Inquiry Learning

Questions are the center of all learning.  In a traditional classroom, the teacher is often the questioner and the purpose of the questions are usually to assess whether or not the students have learned  specific information. The big idea behind inquiry learning is less about textbooks and spoon-feeding information and more about allowing students to explore and guiding them through engaging hands-on experiences that allow for deeper understanding.  Inquiry learning is less about teaching concepts in isolation and more about combining the disciplines to allow for authentic, real-word connections to be made.  The role of the teacher needs to change from one that is telling information and questioning only to assess to one that is guiding and asking exploring questions.  I think it is very important to provide teachers with professional development on questioning strategies.  Asking questions is somewhat of an art form.  Learning how to ask the right types of questions to help guide students to think rather than just regurgitate information is key.  The system in which I work has spent the last few years providing professional development in just this area to a handful of teachers from each school.  As a system, we are moving forward and slowly but surely shifting away from the traditional type of learning to inquiry learning.  

I've created a taxedo with Inquiry Learning as the topic.  I included words that came to my mind when thinking about what inquiry learning is.  Here it is:

   

I've mentioned before that much of my experience has been in the gifted classroom.  For the past 8 years, I've had the opportunity to work with 1st-5th grade students during an ELT (extended learning time) of the school day.  During this time I've been able to work on my questioning skills and I've become so much more comfortable in this learning environment.  I've learned to "let go" and embrace failure as a learning experience.  Over the years, my students have learned that mistakes are good and we reflect on them to learn and do better next time.  In my new position of media specialist, I am taking all I've learned as a gifted teacher and using it to try and help teachers and students at my school get comfortable with inquiry learning and embrace failure for the sake of learning.  I've made it my mission this year to get students in the media center for so much more than simply checking out books.  It took until December, but I'm proud to say that I have groups of students from all grade levels (K-5) coming into the media center regularly to work on all sorts of projects and activities.  

Through working with all grade levels, I've come to notice that I am least comfortable with the primary grades, so I've chosen to write my mini-lessons for a group of high achieving first graders that I work with.  They come to me during math, so my focus will be problem solving which is one of the standards they are currently working on.  It is my goal to have them produce their own teaching video to help other students learn strategies for solving word problems. I'm planning to bring in the other disciplines as well.  They will be writing their own word problems including researched information about topics they are studying.  When students are creating something, the 8 principles of inquiry are achieved.  Having them write and create their own word problems using real world information gained will help to make it authentic.  Having them discover their own strategies for solving word problems will give them a deeper understanding of those strategies. They will be working collaboratively to make decisions about what they should include in their teaching video to make it better. I've just recently discovered MozillaPopcorn in another class and I'm thinking I will have them incorporate this video editor to include pop-up text in their video lesson.  To bring in "experts" we might look at already created teaching videos to see examples of great video lessons. We will discuss digital citizenship and internet safety when it come to sharing our created videos.  

I know this seems like quite a bit for first graders, but I've come to find out that younger students are the most willing to play, explore, and learn without the fear of making mistakes.  I've made other teaching videos with older students and I'm really looking forward to helping some of my youngest and most eager students create their own.     

Growth Mindset and Setting Goals

I've had the privilege of attending several conferences over the years.  One of the most memorable sessions I've attended was at the GAGC (Georgia Association of Gifted Children) Conference a few years back.  The topic was about nurturing the growth mindset in our students.  I think in some ways I knew about this, but having it presented to me in the way that is was really opened my eyes to how much what I say to my students really affects them and their growth.  I immediately brought back what I learned to my students and noticed a significant difference in how they began to tackle challenges.  In my gifted classroom, my students  heard me say so many times that they were not to use the word can't unless follow by the word yet, that they began saying it to each other when the word "can't" was uttered by another. I feel that nurturing the growth mindset of my students (and my own personal children) is the most important thing I do as a teacher (and a mother).

In week one I set the following goals:

• It is always my goal to stay current with new technologies and resources that are available to educators.  I'm hoping that through this course I will be introduced to specific tools that I can take back to use with my students and other teachers I work with. 

• It is also my goal to extend my professional network and keep it fresh.  I feel that it is very important to connect with others in the same field for the purpose of gaining new ideas and inspiration.

These goals that I have set for this course are on-going and will continue long after this course is through.  In the short-term, I wanted to learn about specific tools I can take back and use immediately.  I have already been introduced to many new tools and resources that I am now using that I did not know about or knew very little about before this course.  I also wanted to extend my PLN, which I have and will continue to do.  

One thing that I have always held true is that the more I learn, the more I realize how little I know!
 
I plan to use my PLN to help me and my students in becoming  critical consumers of online resources.  Through my PLN, I can stay connected with others who are facing the same challenges and have found ways to help students with information fluency skills as well as grow my own skills.  If I want my students to be life-long learners, then I must be the same.  Forever learning and growing! 

  








 

Letting Go

The idea of letting go of control in the classroom to allow for students to become the drivers in their own learning is not new to me.  In fact, it is a topic I am very passionate about.  I began my experience as an educator in a 5th grade classroom.  I cringe just thinking about how I ran my classroom back then.  It was a lot of scripted lessons from textbooks, subjects divided up into nice little time slots throughout the day, and lots of seat work with little student interaction.  YUCK!! My students must have been bored to death!  It didn't take me long to realize that teaching that way was not going to work and that is when my mind shift began. 

Fast forward to the present and my teaching looks completely different.  Since then I have had the great opportunity to become a gifted teacher and I've gained so much knowledge through that experience.  Learning about inquiry-based learning became my obsession.  I've had the privilege to go on several tours of schools that are inquiry-based model schools and I've been able to use so much of what I learned in my gifted classroom as well as share what I've learned with others I work with.

In the blog "Great Teaching Means Letting Go" Grant Wiggins uses the example of a soccer coach to explain how some teachers are teaching in a way that fosters dependence rather than independence.  I agree with the idea that it should be regular practice to provide students with tasks that they are unfamiliar with just to see how they work through it.  How will we know what the students really know until we see what they can do on their own?

The Chris Lehmann Inquiry webinar was full of great insight, as well.  He states that learning should not be about control, but about support.  Students need us to be their mentors and to help guide them,  not to spoon feed them information.  Through many of my own conversations with teachers on this topic, I've come to understand that some feel very uncomfortable with giving up the control that is necessary to truly have a student-centered classroom.  They are afraid of failing and this causes them to avoid changing how they teach.  The excuse I hear most often is that they don't have time for project-based or inquiry-based learning.  It takes too long and they have so many standards to cover.  It is a bit ironic that the teacher's fear of failing is actually causing them to fail their students.   

In my opinion, great teachers...

•  understand that it is okay to let go of some control and put it in the hands of the students.   
• know that it is okay to fail, because we learn from it and move on. 
•  help students to understand that we are all learners and we ask questions that we can answer together.  
•  create spaces that are conducive for learning and collaborating.     
• use inquiry to guide student learning and bring in technology as a tool to engage students
• teach kids, not subjects

 A great teacher cannot do all of this alone.  They need support from district and school leaders.  Too often, district or school leaders do not understand that teachers need a little flexibility when teaching through inquiry.  Too many districts have curriculum benchmarks which requires teachers to teach certain standards in certain time frames with little room for flexibility.  Structures like these are not conducive to inquiry or project based learning. This is where the shift need to begin for more teachers to feel comfortable with letting go.