7A.3
Presenting the Studies:
Why and how do we share our inquiry studies?

The structured presentations are a way to learn about other people's studies and use them to inform our teaching practices. We also hear what others think about our inquiry study. The discussion of the presentations is that creation of shared knowledge that arises from the local school context. It is, therefore, more meaningful than research done in other school districts. We discuss what works, or doesn’t work, for students and teachers we know—people with whom we work everyday.

There are several ways to schedule the presentations depending on the size of your learning community. Not everyone needs to hear every presentation; however, if your group is ten or fewer people, you may want to do just that. Then it’s simple. Schedule breaks and begin.

If your learning community is larger than ten, it becomes difficult to listen attentively and offer thoughtful, considered feedback. You may want to break into smaller groups. You might consider going through one structured round in the small groups and nominating a person or two from each group to share their inquiry study with the entire group for a second round.

If your group is twenty or more, you may want to have people self select into groups of five or six and ask them to number off within the groups. For the first round, the self-selected groups present to each other. For a second round, all the "ones" form a group and present to each other, the "twos" form another group, the "threes" another group and so on. You may want to have a final round where a few people present to the entire group.

There is only one rule: Comments, responses, and questions are about helping the presenters use the information and evidence they have gathered as fully and deeply as they can to improve their instructional practices. Judgmental comments that criticize without suggestions for improvement are not helpful.

Decide on a schedule and begin presentations.

NOTE: At the end of the presentations, it is important that you have some formal closure. This could be the last time you will meet as a learning community. You might sit in a circle and ask each person to comment on the one thing s/he will take with her/him from this experience. Another activity that works well is to ask each person to recognize one person who influenced him/her the most during the course of the work together and why. These don’t need to be sappy comments. A person might be recognized for his/her sense of humor and ability to lighten the mood. Another person might be recognized for bringing great brownies or veggies and dip that hit the spot.