UTES Toolkit for Completing a
Cycle of Inquiry on a Collaborative Team
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Adapted by Bill Ferriter and Bob Sonju from the original work of W. Richard Smith. | Used with permission
Q1 - What Do We Want Students to Learn?
The first critical question that teams answer when conducting a cycle of inquiry around their instruction is, “What do we want students to learn?”
Our goal is to identify a small handful of truly essential outcomes that we can study together. We identify essentials to provide focus for our collaborative efforts. If we have a limited amount of time to collaborate, let’s spend that time studying things that REALLY matter.
To learn more about the steps teams take when identifying essentials, return to the cycle and click on the colored boxes listed under the first critical question of learning.
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1.1 - Identify Essentials/ Learning Targets
The first step that teams take when starting a cycle of inquiry is identifying one essential outcome that they want to study together. Essentials are often specific standards from the grade level curriculum, but teams can also study academic skills and dispositions together.
Teams generally study one essential at a time. Doing so ensures that the team has the time to think deeply together about the best ways to teach that outcome to students. Remember the mantra, “Do less, but do it well.”
Products to Create: Lists of essentials for each unit of study or for each quarter.
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RESOURCES FOR THIS ACTION
Resources for 1.1 - Identifying Essentials
The following resources can be used to support teams working on identifying essential standards:
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1.2 - Gain Shared Clarity on Essentials
This step is the most important -- and most frequently skipped -- step in the entire cycle of inquiry. Teams must work together to build shared clarity on (1). What an essential means and (2). What mastery of an essential looks like in action.
Notice that this step happens before teams begin any lesson planning. Here’s why: It is impossible to plan effective lessons, design reliable assessments, or plan effective interventions and extensions if you don’t have a rich understanding of the essential that you are trying to teach.
Products to Create: An Unpacked Standard, Proficiency Scales
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RESOURCES FOR THIS ACTION
Resources for 1.2 - Gaining Shared Clarity
The following resources can be used to support teams working to gain shared clarity of an essential.
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1.3 - Define Grade-Level Expectations for Essentials
Once a team has unpacked their essentials and had conversations about what those essentials look like in student work, their next step is to define what they will accept as a demonstration of mastery for their grade-level essential.
That means developing a common formative assessment with one another. Those assessments should be intentionally short so they can be developed, delivered, scored, and analyzed quickly. Teams can also use prewritten questions/ assessments from curriculum materials as long as they align with the essential that the team is studying together.
Products to Create: Short Common Formative Assessments, Alternative Demonstrations of Mastery
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Resources for 1.3 - Defining Grade Level Expectations
The following resources can be used to support teams working to define grade-level expectations.
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1.4 - Plan for Initial Instruction
Once a team has gained shared clarity of and defined expectations for their essential, they begin to study strategies for teaching it to students. The first resource that they should reference is any district level curriculum materials that they have access to. Teams should also use their own experience and expertise to identify strategies worth trying.
Remember that there should be variation in the way that teachers teach an essential. You are experimenting with practice together -- so be deliberate about trying different things while you teach your essential.
Products to Create: Pacing Guides, Unit Planners, Lists of Prerequisite Standards
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Resources for 1.4 - Planning Initial Instruction
The following resources can be used to support teams working on planning for initial instruction.
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Q2 - How Will We Know if They Learned It?
The second critical question that collaborative teacher teams answer when conducting a cycle of inquiry around their instruction is, “How will we know when students have learned our essentials?”
When answering this critical question of learning, teams develop, deliver, and analyze common formative assessments. Our goal in the assessment process is to identify students in need of additional time and support for learning AND to identify instructional practices that are helping more students to learn our essentials.
To learn more about the steps teams take when assessing learning, return to the cycle and click on the colored boxes listed under the second critical question of learning.
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2.1 - Align Assessment with Grade Level Expectations
Once a team has unpacked their essentials, had conversations about what those essentials look like in student work, and defined what they will accept as a demonstration of mastery,, their next step is to ensure that their understandings of mastery match the rigor expected in grade-level standards.
Here’s why: If you are expecting less from your students than your standards do, you won’t see your students succeed on your standardized exams -- but if you are expecting MORE from your students than your standards, you will be providing interventions to students who have mastered the standard but can’t create the product you are using as a demonstration of mastery.
Products to Create: Reviews of the Rigor in Grade-Level Essentials
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Resources for 2.1 -
Aligning Assessments
with Expectations
The following resources can be used to support teams working to ensure that an assessment aligns with their grade level expectations..
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2.2 - Teach Using Formative Feedback Prompts
Once teams have developed a common formative assessment, they have finished the planning steps required to complete a cycle of inquiry.
At this point, teachers begin teaching their essential to their students. Along the way, they conduct informal checks for understanding in their classrooms using formative feedback prompts and provide just-in-time differentiated support to address any struggles that they see students having.
Collaborative team meetings are spent discussing the strategies that teachers are using -- for teaching, for checking for understanding, or for differentiating.
Products to Create: Short Common Assessments, Team SMART Goals
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Resources for 2.2 -
Teaching with Formative Feedback Prompts
The following resources can be used to support teams working to ensure that an assessment aligns with their grade level expectations..
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2.3 - Analyze Data from Formative Assessments
After every team member has given a common formative assessment, it’s important to organize the data in a way that makes it easy for the team to learn from. Before the meeting where you’ll analyze results together, every team member should complete the same template to organize their data.
That template needs to let team members compare their results with one another—not to single out high-performing teachers, but to uncover the high-performing strategies those teachers used.
Products to Create: Templates to Organize Team Assessment Results
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Resources for 2.3 -
Analyzing Data from Formative Assessments
The following resources can be used to support teams working to organize and analyze data from common formative assessments.
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2.4 - Reviewing Data from Formative Assessments
After a team has given their CFA and organized their data, the next step is to review that data together. There are two purposes of this review: first, to identify students who are still struggling to master the essentials, and second, to pinpoint instructional practices that show real promise.
When teams uncover strategies that helped more students master the essential at higher levels, they amplify those practices, making them a bigger part of their teaching toolbox. And when they come across strategies that didn’t work as well, they set them aside, freeing up space to try something better.
Products to Create: Data Analysis Protocols, Team Analysis Documents, Records of Effective Instructional Practices
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Resources for 2.4 -
Reviewing Data from Formative Assessments
The following resources can be used to support teams working to review data from formative assessments.
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Q3 - How Will We Respond if Students Don’t Learn?
The third critical question that collaborative teacher teams tackle during a cycle of inquiry is, “How will we respond if students don’t learn?”
Answering this question means providing targeted reteaching to students who didn’t meet proficiency on grade-level essentials during initial instruction. For teams, reteaching those essentials isn’t optional—it’s a commitment. They persist in their interventions until every student meets grade-level expectations.
To dig deeper into the steps teams take when providing interventions, revisit the cycle and click on the colored boxes under the third critical question of learning.
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3.1 - Intervene with Most Effective Practices
The next step in the cycle of inquiry is providing targeted interventions for students who haven’t met proficiency expectations. These interventions should be grounded in the strategies identified as most successful on the team’s common assessment.
Interventions often happen during a dedicated school-wide intervention period. Some teams share students, assigning those who struggled most to the teacher with the strongest results. Others use small groups or stations in the core classroom.
The key is focus: reteaching must address the specific needs identified in the data. Without that, interventions risk being ineffective.
Products to Create: Individual Student Intervention Reports
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Resources for 3.1 -
Intervening With
Effective Practices
The following resources can be used to support teams working to intervene using the most effective practices.
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3.2 - Reassess Essentials and/or Targets
The goal of every team in a cycle of inquiry is to ensure that ALL students master the essential. To make that happen, teams must reassess after providing initial reteaching.
Reassessing helps teams identify which students still need extra time and support and which intervention strategies are effective—or need to be abandoned.
Even as teams move forward with grade-level instruction, they must dedicate time during intervention blocks to continue working with students who haven’t yet reached proficiency on the essentials.
Products to Create: Lists of Intervention Practices that Work, Reassessments
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Resources for 3.2 -
Reassessing Learning
The following resources can be used to support teams working to reassess learning after providing initial interventions.
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Q4 - How Will Extend Learning?
While most collaborative teams invest regular effort into planning for intervention, few spend the same amount of time and energy on extensions. That often leaves our most accomplished students at-risk because their unique learning needs aren’t being intentionally addressed.
To improve the work that they do with extensions, teams must first build their shared knowledge about what “counts” as an extension. Then, they must develop tasks that require students to produce a product based on the essential that is being studied.
To explore the steps teams take to extend learning, revisit the cycle and click on the colored boxes under the fourth critical question of learning.
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4.1 - Common Extension Strategies
There are four common strategies used to provide extensions to students:
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Resources for 4.1 -
Extending Learning
The following resources can be used to support teams working to extend learning for students working beyond grade level expectations.
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PDSA Step 1: Plan
In the Plan stage of the PDSA cycle, your team identifies the essential outcomes for the unit and develops a clear plan for how to teach and assess those essential outcomes.
This involves unpacking the standards, deciding what mastery looks like, and creating a shared vision of success for students. You’ll also determine how you’ll collect evidence of learning—such as through common formative assessments—and set goals for student progress.
The goal of this stage is clarity: ensuring every teacher on the team knows what to teach, how to teach it, and how to measure effectiveness.
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PDSA Step 2: Do
The Do stage of the PDSA cycle focuses on implementation. Each teacher delivers the agreed-upon lessons and assessments in their classrooms, following the shared plan.
This is where you put the promising strategies and instructional practices you’ve identified into action.
Throughout this stage, teachers collect evidence of student learning, noting what worked well and where students struggled.
All of the evidence that you collect here -- teacher observations, checks for understanding, common formative assessments -- will provide you with data that you can analyze and learn from in the next step of the PDSA cycle.
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PDSA Step 3: Study
In the Study stage of the PDSA cycle, your team comes back together to analyze the evidence of learning collected during the Do stage.
This involves reviewing common formative assessment results to determine which students mastered the essential outcomes and which didn’t.
You’ll also evaluate the effectiveness of the instructional strategies used, identifying which practices led to the best results.
The goal here is reflection—figuring out what’s working, what isn’t, and why, so you can adjust as needed.
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PDSA Step 4: Act
The Act stage of the PDSA cycle is all about responding to what you’ve learned.
For students who haven’t yet mastered the essential outcomes, your team plans and delivers targeted interventions or reteaching. For those who have already mastered the essentials, you create meaningful extension opportunities.
This stage is also an opportunity to refine your instructional practices—amplifying strategies that worked well and abandoning those that didn’t.
Ultimately, the Act stage ensures that every student gets what they need to succeed and helps your team continually improve.
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