Podcast Season 2 Ep. 1 - Inquiry Based Learning with Trevor MacKenzie

Trevor MacKenzie is an experienced teacher, author, keynote speaker and inquiry consultant who has worked in schools throughout Australia, Asia, North America, South Africa and Europe. Trevor’s passion is supporting schools in implementing inquiry-based learning practices.

Trevor’s graduate research focused on identifying and removing the barriers to implementing inquiry-based learning in the K-12 setting. He is an inquiry practitioner currently as a teacher with the Greater Victoria School District in Victoria, Canada. He has two publications: Dive into Inquiry and Inquiry Mindset

He has vast experience supporting schools across several years in implementation strategies in public schools, international schools, and International Baccalaureate programmes (PYP/MYP/DP).

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Podcast Transcript

Hi, my name is Blue. And I'm the host of this new podcast, the 21st-Century Teacher with Live It Earth. And my job is to ensure that our teachers and students get the most out of our programs. This new podcast series is just one of the ways I'm going to be supporting our community of educators with a monthly conversation with a special guest educator discussing a different aspect of 21st-century teaching and learning.

Today on the show, we have Trevor MacKenzie, who is an experienced teacher, author, keynote speaker, and inquiry consultant, who has worked in schools throughout Australia, Asia, North America, South Africa, and Europe. Trevor's passion is supporting schools in implementing inquiry-based learning practices. Trevor's graduate research focused on identifying and removing the barriers to implementing inquiry-based learning in the K to 12 setting. He has two publications: Dive Into Inquiry and Inquiry Mindset. He has a vast experience supporting schools across several years in implementation strategies in public schools, international schools, and international baccalaureate programs. And I'm really looking forward to this conversation today.

So Trevor, thank you so much for joining me on the podcast today. I really appreciate you taking time out of your busy day. 

No sweat. This is fun. And thanks for the invite. I'm looking forward just to get to know you and also to share some of my learning and some my work with you. So it's an honor, thanks for hosting me! 

So I would love to start if you don't mind sharing the story about your student, Garrison. Because I think it's a really engaging story that certainly piqued my interest into the work that you're doing. 

Yeah, so Garrison has a fantastic story. And Garrison, I wrote about Garrison in my first publication Dive Into Inquiry. And gosh, I taught Garrison, it feels like ages ago, it's probably 14 years ago. And I actually taught Garrison's older brother first. And, sadly, Garrison's older brother got expelled from our school for dealing drugs. And I've got these really clear vivid memories of breaking up drug fights with his brother, you know, walking his brother down to the principal's office, trying to talk some sense into him. Really being in his brother's corner. And I felt like I failed this brother, actually. When his brother got expelled, I felt like I was pretty crushed. You know, as a teacher who's really invested in student well being and belonging and success in school, I was really quite sad that I felt like I let him down. And Garrison was like an opportunity for redemption Blue. I mean that sincerely. You know, we were putting programming behind Garrison to really try to turn the corner for him and for his family even. We thought Garrison, if we could kind of save Garrison, maybe it would change the trajectory of the family and the brother, right? Like, we were dreaming big fork for Garrison. And we put a lot of time, Garrison was one of a few students who were on my caseload that I would track that were getting alternative support, gosh, I would take him out for lunch, you know, and just try to get to know him and what makes them tick. Like we were really doing things that are really sensible, but in traditional schooling, kind of outside the box, right?

And we go through these cycles with Garrison where he would be really hooked in school. And he looked really engaged. Like Garrison, super charismatic kid tall, you know, wavy hair skateboarder always had a skateboard tucked under his arm, he would kind of drift into class, like the wind was behind him, and super charismatic, everyone loved Garrison. And he would show up like, he'd steal a room. And then he’s disappear. Like, after a few weeks, he would just poof, gone. And we'd see him at the skate park, he was six foot four, you'd see him down the hall, you know, and you'd yell at him “Garrison come to class”, and he wave at you “TMac, I’m coming” and then he’d like, duck down underneath the shorter kids and just disappear in the audience. Right. And so he was attending school because he liked kids, his friends, he was attending school because he liked some of his teachers. He was not attending school because he liked school, it was clear that Garrison did not enjoy school. He failed my English 9 class, he failed my English 10 class. He kept on coming back for more. After the second year of failing Garrison, I thought, I'm not getting through to Garrison. You know, he's like his brother, and I'm failing him now. And I went to the counselors thinking this isn't working. And the counselor said “you're the only teacher Garrison is connecting with, the only reason he's coming to school is for you right now, as little as he's coming”. And then grade 11 he failed again. I can only do summer school, and then he'd come back and he'd do summer school and then come back. And he was like this really hard nut to crack. You know, I would phone home and talk to Garrison parents and say “where's Garrison?” and sometimes they would hang the phone up on me. Sometimes they wouldn't return my calls. Sometimes I would go to my principal almost in tears saying “I don't know how to help Garrison”. I remember once my principal gave me Garrison’s his home address, and said just go to the house and try to talk some sense into the parents. And so I got into a habit of knocking on their door, you know, instead of turning left to school in the morning, I would turn right and go to Garrison’s house and try to pick him up, you know, and knock on his door and his mom would get him out of bed some mornings and I’d drive him to school. I remember one morning Blue, on such an occasion, I knocked on the door and the mum came to the door and kind of peered through the blinds. And she said “you again?” I said “yeah, I'm here to pick up Garrison”. And she said to me “Trevor, when are you gonna get it? We're not school people”. Like, how heartbreaking is that, right? But we were relentless. I was frustrated, but I was relentless. And as a senior, Garrison showed up in my senior level English class yet again. And I thought, here we go again, like, I'm going to not get through to Garrison again. And it was the same first three weeks, super charismatic, super engaged. And then as soon as an assignment was due, guess what happened? Poof, disappeared. It took me about three or four days to find him, quite literally, I couldn't find Garrison and I caught him at lunch. One day, I was driving to get a coffee at lunch. And I saw him at the skate park. And so I turned right to the skate park, instead of turning left to the coffee shop, big metaphor there Blue, like what a fork in the road. For me, and for Garrison. And I rolled down my window, I said “Garrison”, and he said “T-Mac”. And I said, “let's go for coffee, you want to come for coffee?” And he said “sure”. And he jumped in my car, again, not a lesson for teachers to get kids in their car. But for you know, principals and, you know, leaders out there thinking outside the box and giving teachers agency to do something different works. It helps, and it helped Garrison. And so Garrison and I went out for coffee at the local coffee shop in our neighborhood near our school. And over coffee, I was just like drawing straws. Like anything, Garrison give me anything. I asked Garrison “what are you passionate about? Because school clearly isn't something that's it. So what gets you going?” And to my surprise, I thought he was going to say skateboarding…to my surprise, he said graffiti art. And I thought, no way. And he said “yeah, let me show you”. And I thought he was going to take out his phone and show me photos. And he got us back in my car, and we drove a few blocks to this railroad track. And we hiked over the railroad tracks to this warehouse, and at the back of the warehouse was like 300 meters, 200 meters of graffiti art and a large chunk of it was his and it was stunning. Like, I'm not a graffiti artist, but I know good stuff when I see it. And I took out my phone and I started to take photos. And Garrison was looking at me like I was crazy. Like, yeah, right. And I've taken all these photos and in the art I see him in the art, I see symbolism, in the art I see narrative, like I see all the stuff that is in my curriculum, that Garrison certainly knows, whether he knows it or not, it's there. And so I said to Garrison, I said “hey, can you do something for me with this, like some kind of an assignment?” And he said “sure, what do you want?” And instead, with kids like Garrison, you're like anything, give me something. And I said anything. And he said “when do you want it by?” I said “anytime” and I kid you not Blue, I didn't think I was going to see him. He came back to class the next day, and he walked up to my desk and he slammed the essay down on my desk, it was almost like “aha, I'm proving you wrong” like “here it is”. And I dropped everything, and I read this essay. And it was essentially a narrative essay reflecting on how meaningful the day before was for him. How he had never had a teacher asked him about what he's passionate about, how it meant so much to him that someone took the time to show interest in his interests. And I thought “man, this is it”. I call him over said “Garrison, this is fantastic, like easy A, beautiful writing. Best piece of writing I've ever seen you do”. I say “can you do more on graffiti art?” And he said “yeah, what do you want me to do?” I say “I have all these photos on my phone, can you do something with them?” And he said “sure, give me your phone”. And I thought he was just going to airdrop the photos to his camera. And instead he went right up to the front of the class, and he got their attention. And he started to tell the story of yesterday, he started to do what I saw being a presentation, right? And he started to swipe through the photos, telling the kids in the class this story. I took out my grade book, I started giving him notes, giving him marks, you know, kids put up their hands and they say because they didn't know he was a graffiti artist. And they asked him questions like “what does that word mean?” And Garrison says “well, that's symbolic of this song”. And I'm like oh my gosh, symbolism, right. And then another question “what does that phrase mean?” Or “why did you choose those colors?” “What that represents conflict?” Like, oh my gosh, so I dropped everything. For the rest of the year, Garrison did graffiti art 100% of the time, you know, the rest of the class was over on the left side writing a persuasive essay about global warming, and Garrison is writing a persuasive letter to our local municipality trying to convince them to legalize graffiti art. It was transformational. You know, not only did he pass the class, but because I was so proud of him, I was bragging about him to other teachers like Garrison and I, we stuck gold like we're doing it. He's gonna make it through. Other teachers started to show interest. Like it was art teacher, for example, an amazing teacher had never seen his graffiti art. I was blown away. I thought, you know, of all the spaces in our school that would celebrate this passion, this interest, this talent, it would be yours. And she said “well, I've got an idea”. And she asked Garrison to do a school mural. And as a gift to his graduating class, like this for a kid, that six months previous wasn't going to graduate. Now he's giving a gift to his graduating class, right? I wouldn't leave the school have ended the day Blue at 3:30/4 o'clock, and I'd walk by the mural to see what progress he had made. And he would still be there working on the mural, you know, and I'd say “hey, do you want me to drop you off?” And he'd say “no, I gotta get this done for the grad class”. Eventually, not only did he graduate, eventually at convocation, in fact, I remember sitting there so full of pride, seeing him up on stage, getting his diploma, and I'm looking around the audience trying to find his mum, remember, the mum “we’re not school people”. I was trying to find her to make eye contact and be like, see him now? He's clearly a school kid now, right? Garrison, his part time job now is he's an artist. You know, this is like 12-14 years later, that same municipality that he was writing letters for, they hire him to do artwork for local festivals and musical festivals and markets. His artwork’s all over town, you know, the garage doors at businesses dropped down over the windows at night, they dropped down and his graffiti art’s on them. Like he's not making a fantastic living, but it's his living, right. And so Garrison taught me a lot, Blue. I know, that was a long story, a long introduction to today's conversation. But he taught me so much about who I want to be as a classroom teacher, how I want to interact with youth and children. And what kind of change I want to see in education. You know, the same old, same old isn't good enough for all of our kids any longer. And exploring different avenues, and student centered pathways is something I'm very much interested in, not just in my classroom, but in other people's classrooms and other organizations, districts and spaces around the world. So thank you for asking me to share that story Blue. I'm always, as you can tell, thrilled to talk about Garrison. Yeah. So thank you. 

Can I ask, how long have you been a teacher? When this story came about?

Yeah, I probably been teaching for about maybe eight years, you know. I mean yeah, I was pretty in my formative years as a teacher. I had worked with his brother previously, probably when I was five years into my career. 

Right. So you're established as a teacher. So I wonder, this high point that you had with Garrison, how did this influence you as a teacher? Like was this the starting point for you exploring personalized learning, in a broader sense with the rest of the classes you're working with? Not just focusing on one individual? 

Absolutely. It was the tipping point for sure. You know what I felt all students needed, Garrison proved right. And then the next trick came, how do I manifest those experiences for all kids, not just the kids like Garrison who need it. But all children deserve the opportunity to explore interests and curiosities and talents and maybe even passions in school and have a voice in the design of the learning experiences that they engage in. So Garrison was the tipping point for me. And, you know, it led to trial and tribulation and trying to figure that one out. And eventually that's led to more sharpen work with regards to my publications and the work I do with schools now. 

And this is a question I got for you. Because I relate to Garrison in a lot of ways, in the sense of school not being a great fit, not necessarily excelling in various subjects, the academic subjects, having some fun on the sports field, but nothing really was engaging me but at the same time, I didn't have a passion. And it's been a long time through my life, kind of finding those passions, which essentially was the outdoors and outdoor education for a long time. But yeah, do you all kids, are they all gonna flourish with this personalized approach? Do you just pick and choose the students?

No, by no means. You know, I think what you've mentioned there with passions is really, really worthy of exploring, just ever so briefly, in that not all kids don't have passions. In fact, I sometimes see passions or for the privileged to be quite honest, or for the families that can afford to foster passions, right. Like, I think of the many years that I spent with a mom who drove me to practices and who took me to games. And I was able to have a present mom, she was a single mom, right? So my dad wasn't in the picture as much, but she made sacrifices to help me explore things I was interested in, at first. I just thought they were fun, and then slowly over the years, that commitment, that fun turned into a passion. So I sometimes see curiosity as being the seeds to passion, you know, how can we spark curiosity in our classrooms, to engage lots of amazing things happen when we have curious kids. So curiosity, as an entry point in the learning is really important to me. And then perhaps something turns into a passion perhaps something turns into a lifelong endeavor, maybe a career vocation. But certainly the seeds I'm planting in my classroom are around curiosity. And as I said, there are many benefits of curiosity. One off shoot could be one day a passion. But I think what you said there was really worthy of just exploring ever. So briefly, it doesn't have to be a passion that we're looking for. It's a curiosity that we're trying to spark in our learners 

And having somebody that's gonna motivate you and engage you in a way that like gets you curious about things I think is important. Which I didn't necessarily have back in the day, in my classrooms with the teachers that I had. So I think having teachers that are willing to explore and help you get curious about things is really important.

And so, beyond that, where does inquiry-based learning fit into all of this, maybe you could highlight a couple of the books that you've authored.

I've written three books in the field of inquiry. And it is a rich school of thinking, you know, my publications are merely just a few of many that have preceded mine. And there's a vibrant conversation happening around this subject area, this theory and this framework around the world. So, you know, my three publications Dive Into Inquiry, Inquiry Mindset: Elementary School Edition, and Inquiry Mindset: Assessment Edition are kind of my wedge in the body of work. But gosh, there are amazing educators around the world from Kath Murdock out of Australia, Kimberly Mitchell, out of the US, I think of the work of Art Costa, Ron Ritchhart, like, you know, the school of thinking or the school thinking is not you know, the shallow end of the pool. It's decades old, really. An inquiry really is about reimagining the role of the teacher and the learner as being partners and learners, there's not that top down model. You know, who you had said that you didn't really have educators who sparked curiosity or engaged you as a learner and I don't think you're alone in that feeling. I think school traditionally is built around that top down model - teacher the front students sit and listen, and get the goods, get the expertise, get the content and for the most part, sadly, regurgitate said content. And that is a spiritless classrooms. If I'm quite frank, it's a classroom void of relevance, void of personal meaning and belonging. And inquiry really wants us to reimagine that dynamic. How do we engage our students in what we call social constructivism where we make meaning together, where we access prior knowledge, where we plan learning experiences together, we focus on skill development. So we can find, locate and analyze the right information and unpack misconceptions. So students in inquiry are very much active in the learning. Active meaning physically active, they're moving, they're shaking, they're not complacent. And then cognitively active, like they're switched on. They're doing the heavy lifting, they're doing the thinking, they're doing the questioning. They're underpinnings of inquiry. You know, curiosity, is that underpinning, we really care about curiosity and how to spark curiosity. And again, skill development, that's another one that we work on with schools is what are the skills that students need to take on more ownership over learning? That's a big question, isn't it? Guy Claxton out of the UK calls these “learning muscles”, I love that phrase. What are the learning muscles kids need to flex over time to be more competent in any learning contexts, right, whether it's a classroom context, or a sport context, or an employment context. There are certain kinds of 21st century skills that students should be nurturing and we should be cultivating in our classrooms. So inquiry, I know I kind of referenced there a little bit of the difference between the traditional classroom and the inquiry classroom, honoring the school of thinking absolutely, with regards to whatever voices are out there. But this notion of the changing dynamic between teacher and student is really critically reflective of inquiry-based learning. 

Yeah, I really love the partnership approach to talk about. I'm interested in what are the types of student inquiry?

Yeah, that's a big one. And again, I've written books on that one. So we'll try to get it down in a couple of minutes for you Blue. You know, that when we think of inquiry based-learning, this is fascinating. It's such a good conversation for us to have because the listeners are going to have certain experiences, and prior knowledge that bubbles up when we say that phrase. And in my experience, when I say inquiry based learning to people, they tend to think of what we call a Free Inquiry. And what that represents is students exploring anything they want. Any topic, any question, reading anything, doing anything they want. And really it sounds like a hot mess express, doesn't it? Like kids do anything and anytime in the classroom? 30 different kids? That's impossible. Free Inquiry is one type of inquiry, but there are actually three other types and that's what we call the types of student inquiry. If you can imagine a swimming pool that goes from shallow to deep, free inquiry would be the deep end. Right? Think of the skills, the understandings, the experiences that students need to be successful in the deep end of learning. That kind of ownership. We start in the shallow end, what we call Structured Inquiry.

Much more teacher directed, teacher facilitated, a lot of mentoring, a lot of coaching, a lot of modeling. And then after that this the Structured Inquiry, there's something called Controlled Inquiry and then Guided Inquiry, all the way leading to the depth of the pool - Free Inquiry. So those four types represent varying degrees of agency over learning, voice and choice and ownership over learning. In the shallow end with teacher directed, there's a lot less student voice and choice and ownership. Why? Because the teacher is coaching and modeling certain conditions, where students are flexing those said learning muscles, then they can transition to the deeper end of the pool over time. We always start with where our students are at. So if our students are ready for the deeper end of the pool sooner, guess what we answer? We go there sooner. So again, there's that partnership, there's that really reflective, aware, intentional practitioner, the teacher, supporting students through rich scaffolding, and then being reflective as to where they are at and where do we need to go to next? Do we need to start at the shallow end? Or could we start perhaps in the deeper end? How does that fit with you? Does that help kind of conceptualize the 4 types of Student Inquiry Blue?

Yeah it does, I'm interested to know like circling back to the personalized learning, how key this is to setting the students up for success in a personalized learning plan. Like what's a practical approach, when you walk into a classroom as a teacher, like, where do you start? Because it sounds like a big thing to take on to take on all these personalized learning plans. So could you maybe just give some some ideas of how you approach that? 

Yeah, so in my classroom, and many of the classrooms I support, we start in the shallow end. We do a unit of study that lasts several weeks, where students are exploring one question that the teacher has designed, the teacher is kind of structuring different research pathways or different learning experiences that the teacher has planned that help us explore that big question. What we call an un-Google-able question, right? It's got some depth to it that we can sink our teeth into. And then we demonstrate our learning, we gather evidence over learning, and then we create something that demonstrates our learning over time. Typically, in the shallow end, students are creating the same demonstration of learning there's, maybe it's a teacher decision in the shallow end. So that's how we kind of introduce inquiry to our students, if they're new to it, you know, one question and how a question leads to learning, and how we actually choose resources and learning materials and experiences that deepen our understanding of the question. So a lot of modeling. And then eventually, we transition to what we call Controlled Inquiry, where there's a little bit more voice and choice. Like maybe rather than one question, I give my kids five questions, and they choose the question that's most relevant to them. That means the most to them. So there's this partnership that slowly evolves, that's just one thread one characteristic of the shift from shallow to deep. Slowly what happens over time is students will get to a place like you've said, where it's a much more personalized learning plan. That would be what we call Free Inquiry. You know, really rich entry points into this experience blue is to cultivate curiosity. And what I mean by that, as I've referenced several times, I really care about curiosity. I plan learning and lessons with curiosity in mind. Like I look at my curriculum, I look at what I have to teach, and I think to myself “how can I get kids excited about that?” And in inquiry, that's called the provocation. And a provocation can be a compelling video, or image, or artifact, or speaker, it can even be placed like you and I were talking off camera about your love for the outdoors. We know how the outdoors can be thrilling, can be full of learning, can be full of reflection, it can even be spiritual. You know, our Indigenous peoples have lived on the land for centuries. And the place as a third teacher, to spark curiosity is a tangible teacher tool. And so provocation to spark curiosity. A lot of the schools that I work with, that's something we actively plan. How to cultivate curiosity through rich teaching resources. Again, those resources are really much tied to the local context, like a provocation I use in my classroom here, Blue, will likely be very different than a provocation in your region, in your community. Why? Because we are in different places, and our kids are growing up in different spots, and so you know, sparking curiosity. We're working with two different kids, aren't we? And so provocation is something that I can print off the press and push out every school from one place. Provocation as a mindset, provocation as a planning tool to really sparked the curiosity of the kids in front of us. That's a skill that we try to teach teachers. And that would be a really rich entry point for anyone listening. I know we've talked some big picture stuff like Garrison, how do I do that? It starts with curiosity, like the smallest seed we plant is curiosity first.

I love that. So can I ask is this something that you're finding is being embraced by teachers across the province, across the country? Like how are you seeing this, you know, being used within the classroom at the moment? 

Yeah. So, you know, I'll say this with very humbled reflective words Blue, but you know, my work is global work. I've worked with schools around the world, you know, the educators that I referenced earlier, they're all in different countries around the world, you know, I do think because of educators like Sir Ken Robinson, the late Sir Ken Robinson, his work has created the conditions for change to occur and for this conversation to happen. It's happening in British Columbia, we've gone through a fantastic redesign of curriculum, we used to have a curriculum that was really standards heavy, it was almost like dying a slow death of 1000 outcomes, right, and you had to teach all these outcomes. And now we have a very skills focus and concept focused curriculum, which allows teachers to more artfully teach from an inquiry stance. So I'm seeing much more of these conversations happening locally in BC, across North American pockets, I think there are certain States where you can see my book sales skyrocket, and then there are certain states in the US where you can see my book sales aren't really happening. And you can look at what's happening with regards to politics, their their values are on education, quite honestly. And so it's happening in pockets across North America. And then it's in most of the like, I've visited a lot of countries around the world again, humbly I can say, I partner schools throughout Europe, South Africa, the Middle East, Australia, Southeast Asia, India, it's really a global conversation and one that again, it's certainly not my body of work Blue, I just want to honor the voices that have come before me and that are, you know, very much standing on the shoulders of giants, right? 

No, absolutely thinking as a parent and also a teacher in classes in general, are all the kids finding success with this approach?

Yeah, so in the work I do with schools, we've done some great research with some big districts. With regard to curiosity, I'll go back to curiosity first, we've seen three things. When we have curious kids, we see kids do better in school. So when we are sparking curiosity, grades are actually impacted, which is fascinating, even take the most standardized tests that reflects an assessment. Kids will do better over time being in a culture of curiosity, is that fascinating. So curiosity, as a culture will impact grades, marks. Secondly, attendance will improve. So when we have curious kids, guess where they want to be? They want to come to school, when school is something where they're excited to learn something through, they start coming more often. And then the third thing is when we survey kids, they tell us that school’s exciting, like school is a place of belonging. I love that one. When we read that in the survey results.

We asked kids, you know, can you name a teacher who's in your corner? And they started naming more teachers, which is fascinating, because really, when you talk about curiosity, you're talking about a really human experience, you're talking about relationship, you're talking about connection, you're talking about seeing things from a different dynamic. It's not teaching down, it's learning together. So curiosity as an entry point has many benefits. Inquiry-based learning more broadly speaking, the four types of inquiry is really what we need to implement in schools, if we're going to see that research around inquiry shift, the research around free inquiry alone is really actually poor. If we're just dumping our kids into the deep end repeatedly, they're not going to do well in school, they're not going to feel that sense of competence or confidence or happiness. They're going to feel overwhelmed and stressed and, and uncertain. The school’s where we see the scaffold that approach to inquiry, whether it's from structured control, guided to free, or even just the mindful increasing of student agency across time, then we start to see things like, yes, kids do better in school. Yes, they want to be in school. And yes, the survey results match what we see with regards to curiosity. But of course, if you throw our kids in the deep end of the pool, we don't see that data. So that's a big kind of characteristic difference between what inquiry should be and what inquiry shouldn't be. 

Right. Yeah, that makes sense. Absolutely. The scaffolding approach. Now, I'm wondering, you mentioned Google earlier. And this is another question I wanted to ask you, because I'm just wondering, you know, with all this being said, how is teaching evolving with the easy access the students have to so much content now? Is this actually a good approach to sort of tackle that beast? 

Yeah, oh, absolutely. I actually think technology is playing a key factor in why schools are doing things differently, and why curriculum is being redesigned because we have such access to information. Honestly, I think we're not in a content culture anymore, that think back two centuries ago, you know, who held the knowledge, right, the privileged few. And now we have these things in our hands that we can access information so readily, you know, whether it's a Google Home device that's voice activated in our homes, or something in our pockets, you know, access information is not the problem anymore. It's what you do with information. It's how you validate the information, how do you know it's credible, reliable, etc. And then it's knowing how to get what you want Blue. Like questioning is a skill, closed questions, open questions, the difference between the two, how certain types of questions lead to certain information. 

That's that's a skill that many school districts and organizations are actually fostering with their students through inquiry-based learning is questioning. So questioning lessons, questioning frameworks, protocols, that's something we give to teachers to help them transition into the inquiry model more readily. But absolutely, the role of technology is shifting how we learn, and in turn, how we should teach. We need to teach differently, with the role of technology in our lives. 

Absolutely. Where can people go for more information about this approach to education? Are your books the best place to go?

Yeah, thank you. So you can find my books in bookstores or on Amazon, Dive Into Inquiry and the Inquiry Mindset series. My books are three of many, and I referenced those amazing authors and colleagues, and it is a vibrant conversation. It is a global conversation. You can find my work at trevormackenzie.com, and my social media spaces from there. And you can see the conversation, right, you can find those authors in those spaces as well. Whether it's YouTube, Instagram, or Twitter, so very active, and it is again, a global conversation Blue that I'm just merely one voice of so I encourage people listening that if this has at all piqued your interest, join the conversation! Absolutely.

Great. Well, Trevor, thank you so much for joining us today. I really appreciate everything you've shared. 

Well, it's been a blast. Thank you so much. I appreciate you.

Thanks for joining us on the 21st-Century Teacher, and we look forward to seeing you next time. Please do subscribe so you don't miss out on the next show. And also don't forget to check out our fantastic online learning platform, which is liveit.earth. Thanks again and we'll see you soon.