yeah. And ways in which, you know, we need them to explore and get to. That’s that partnership again.
Trevor Mackenzie
So zooming out from the question routines and using what the evidence is telling us and where they might take us is a really helpful move. It’s a healthy move and it’s just really, really good reflection. We go back to that disposition of being a reflective practitioner. It’s more than just a task. These are kind of task neutral activities, if you will.
Trevor Mackenzie
They’re not tied to like an assignment or a piece of writing. They allow us to zoom out and pick how we might use them to determine next steps.
Catlin Tucker
Which takes a degree of flexibility on the educator. Right. Like, it’s not that they’re moving through this like lockstep curriculum. They’re it’s a bit more organic based on what students are asking and what they’re interested in. And I have to imagine that probably a little daunting for some educators. But from a student perspective, to your point, it’s like what I’m curious about, what I’m interested in is actually driving how we’re approaching this study and that that’s very like that makes kids feel seen.
Catlin Tucker
It makes them feel like they’re important in a classroom.
Trevor Mackenzie
Yeah. As they deserve to be. Right? Yeah. Learning when it’s most natural. It’s it is organic. It is meaningful. You’re exploring and you’re bumping your head up against walls and and you’re figuring it out. You’re giving a go. You’re giving it a crack. And and we want to facilitate those conditions with really intentional planning and really explicit planning.
Trevor Mackenzie
So it’s just not a free for all. It’s just not hoping we get to that place. It’s there are structures and routines that are leading to really clear outcomes of our standards and really clear steps for us. So although it might feel uncertain at first, it begins clear to become clearer and clearer and clearer the more we engage in these practices.
Catlin Tucker
I love it, and I love that we’re talking about standards, because in the book, you make the point that an inquiry pathway that is relevant, and you know it like it takes into account their curiosity agency questioning can meet our curricular standards, right? The mandated assessments as well as engage our students in a more meaningful learning journey.
Catlin Tucker
And I have to imagine there are educators listening that are thinking like, I don’t have time for something extra or like, how do I do this and teach my standards and what we’re talking about is obviously you’re teaching them through this process, but I’d love for you to just kind of unpack that kind of, I didn’t quote it word for word, but that quote from your book.
Catlin Tucker
So teachers kind of understand how do they leverage inquiry? And, you know, prioritize student agency while also meeting their curricular and assessment requirements.
Trevor Mackenzie
Yeah. So, you know, one thing that surfaces in my thinking right away, Catlin, is that that’s not that’s not believe inquiry is inquiring into whatever kids want to inquire into. Like, right. It’s not just, you know, it could be. But what we’re not talking about is students inquiring into unicorns and Fortnite and Mr. B’s, and I love those things.
Trevor Mackenzie
But what they’re inquiring into are the standards. And by design, they’re inquiring into the standards through the use of our provocations. And so we design provocation. So students begin to get curious about the standards. And that curiosity is going to be a driving force throughout a unit of inquiry. If we’re spiraling back to that simple little framework, what a lot of teachers believe inquiry is, is it’s kids inquiry into anything, and it’s this free range learning.
Trevor Mackenzie
And how do I attach the standards to that. And you could but I would say that’s a little bit of a sophisticated move in terms of you have to be really good at knowing your standards and bringing them to your students interests. If you’re backwards designing as such, what we’re talking about here is really intentionally identifying your standards and planning for provocation as the entry point to said standards.
Trevor Mackenzie
So in Questions Edition, there’s a whole section on provocation design. There’s there’s actually a provocation design tool that has teachers really reflect on what do I what am I proposing students experience that’s going to get them curious? Is this going to hit the mark? You said something earlier that really resonated with me. It’s it’s it’s sometimes we think it’s going to land, but it might not land.
Trevor Mackenzie
We really have to plan provocation to the identities, the experiences of the students. We’re supporting their age group cognitively and socially. Emotionally, I might show a provocation to 17 year olds that I certainly wouldn’t show to seven year olds. And so really, and then we have to find provocation to our curriculum. So who they are, where they are at in their growth.
Trevor Mackenzie
And then what we have to teach, what we have to get them to explore. That’s kind of the Venn diagram that we’re trying to squeeze together with regards to provocation design. If we nail that, then we’re inquiring into the standards. If we don’t, then sadly, I think many teachers are doing that free range learning thing, which of course we don’t know if the standards are going to bubble up or not.
Trevor Mackenzie
It’s way too uncertain and it’s way too much of a gamble for me, to be honest. I don’t want to put students in a position where we don’t know where the learning is going. To a certain degree.
Catlin Tucker
Yeah, no, that makes sense. One of the questions I was going to ask was, what advice would you give a teacher who wants to move for maybe a more traditional teaching model or approach to this kind of student centered, student driven inquiry model? Like where would they start? And almost sounds like the provocation is probably where you really want to start is like, how do you get them curious right off the bat about the unit of study or what they’re going to be learning?
Catlin Tucker
And then from there get them it like generating those questions. Is there anything you want to.
Trevor Mackenzie
Well, let’s get the listeners some choice because trust is good right. So I would say yes I love that that okay. That package of moves provocation. We’ve already spoken about another one and that was Co-designing. So Co-designing is an immediate shift in the power in the room. It’s it includes students. It invites them. They’re beginning to build the parameters of learning and they see themselves in the learning.
Trevor Mackenzie
So provocation co-design would be another one. And then thirdly, you know, I love collaborative structures. Anything that gets kids on their feet working together. You know, vertical learning is a series of structures that we use in classrooms. I support vertical learning, as we know is when students are in small groups and they’re working at a vertical surface and they’re standing at this vertical surface, and it could look like many things, maybe they’re examining a provocation vertically and they’re doing unnoticed.
Trevor Mackenzie
Wonder no routine at said station. What happens in that station is they’re flexing those dispositions and those competencies that we want to foster in the inquiry setting. They’re going to be sharing perspective. They’re going to be connecting and collaborating. So vertical learning or any kind of equitable collaborative structure, spiderweb discussions, you know, inner circle, outer circle, any kind of give one, get one or any any of Ron Richard and Mark church is thinking routines are collaborative in nature.
Trevor Mackenzie
So, you know, those structures really shift the learning to be more student centered then teacher centered. It really gets the teacher away from the front of the room and into the learning. So we can notice and observe and listen and then have what we’re seeing that really rich timely data inform next steps. So I think it’s fun to give the listeners some choice of whether it’s provocation designing or collaborative structures.
Trevor Mackenzie
Vertical learning could be entry points for teachers curious to give it a go and give it a crack.
Catlin Tucker
No, I love that. Like so much of your book resonates with me. Like I said, and this focus on what I think of as student led learning. And you said in your message to me in the book, when you wrote it, you said that you thought I would see a lot of myself and my work in the book, which I absolutely did.
Catlin Tucker
So I’m curious, what do you say to educators who are the hesitation is actually around letting go of control? You know, how how do we support teachers in becoming those like co learners alongside their students? I think is fundamentally it’s a tension that I brought up against a lot, where teachers know things aren’t really working great the way that they’re doing it, but that control piece and and just embracing their like role as a lead learner in a classroom, learning right alongside their students.
Catlin Tucker
It’s I think it’s scary.
Trevor Mackenzie
Yeah. It is scary. You know, I, I’m so fortunate I get to visit schools globally and it’s some spaces I work with. They have the most amazing values. Catlin you know, I work with one district in northern Canada. It’s the most northerly district on our continent. Like right now they have 23.5 hours of daylight. That’s how far north they are, right?
Trevor Mackenzie
Wow. Conversely, in the winter they have 23.5 hours of darkness. Right? So they have such amazing values in this district and one values it very much. It’s an indigenous value. It’s what they call a DNA value. It’s that all children are born with gifts and talents. And our responsibility as an adult, as an elder in their life, is to help reveal their gifts and talents in their various experiences.
Trevor Mackenzie
So whether it’s a schooling experience or a nontraditional setting, and I really love that, you know, it allows me to a certain degree, as you said, let go or try something new or or not judge. Like if I’m not seeing a performer or if the assessment isn’t telling me that the student is capable. It’s a me thing, not a them thing.
Trevor Mackenzie
It’s the kid is gifted. The kid is talented. How can I create something that helps reveal that gift and talent? So number one, a big part of, you know, my thinking is you were asking us to consider letting go. What do we value? Like what is our stance? Why are we doing the thing that we’re doing the way we’re doing it, and really having a clear value that tethers us to that thinking and that reflection in those decisions that we’re making day to day with students.
Trevor Mackenzie
Time and time again, I hear teachers reflect. I’m so glad I let go a little. I’m so glad I empowered them a little. I’m so glad I was patient in that routine, and I. I waited a little longer and it’s fascinating. We’re not talking these transformational shifts. We’re talking like little doses of time where they feel so empowered.
Trevor Mackenzie
Teachers and students with just a little bit of letting go. So sometimes we say letting go, and it’s like the baby out with the bathwater. We’re talking about pausing for an extra 60s or asking one more question to see what the impact is in the classroom, or co-designing something a little bit differently rather than handing it to student.
Trevor Mackenzie
So values come to mind. I love that value of all children are born with gifts and talents, and what is our role in helping reveal them? And then that little bit of just a little bit of letting go, Catlin can have a huge return on investment for students engaging more readily in these these values, these beliefs that we hold near and dear to our practice.
Catlin Tucker
Yeah. Oh my gosh, there’s so much about what you just said that like, I just feel like we could chat more about, I think I when I talk about student led learning, people are like, how is that going to work? And I’m like, they’re not they’re not doing everything, but they’re doing some things and it’s our job as educators to help them realize how incredibly capable they are.
Catlin Tucker
But if we don’t ever release any of that control, if we don’t put in the work to teach them how to own some of the responsibilities, are they going to realize how incredibly capable they are? They going to have those moments of pride, of like, hey, look what I achieved. And I think every talent, every child is like gifted and talented or has these special qualities and potential.
Catlin Tucker
Like, I think this point of like, what do we value and how are our values driving the decisions we make as educators is such an important question to be asking. Yeah, I love that.
Trevor Mackenzie
Yeah, yeah. And, you know, if we could tune into in Letting Go what our structures for independence or universal supports that allow all children to feel confident and independent and lead their learning. Yeah. Again, it’s certainly not kicking them into the deep end, you know. What’s that? That the tube we throw their way or the life preserver we throw their way.
Trevor Mackenzie
Universal supports and structures for independence allow for us to feel like, okay, this is a safe move for us to let go and allow students to find some structures for independence, to feel more capable and confident in those spaces of independence, and taking a more of a lead on the learning. So again, it’s when we say let go, right?
Trevor Mackenzie
Catlin. It’s not throwing our kids into the deep end, it’s what are some really intentional things we can do to to support all learners in our classrooms?
Catlin Tucker
Yes, I love that. So we’ve talked a little bit about I, but I feel like we can’t really have conversations anymore in education without just pulling it into the dialog. So with the growing presence of AI in education, do you see the role of like, do you see a role for technology? And in in the AI technology in enhancing supporting this work around inquiry?
Catlin Tucker
Like what should teachers be mindful of? How can they, you know, leverage AI to like help students maybe craft inquiry questions or dig into questions like what? What are you kind of how are you positioning this in relation to your work?
Trevor Mackenzie
Yeah, I think it depends. I think we’re on the fence. We’re right on the fence. And we can jump to one side of the fence or the other. And I think any innovation, it forces us to be on the fence. Right. And we want to be, if I dare I say, we want to be on the right side of the fence.
Trevor Mackenzie
Right? We want students using these tools ethically, mindfully, and we want to use them in a way in which is actually building their competence across time. And I’m working with schools globally that are doing some amazing things with AI. And then I see some schools doing some really like, oh, I would avoid that tactic from that. And so really leaning into those powerful spaces.
Trevor Mackenzie
So I think it definitely supports inquiry. I think it definitely can support learning. You know, one school I’m working with in the English department, they’re using AI and the faculty is feeding the AI tool they’re using with a bunch of great parameters that are tied to our values, you know, feedback that is kind, specific and helpful. Feedback that isn’t just giving our kids the outcome, asking kids questions so they’re more thoughtful and they’re more inquisitive and engaging in AI.
Trevor Mackenzie
And then that whole experience students have with engaging in AI frees up the teacher to sit down with more students and talk about the feedback and determine next steps. So if we’re saving time, if we’re buying time, how are we using that new time to have more human experiences, to deepen the learning and tighten that fabric? It’s certainly not free range or deep and kick the kids on to the device and say, have at her.
Trevor Mackenzie
It’s really structured, intentional and well-planned. That description I just shared with you, like think of the questions we had to populate that AI platform with. Yeah, think of that. Three conversations the faculty had and the thinking about what is the outcome for our students that we want. How could this help be a bit of a guide in that process towards that outcome?
Trevor Mackenzie
That’s just really rich planning, right. And so teachers who are richly planned for a collaborative and talking, having discourse about the best needs of their students, gosh, that’s going to always lead to fruitful outcomes, whether it’s AI or, you know, what was the innovation five years ago, ten years ago, 15 years ago, that sophisticated planning is going to help us be on the right side of the fence, as opposed to the wrong side of the fence, and then questioning, of course, like kids have to ask a myriad of questions in order to engage productively and ethically with AI.
Trevor Mackenzie
So I feel like questions addition, although there’s no mention of AI throughout that publication, allows teachers to engage in richer questioning practices. So when we do go to AI, we have faith that our students are going to be productive and responsible there. Yeah. I’m curious to hear your thoughts.
Catlin Tucker
Yeah. I mean, I remember trying to figure out how do I position this in relation to the work that I do. Because I was not loving what I was seeing on social media, like, oh my gosh, look at this tool. You throw in a standard, it kicks out a lesson and I’m like, that’s the same kind of lesson we’ve been doing for however many years.
Catlin Tucker
Like, I don’t like that. Like the AI doesn’t know my my students, they don’t know exactly like what they’re interested in or what they need. And so for me, it’s really been trying to help teachers understand, because so much of this shift to, you know, blended learning models like station rotation playlist or student led strategies, it feels like a lot of design work for teachers.
Catlin Tucker
And so my works and really focused on how do I help them partner with AI to design with a higher level of intentionality. And actually, Jay MC tie, a good friend of both of ours who connected us, I’m very much a start with that. Like, how do you leverage AI to backward design? And then once you backward design.
Catlin Tucker
And I could totally see, you know, teachers were like, I love the idea of a provocation, but that’s hard cognitive work, right? So maybe now instead of like a group of teachers working to try to struggle through that together, what’s going to interest our kids? What’s going to pique their curiosity around this topic? Now we’re working with AI to get some ideas and momentum going that then we can kind of refine, you know?
Catlin Tucker
So for me, I just think having that design thought partner and then, you know, we talk a lot about student agency. But even giving students construct specific choices can sometimes feel overwhelming for teachers. So it’s like, okay, if you have an assessment but you want to provide multiple pathways. Now we can work with AI and say, here’s the standards, here’s the desired result for this unit.
Catlin Tucker
Here’s the assessment I have. But I’d love to generate another one that targets the same standards and skills, but appeals to students with different preferences and strengths. And now I don’t have to do that heavy cognitive work at the end of a long school day or week. And so that’s where for me, I get really excited. I’m like, we can really start to serve these diverse groups of learners in a way I don’t think we really could as well.
Catlin Tucker
Before I.
Trevor Mackenzie
Yeah. And as you’re sharing all that, Catlin, I think of again, like the time it buys me to do something else in my class. And so as we find some time, what are we going to fill that time with? That is going to drive the learning forward. It’s not going to allow me to put my feet up, of course, and like take a breather.
Trevor Mackenzie
It’s with that added time that we now have or that and added energy we now have, how are we going to have more interactions with students to better support them? How do we get a little bit more freed up to sit with more children, have richer conversations, give them feedback, co-design something. And so my hope is that anything that’s getting us time allows us to do something a little bit different or a little bit more robustly or intentionally or lovingly, if you will.
Catlin Tucker
Well, and I think that’s the deep irony, right? People are like, oh, I is going to take my job, or AI is dehumanizing things. And I’m like, actually, I can help us create way more time for the human connection in the classroom. Pull in that kid for a conversation, running a small group instructional session to meet specific needs.
Catlin Tucker
You know, I think, yeah, absolutely. We are on this.
Trevor Mackenzie
It’s that sense, right? We’re right on the fence. Like we could do that or we could do something else. And so I’m of course you and I are on that. Well let’s jump on this side of the fence. Let’s engage in those rotations or differentiate or sit with students who need more me time where I wasn’t able to give them me time previously.
Trevor Mackenzie
And so listeners, of course, gently nudging everyone to jump on the side of the fence with us. Actually.
Catlin Tucker
Yes, please. All right. So I always end the podcast by inviting my guest to share a tip or a routine, a strategy that just is helpful and maybe striving for a healthier kind of work life balance. So I’d love to hear what works for you.
Trevor Mackenzie
What works for me? It’s a big one. Oof! You know, I feed myself every day. First, I’m an early riser, Catlin. I’ll be up before my family’s up, and I’ll be exercising. Because if I don’t feed me first, I’ll feed me last. And so. Yeah, you know, and some people aren’t morning people, so I don’t know. You can’t learn if you’re a morning person or not or cringing.
Trevor Mackenzie
So I definitely am a morning guy. I’ve got to find that time. And then yeah, daily meditation, whether it’s five minutes or more, just finding time to be tethered and be centered and be grounded and not to get to, like, cosmic, but it just it puts me in a better place for the whole day if I exercise and I’m grounded first.
Trevor Mackenzie
So in my first two hours of the day, pretty daily, you would see that to be a Trevor, you know, tip for balance for sure.
Catlin Tucker
I love that I’m a big fan of the slow the slow morning and having that space to just yeah, start my day on my own terms without being thrown right into the crazy of, you know, just being a mom and kids and all that other things that happen. So I love that. And I just want thank you, Trevor, this has been wonderful.
Catlin Tucker
I’m so glad we got to connect. I will link to all your books in the show notes so folks can check them out. And also, if you want to connect with them, I’ll put your contact information in there as well. So thank you. Just I appreciate your time.
Trevor Mackenzie
Appreciate you Catlin huge fan. And thank you thank you thank you. Okay.
Catlin Tucker
Well there are so many moments in this conversation for me that get me excited. Like, I love the idea of thinking about starting every unit with a provocation. Something that gets kids curious, gets them asking questions. I also appreciated how Trevor was kind of encouraging us to kind of spiral this questioning or these questioning routines through a course of study or a unit of study.
Catlin Tucker
So students are constantly digging and going a little deeper and identifying questions. Very. They care about that. They might want to answer for themselves. I also this idea of, you know, every student in our classrooms is bringing kind of these unique gifts and these special traits. And how do we, as their educator, as our teachers, really support them and try to bring those wonderful things out of them?
Catlin Tucker
And I love this idea that asking questions and being curious and seeking solutions as a class or answers as a class is, is a wonderful way to help students blossom and really, take the the lead of learning at times, which is obviously students leading the learning and being able to kind of coax with their teachers is something that I am very, very passionate about.
Catlin Tucker
So I’m going to include all of Trevor’s books in the show notes. I’ll include his contact information if you want to reach out and connect with him directly. Such a wonderful conversation. As always, I want to thank you guys for joining me. If you have any questions, any comments, any feedback, you’re welcome to reach out online. I’m on at Catlin Underscore Tucker on Instagram at Catlin Tucker.
Catlin Tucker
And you can always find me on my website catlin tucker.com. If you have any questions or you’re looking for resources, and I hope you have a wonderful rest of your week.
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