What Can They Can DO Rather than Know... One Teacher’s Thinking on Inquiry - Part Three

This is part three of a three part post - 2 STEPS TO SIMPLIFIED INQUIRY: Research & Thinking.  Thanks for reading!

A colleague asked for some help in putting together an inquiry, so I put this together as one idea..

A simple machine unit that culminates in building a Rube Goldberg machine and documenting the attempts and successes.




Thanks to a SCCDSB teacher from St Michael's in Ridgetown who submitted this post. She has chosen to have her name withheld.

What Can They DO Rather than Know..One Teacher’s Thinking on Inquiry. - Part Two

This is the second in a three part post: 2 STEPS TO SIMPLIFIED INQUIRY: Research & Thinking   

Step 2:  THINKING ---Thinking Critically!!

• Students click on a link -now what?

I will be honest - this part is even trickier.  Students new to inquiry and research will expect that the answer will be sitting there in huge bold print!  They feel frustrated when they discover that it never is.  This is where we train our kids to scan passages for keywords or numbers and to read around the text.  This is the evaluate portion of inquiry.  They will need to keep verifying what they think is the correct information against the actual question.  Was this the information I was asked to collect?  Does this answer the question posed?  Your kids will get better at this with lots of exposure, but in my experience they start with some pretty impulsive behaviours and don't really want to read accurately on their own.  They are happy to sit back and wait for you to do it for them.  Don't!  If they don't find exactly what they need from one site, have them persevere and try another.  In the process they will come across and gather more information than just your initial specific expectation.  Therefore, increasing their background knowledge.  Your students will be reading and thinking- killing two birds with one stone.

• They find facts and data.  So What!

This is where you want to prompt them to discover the significance behind these facts and listen to what connections they can make from their own schemas. This is also where you can focus on student interest and try to build some side research if they seem intrigued by something.

e.g.  FACT:  Early Settlers traveled for many weeks across the Atlantic under some terrible conditions.

TEACHER PROVOCATION:  “So what?  What can this tell us?”

STUDENT EXAMPLES:

• “I know that the boat ride was a horrible experience” - so why did they come?
• “I know that they would have landed and stepped into wilderness and scary conditions” - again, so why would they even want to come?
• “So I think they must have had some very serious reasons for coming to Canada in the first place.  Let me find out what these reasons were.”  (Religious persecution; famine; poverty etc.)
• 
  

THINK OUT LOUD - LEVERAGE DIGITAL:

These students used Chromecast to project what they found about global forms of government and then came up to discuss what they think their information meant.  They also listened to what their peers thought.

Try a variety of digital tools to get the students “thinking out loud” and considering the opinions and perspectives of their classmates.  Tools such as Chromecast as well as self documenting tools like Educreations, Explain Everything, and YouTube Capture, are also fun ways to get students to vocalize and share their thoughts.

 

The point is, there isn't any specific formula for making inquiry work.  Every day is a balancing act.  We want to cover the curriculum but in a way that gets our students thinking, developing those metacognitive skills, and coming to a deeper understanding of the concepts. 

This might be possible with good inquiry, if we focus on just two main ideas: research and thinking.  Then, when it's time to do reporting, our comments can focus more on what our students are able to do rather than what concrete information they know.   

Watch for part 3 soon!


Thanks to an SCCDSB teacher from St Michael's in Ridgetown who submitted this post. She has chosen to have her name withheld.

What Can They Can DO Rather than Know... One Teacher’s Thinking on Inquiry - Part One

2 STEPS TO SIMPLIFIED INQUIRY: Research & Thinking. This is part one of a three part post - watch for part two soon!

When we think of incorporating inquiry into our classroom we really don't have to stress and find new ways to think outside the box and stray from the curriculum.  Rather stick with the curriculum as your guide as you always would, but be less concerned with covering all the content and focus more on skill development.

We are teaching in some pretty amazing times.  Our students really have no great need to remember copious facts about layers of soil or which provinces didn't initially agree with confederation.  With a swipe of their fingers they can find the answer in 5 seconds or less on the very same device that they seem glued to or that is never very far away.  With inquiry we have the potential to expand critical literacy skills to amazing heights if we just keep the focus on a few main steps.

2 STEPS TO SIMPLIFIED INQUIRY: Research & Thinking

Step 1: RESEARCH -- Have Them Gather Their Own Information

This student locates countries on different online maps independently and thinks about what life might be like there based on location.

Start with the general or even specific curriculum expectation (the reality is, as a teacher, you can't really afford to wait and see what they are truly interested in because chances are they have never given much thought to our curriculum topics to begin with and let's face it, you’re on a timeline! Switch your thinking and consider that your job is more to expose them to the topics and then see what they think!) 
However, instead of passing out specific handouts, have the students collect as much information as they can, leveraging whatever digital tools you have available in the classroom.  This is the gather portion of inquiry.  This does mean that you have to teach them and provide prompts for how they can best word their searches and how to scan the text link descriptions with a critical eye so they become efficient at choosing the most profitable site.  This takes time and training!

Tip:  You might want to post the expectation as a learning goal like this example:

“We are going to learn how to find information about …...by using best strategies for finding accurate information on Google Search.”

Part two: Thinking - coming soon.

Thanks to an SCCDSB teacher from St Michael's in Ridgetown who submitted this post. She has chosen to have her name withheld.