Introduction - Myron Dembo

• USC views inquiry as different from research methods and statistics.
• USC's driving question for development: What are the essential cognitive and interpersonal knowledge and skills that our students need to be successful?
• Reasons for creating the inquiry course:
  • Are we preparing our students for the job?
  • Is there alignment between preparation and job responsibilities?
  • Students have previously viewed doctoral preparation as a hurdle or an initiation process. They wanted to change that perception.
  • The recognized that a disconnect between classroom learning and application of that learning existed.
  • The goal was to tie the inquiry course to the other courses.

Panel Discussion of USC Inquiry Committee

Rudy Castruita - Former Superintendent

• He brings the practical perspective to the group.
• His goal was to help students identify and define a problem. He wanted to make a connection of practice and leadership to inquiry.
• The challenges faced include:
  • A desire to have inquiry skills embedded throughout courses
  • How do you teach inquiry as a problem-solving skill?
  • How do we embed inquiry in all of the courses?
  • Finding a balance between the two camps - research and practice
  • How should problems be identified and prioritized?
  • How do I deal with problem solving in public education?

Estela Bensimon - Co-director for the Center of Urban Education and Faculty Member

• The inquiry course needs to address these points:
  • Education has a lot of data but an inability to ask the right questions to analyze that data. Consequently, the data rarely evolves into knowledge that improves local practice.
  • It is important to help students learn to develop inquiry skills into the causes behind the resulting data.
  • A problem must be recognized and defined before it can be solved.
  • How do we make sense of data?

Alicia Dowd - Co-director for the Center of Urban Education and Faculty Member

• Case studies are a contextualizing mechanism for situating inquiry.
• The key competencies should be data interpretation and data summation with communication to another audience as the goal.
• The integration of inquiry should address:
  • Leadership by asking, "How do leaders promote organizational learning using data?"
  • Accountability by asking, "How are data used?"
  • Diversity by asking, "Are accountability goals shifting from diversity to equity?"

Robert Rueda

• His role was to discuss data collection from consumer groups to rethink inquiry course.
• He used two focus groups composed of (1) K-12 individuals and (2) Higher Education individuals. These groups reported that the courses should focus on:
  • Student achievement
  • Teaching and learning
  • Critical inquiry skills - how to ask questions
  • Consumers of research
  • Full implementation of gap analysis in the program
  • Interpret and present data
  • Using data to effect change
• Inquiry should be a tool. The focus should be application.

Larry Picus

• He discussed a case student that is being developed for K-12.
• The inquiry course is using case studies as the center from which to guide the process.

Alicia Dowd

• Spoke again to discuss a case study she is creating called the Downtown Community College.
• The case study is a way to introduce students to data and inquiry.

Myron Dembo - Conclusion

• Myron left us with the following question to ponder: How do you get people across departments and sectors committed to the program?

A question and answer session followed the panel. A question was raised regarding consideration of inquiry as a stance rather than merely a tool. Shouldn't effective leaders be skilled enough to model and teach inquiry so that it becomes a way of life for principals, teachers, classrooms, and students? Power exists behind a culture that thinks about inquiry as a stance and not merely a fix-it tool.

Additional notes:

1. Importance of using inquiry as a pedagogy
1. Not methods or statistics, but a way of thinking
2. Also questions of what personal and cognitive skills are necessary to perform as educational leaders.
3. We must prepare students for graduate work, but also prepare them for inquiry-based professional work.
4. It is important to go into depth regarding the methods that students will use and give them plenty of practice.
2. Central Questions for EdD Programs:
   1. Is there a connection between the academic work we require and professional practice?
   2. Are we providing graduates with the necessary skills to function as educational leaders?
3. Panel Discussion from USC: Rudy
   1. A major goal is to mesh theory and practice in a way that enables students to define problems and develop ways to solve them.
   2. Issues with traditional doctoral programs that must be solved in the new professional doctorate:
      1. Some statistics is not useful to practice. Do what is necessary in depth.
      2. Problem solving skills are essential and practice using them is necessary.
      3. New programs must systematically imbed inquiry into all classes.
      4. Students must understand how to use data. Number crunching is irrelevant if they don't understand what the results mean.
      5. They must be able to unbundle problems, break them down into actionable parts.
      6. They must learn to identify problems that require action (and ones that don't)
4. Panel Discussion from USC: Estela Bensmon
   1. What is practitioner inquiry?
   2. The availability of data is not the problem, but the inability to ask the right questions is.
   3. Educations problem is that there is a lot of accountability data, but it rarely translates into improved practice. We must look at a different approach.
   4. Inquiry should be a major leadership skill. Other important skills are sense making, problem defining, and learning.
5. Panel Discussion from USC: Alicia Dowd
   • Discussed several inquiry skills that are necessary for practitioner, and mapped backward to develop introductory inquiry course.
     1. BE able to interpret data
     2. Summarize in tables, graphically, basic stats
     3. Asking questions
     4. How to gather data
6. Panel Discussion from USC: Robert Rueda
   1. Necessary to focus on critical content and critical skills
   2. How to ask questions?
   3. How to be a consumer of research?
   4. How do you develop a toolbox of problem solving tools that can be used in practice?
   5. How do you know when to use specific modes of inquiry?
   6. How do you integrate inquiry into all areas of practice (in addition to program)