Staff were asked to reflect on their understanding of inquiry. One for each letter of the word.
I is for....
Immersion is crucial for sparking interest in a new Inquiry topic.
Immersion is probably the most important stage for all children but especially for the young children as they often haven’t had the same experiences yet.
Immersion to capture the student’s motivation into the Inquiry and to record their ‘wonderings’/questions that they initially think about. These are displayed and revisited throughout their learning as they gain further understanding within the Inquiry process.
IMMERSIONThe key to this information is to inspire the learner, to spark curiosity, to engage the children with the topic on a broad sense. This stage is vitally important to set up the inquiry – this is where skills are directly taught and students exposed to information and ideas that will lead them through a successful inquiry pathway. This is the stage that the spark of curiosity is shared and valued through wonderings – it is important that time is given to these wondering so the students curiosities are valued.
N is for....
New information builds on known, in Immersion.
New thinking, learning and questioning emerges from the immersion stage. Curiosity to find out more.
New thinking tools and new learning for the students. Introducing and using new thinking tools – could be keys, hats, MI, Blooms or Habits of the Mind etc. The new learning refers to Immersion and then the Inquiry focus.
New Tools and TechnologyThe integration of technology is a key aspect to inquiry, tools of technology allow the learner to take control of their pathway, to develop critical thinking skills for the effectiveness of the technology for the task. Thinking tools and the direct teaching of how to best use these tools is another important aspect throughout the inquiry process.
Q is for....
Questioning is a skill and a tool by which we discover what we want to know.
Questioning is paramount to the children’s thinking and learning. I have to teach the children how to ask questions first and then improve their quality of questioning. Really enjoyed Trevor Bond and questioning rubrics should be in our policy Lots of practise at this .
Questioning skills that are directly taught to encourage Higher Order Thinking. Students are becoming aware of their own level of questioning and are beginning to gain confidence in using a Questioning Map (G.O) which enables all students to ‘push’ further than they have originally gone. This is a good tool because teachers can add to it in order to deepen the questioning used.
Questioning is an important life skill and a major learning and thinking skill.Questioning is a central core skill that is explicitly or implicitly woven through all of the new curriculum.” All students experience a curriculum that enables them to become active, confident, creative, and innovative learners and thinkers. All students experience a curriculum that enables them to become active, confident, creative, and innovative learners and thinkers.” (NZC)
U is for...
Use Graphic Organisers as tools to record ideas and thoughts concisely and meaningfully.
Understanding
Understanding the Inquiry and its process. As students progress past the Immersion stage, they need to be made aware where (within the process) they are working so they gain clarity of understanding about Inquiry. They need to be able to expect their learning to lead to an action and to understand how to gather relevant information to lead to this.
Understanding – “Useful application of inquiry learning involves several factors: a context for questions, a framework for questions, a focus for questions and different levels of questions. Well designed inquiry learning produces knowledge formation that can be widely applied.” (icwcclusterblog.blogspot.com)Children understanding themselves as learners develop throughout the inquiry process, they set their own goals, reflect on their pathway, evaluate their efforts, learn new skills that they can continually build on as they progress through their inquiry learning. Understanding how tools for learning can impact on their experiences, how different tools can provide a variety of angles on the one aspect. Children develop into self motivated learners as they understand how to use these skills and tools to follow their interests and how their thinking and actions can impact beyond the traditional four classroom walls.
I is for....
It is important to know that WALT ………for a reason or purpose.
Interest
Ideas and Impressions from the students. Throughout the Inquiry it is important from the onset to accept all ideas from the students whether relevant or not and these can be sorted through the use of G.O’s and thinking tools. The impressions refer to the ‘wonderings’ that students have and these need to be displayed so they can be integrated throughout the Inquiry process and students feel ideas are valued.
INVOLVEMENT:“Inquiry implies involvement that leads to understanding. Involvement in learning implies processing skills and attitudes that permit you to seek resolutions to questions and issues while you construct new knowledge.” Icwcclusterblog.blogspot.com
R is for.....
“Responding and Reacting” are positives outcome in all the stages of Inquiry.
Real-life experiences. Inquiry should be full of real experiences so the learning remains meaningful and relevant to the students. This will ensure motivation is maintained throughout the Inquiry.
Reflections Throughout the whole inquiry process it is important to reflect on where you have come as a learner, to reflect on the skills that you have developed and need to develop further. You need to reflect and analyse the whole process to ensure the best learning has occurred, to ensure that the inquiry has been successful.
Y is for...
You celebrate everyone’s effort and creativity at the end of an Inquiry.
Yahoo! Celebration of the children’s learning.
YES…The action! All of the hard work and learning can be celebrated with the action that finalises the Inquiry. This is relevant and meaningful to the students so they are involved until the very end.
You, the learner, takes control – create an action
The power and meaningful aspect of inquiry and to move it beyond a simple research project is to put the new information learnt into and action, an authentic purpose, creating impact with the knowledge. This is a time where learning is celebrated and shared on a local, national and international stage if possible.
Thursday, May 21, 2009
Wednesday, May 20, 2009
Immersion Racing Rima Weeks 1-3, Term 2
Displaying Learning Intention - this was important because children were learning the purpose of what they’re doing at this stage of our Inquiry. The children knew that there were always new questions to ask and answer.
Information was shared about Heroes from articles and books, and deeper thinking was developed when considering how the hero achieved what they did. Apart from class discussions, this was achieved by using the ‘Chain of Events’ G.O. Working in pairs, the children had to use/read the information in front of them and think about the WHO, HOW, WHERE, WHAT etc. This was important because it gave the children, the understanding, that there was often more than one event or circumstance that contributed to an outcome.
Clarifying the concept of a hero. Thinking of / discussing who are/is the hero and what did the hero do?
The children didn’t have any difficulty grasping the idea of a hero because they worked on the criteria of: Are they doing something good and worthwhile? Are they kind and helpful people? Are they doing something brave?
Teacher asked specific questions in context, pertaining to person’s actions/situation and what ‘it took’ to do what was needed. This required the children to think of all the different attributes and underlying strengths the person had, using factual knowledge and making inferences. The children got to know their hero in a more personal way and could put themselves in their shoes, in their world.
Discussion on K.Comp: Participating and Contributing-What does P.and C look like to us as a class? - ideas recorded and displayed for referring to. Eg. Tom, you agreed we would speak nicely to each other and work as team. Are you speaking nicely and working well with your group? NO. So what could you do to achieve this? Etc. This was great for encouraging this student to be responsible for his own actions because he was part of the class when this K.C. was composed by the class, he shares ownership of it and he understands and relates it .The responsibility was his.
Visitors contribute a hugely to IMMERSION, especially when children have deep thinking questions where so much more is revealed of the “HERO” – their feelings, emotions, thoughts, thinking, creativity etc. This is HOW the visitor/s impacted on the students understanding:The specific questions the children asked eg. How can you get a person out of a burning house and how do you feel? required complex answers, and feelings revealed through facial expressions, voice and body language told a story of their own. And when a demonstration ensued, the students understanding further increased. And because the Visitor had had first hand experiences and skills to share, the situation was genuine for the students and they were learning at first hand. Questions, also generated questions, so children were scaffolding each others learning.
Wondering Wall - many questions about Heroes were too broad and didn’t have any keywords. So the children had to make their questions more specific, so that information could be accessed on the Internet more easily. I had to work with some children 1-1 on their questions. Not all the children are at the stage where they can clearly see the purpose of deeper thinking questions. These questions were very important for seeking relevant information, and finding out exactly what they wanted to know, as the children were learning to be skilled, informed researchers, saving a lot of time. I now need to help the children to see where they’re at on the Question Rubric and how they can work on their question skills.
Classifying Heroes- Encouraged children to think about differences. Are they heroes by occupation, circumstance, chance, setting a goal and achieving it, displaying certain Virtues or using certain Key Competencies? The challenge for the children was to think about: Why don’t heroes have to be famous? – Round Robin Brainstorm
Discussion followed – consensus was, a hero could be someone you know who has helped someone in need, or someone working hard towards a goal. Used T chart G.O. with 4 of the above for headings.
In groups of three, children listed heroes who they felt belonged under each category. Children then to decided which category of people was the most important, because of the impact/affect they had people. It was very important to show that the children’s reasonings and decisions were valued, and when reporting back, for others to listen, and agree to disagree. Also, understanding that people are heroes for different reasons and could be the person sitting next to us.
Conclusion
I think, because I realise Immersion is so crucial to the success of Inquiry, I’ve tried to give the children a wide range of activities and experiences to learn about Heroes. I’ve used several G.O.s and encouraged the children to generate their own deeper thinking questions, which in turn give them more knowledge and understanding and control of their own learning. In other successful Inquiry Units we’ve done, I don’t think I had, as
a teacher, as much insight into what I was doing. So as a result, I hope the children have really benefited, especially in questioning. These reflections make you think about your own understanding and practice, which can only be good.
Displaying Learning Intention - this was important because children were learning the purpose of what they’re doing at this stage of our Inquiry. The children knew that there were always new questions to ask and answer.
Information was shared about Heroes from articles and books, and deeper thinking was developed when considering how the hero achieved what they did. Apart from class discussions, this was achieved by using the ‘Chain of Events’ G.O. Working in pairs, the children had to use/read the information in front of them and think about the WHO, HOW, WHERE, WHAT etc. This was important because it gave the children, the understanding, that there was often more than one event or circumstance that contributed to an outcome.
Clarifying the concept of a hero. Thinking of / discussing who are/is the hero and what did the hero do?
The children didn’t have any difficulty grasping the idea of a hero because they worked on the criteria of: Are they doing something good and worthwhile? Are they kind and helpful people? Are they doing something brave?
Teacher asked specific questions in context, pertaining to person’s actions/situation and what ‘it took’ to do what was needed. This required the children to think of all the different attributes and underlying strengths the person had, using factual knowledge and making inferences. The children got to know their hero in a more personal way and could put themselves in their shoes, in their world.
Discussion on K.Comp: Participating and Contributing-What does P.and C look like to us as a class? - ideas recorded and displayed for referring to. Eg. Tom, you agreed we would speak nicely to each other and work as team. Are you speaking nicely and working well with your group? NO. So what could you do to achieve this? Etc. This was great for encouraging this student to be responsible for his own actions because he was part of the class when this K.C. was composed by the class, he shares ownership of it and he understands and relates it .The responsibility was his.
Visitors contribute a hugely to IMMERSION, especially when children have deep thinking questions where so much more is revealed of the “HERO” – their feelings, emotions, thoughts, thinking, creativity etc. This is HOW the visitor/s impacted on the students understanding:The specific questions the children asked eg. How can you get a person out of a burning house and how do you feel? required complex answers, and feelings revealed through facial expressions, voice and body language told a story of their own. And when a demonstration ensued, the students understanding further increased. And because the Visitor had had first hand experiences and skills to share, the situation was genuine for the students and they were learning at first hand. Questions, also generated questions, so children were scaffolding each others learning.
Wondering Wall - many questions about Heroes were too broad and didn’t have any keywords. So the children had to make their questions more specific, so that information could be accessed on the Internet more easily. I had to work with some children 1-1 on their questions. Not all the children are at the stage where they can clearly see the purpose of deeper thinking questions. These questions were very important for seeking relevant information, and finding out exactly what they wanted to know, as the children were learning to be skilled, informed researchers, saving a lot of time. I now need to help the children to see where they’re at on the Question Rubric and how they can work on their question skills.
Classifying Heroes- Encouraged children to think about differences. Are they heroes by occupation, circumstance, chance, setting a goal and achieving it, displaying certain Virtues or using certain Key Competencies? The challenge for the children was to think about: Why don’t heroes have to be famous? – Round Robin Brainstorm
Discussion followed – consensus was, a hero could be someone you know who has helped someone in need, or someone working hard towards a goal. Used T chart G.O. with 4 of the above for headings.
In groups of three, children listed heroes who they felt belonged under each category. Children then to decided which category of people was the most important, because of the impact/affect they had people. It was very important to show that the children’s reasonings and decisions were valued, and when reporting back, for others to listen, and agree to disagree. Also, understanding that people are heroes for different reasons and could be the person sitting next to us.
Conclusion
I think, because I realise Immersion is so crucial to the success of Inquiry, I’ve tried to give the children a wide range of activities and experiences to learn about Heroes. I’ve used several G.O.s and encouraged the children to generate their own deeper thinking questions, which in turn give them more knowledge and understanding and control of their own learning. In other successful Inquiry Units we’ve done, I don’t think I had, as
a teacher, as much insight into what I was doing. So as a result, I hope the children have really benefited, especially in questioning. These reflections make you think about your own understanding and practice, which can only be good.
THE PROCESS OF IMMERSION DURING INQUIRY:
We have explored both, ‘super’ and ‘real’ heroes and this provided some good insight into the student’s initial thinking. It also went on to provide clarity for those students who were having difficulty recognising a different type of hero other than superheroes. (eg: Sir E. Hilary). Almost immediately the students began debating the qualities that determine a hero and this lead well into creating our ‘wonderings’ wall. Having the students’ curiosities, in the form of questions, displayed in the classroom has lead to extra researching and learning which the students have taken on-board independently. A great step towards self-management! With the debating still going on, we brainstormed the qualities and attributes that heroes possess. So we now have a large visual display of powerful contextual language that students are starting use when discussing heroes, however it needed to be sorted further as both ‘types’ of heroes were intertwined. This is where the introduction of The Define Map has been so beneficial. It allowed the students to ‘sort’ out the different qualities and attributes of both types of heroes and to prioritise the relevant and not so relevant. A lot of discussion amongst themselves eventuated. For me, as the teacher, I was able to quickly observe students who participated and contributed confidently and to gain an insight into the language being used and by whom. The students then demonstrated higher order thinking as they initiated a class discussion on ‘who determines who a hero is and what makes one hero better than another (or are they?) and why? This was real evidence that the Immersion into the topic had raised their level of thinking and questioning skills. Even better were the justifications of their thoughts and their confidence to share this with their peers whether they agreed or not.
We are now beginning to explore our questioning skills and have been trialling writing deeper questions to broaden the skills the students already possess.
Tanya Hunter@ Rocking Rua
We have explored both, ‘super’ and ‘real’ heroes and this provided some good insight into the student’s initial thinking. It also went on to provide clarity for those students who were having difficulty recognising a different type of hero other than superheroes. (eg: Sir E. Hilary). Almost immediately the students began debating the qualities that determine a hero and this lead well into creating our ‘wonderings’ wall. Having the students’ curiosities, in the form of questions, displayed in the classroom has lead to extra researching and learning which the students have taken on-board independently. A great step towards self-management! With the debating still going on, we brainstormed the qualities and attributes that heroes possess. So we now have a large visual display of powerful contextual language that students are starting use when discussing heroes, however it needed to be sorted further as both ‘types’ of heroes were intertwined. This is where the introduction of The Define Map has been so beneficial. It allowed the students to ‘sort’ out the different qualities and attributes of both types of heroes and to prioritise the relevant and not so relevant. A lot of discussion amongst themselves eventuated. For me, as the teacher, I was able to quickly observe students who participated and contributed confidently and to gain an insight into the language being used and by whom. The students then demonstrated higher order thinking as they initiated a class discussion on ‘who determines who a hero is and what makes one hero better than another (or are they?) and why? This was real evidence that the Immersion into the topic had raised their level of thinking and questioning skills. Even better were the justifications of their thoughts and their confidence to share this with their peers whether they agreed or not.
We are now beginning to explore our questioning skills and have been trialling writing deeper questions to broaden the skills the students already possess.
Tanya Hunter@ Rocking Rua
Room 4 Inquiry - Heroes
More concentrated effort put into this stage of Immersion by myself resulting in all children [even the very young] able to use the key competency language when discussing heroes. Having “Thinking” and what it means on display makes me refer to the sign constantly. This, I hope, will begin to impact on making the children put more thought into their own ideas when having discussions. I have realised that I have to be the strong model of effective questioning to guide the children’s learning of how two ask a good question because through observations this is not happening. By trialling the use of Drama in this Immersion stage the children are developing a much stronger understanding of thinking what it must be really like to be blind, deaf or have no legs.
Thursday, May 14, 2009
Immersion complete
For this unit, I have tried to focus on the skills needed to set up inquiry - immersion has been much more successful this time.
Focussing on the tools that the children use to clarify their understanding has been more beneficial than I realised it could be.
The Define Map - created excellent discussion in whole class and small groups, children are challenging their own thinking as well as developing the confidence to challenge others. This tool meant that understanding of concepts could be confirmed, working in goups of three demanded that everone in the group was required to showsome level of understanding and the support the students gave eachother was fantastic. The biggest benefit from this tool in Immersion is the justification of thoughts, all thinking is accepted, but now there is the expectation that students need to justify their thinking - this was not so evident in this stage before. Immersion, in previous units, has been exposure to information, it lacked the directed teaching of skills and tools. The changes made in this stage are going to have such a positive impact on the remainder of the inquiry - well thats the hope.
Questioning skills taught at this stage in context has also been very powerful. Creating meaningful and authentic thinking and learning through questioning. This being completed at this stage is providing the expectations and scaffolding for the inquiry. Children not knowing the task also means they are more open to ideas, the tools learnt at this stage will now be extended throughout the inquiry. much more powerful than previous inquiry units.
IMMERSION is one of the most important stages - it is really exciting to think about where we are going to be heading with this inquiry!!!!
Focussing on the tools that the children use to clarify their understanding has been more beneficial than I realised it could be.
The Define Map - created excellent discussion in whole class and small groups, children are challenging their own thinking as well as developing the confidence to challenge others. This tool meant that understanding of concepts could be confirmed, working in goups of three demanded that everone in the group was required to showsome level of understanding and the support the students gave eachother was fantastic. The biggest benefit from this tool in Immersion is the justification of thoughts, all thinking is accepted, but now there is the expectation that students need to justify their thinking - this was not so evident in this stage before. Immersion, in previous units, has been exposure to information, it lacked the directed teaching of skills and tools. The changes made in this stage are going to have such a positive impact on the remainder of the inquiry - well thats the hope.
Questioning skills taught at this stage in context has also been very powerful. Creating meaningful and authentic thinking and learning through questioning. This being completed at this stage is providing the expectations and scaffolding for the inquiry. Children not knowing the task also means they are more open to ideas, the tools learnt at this stage will now be extended throughout the inquiry. much more powerful than previous inquiry units.
IMMERSION is one of the most important stages - it is really exciting to think about where we are going to be heading with this inquiry!!!!
Questioning
After studying a few heroes, children were asked for a question that would give more information about a hero.
We had a variety of responses - using the questioning rubric (Trevor Bond) we even had some at level 2!!!!
Simply by showing the rubric and analysing our repsonses, the children made huge changes to their questions and were very surprised as to how simple it was, now that they knew what they were doing.
One students response:
1: How did she get experience form jobs?
after questioning lesson
2: How did Amelia Earhart get experience from her volunteer nursing and flight instructor jobs?
Children made the connection straight away, that with a better question, the information or answer is going to be of a higher quality too.
Providing the students with the scaffolding to support their thinking and learning is vitally important and has such positive and powerful results.
We had a variety of responses - using the questioning rubric (Trevor Bond) we even had some at level 2!!!!
Simply by showing the rubric and analysing our repsonses, the children made huge changes to their questions and were very surprised as to how simple it was, now that they knew what they were doing.
One students response:
1: How did she get experience form jobs?
after questioning lesson
2: How did Amelia Earhart get experience from her volunteer nursing and flight instructor jobs?
Children made the connection straight away, that with a better question, the information or answer is going to be of a higher quality too.
Providing the students with the scaffolding to support their thinking and learning is vitally important and has such positive and powerful results.
Hero vs Superhero
When introducing the topic in IMMERSION stage, there was a lot of confusion about heroes - children automatically aligned their thinking with superheroes (at this stage they do not know the task).
We used the DEFINE MAP to help clarrify ideas. Using the children original thinking on this topic, we defined a hero and superhero. The DEFINE MAP, challenged the childrens thinking as they had to justify their decisions. It made children consider different aspects of heroism, something that hadn't really happened before. The children studied a variety of heroes and use contextual language form their studies to help them when compiling the DEFINE MAP.
To follow are examples of defintions written after using the MAP.
A hero is someone that saves the day and is modest about the things they do.
A hero is an everyday person who does heroic acts and is a role model that inspores others to do good things.
A hero is a modest person who never gives up, has the courage to risk their lives for people in desperate need.
A hero is a courageous person who is kind to people and willing to save people in danger.
The define map is a great strategy, it encourages powerful thinking and great discussions.
We used the DEFINE MAP to help clarrify ideas. Using the children original thinking on this topic, we defined a hero and superhero. The DEFINE MAP, challenged the childrens thinking as they had to justify their decisions. It made children consider different aspects of heroism, something that hadn't really happened before. The children studied a variety of heroes and use contextual language form their studies to help them when compiling the DEFINE MAP.
To follow are examples of defintions written after using the MAP.
A hero is someone that saves the day and is modest about the things they do.
A hero is an everyday person who does heroic acts and is a role model that inspores others to do good things.
A hero is a modest person who never gives up, has the courage to risk their lives for people in desperate need.
A hero is a courageous person who is kind to people and willing to save people in danger.
The define map is a great strategy, it encourages powerful thinking and great discussions.
Inquiry term two - heroes
This term we have decided to change our inquiry model slightly.
We are using the tool - the question map - however, it wasn't working as well as it should be. After attending the Trevor Bond workshop, it was decided that instead of having a leading question, our question will be embedded into a task. This should (hopefully) set up the thinking for the question map so it is used more effectively.
This is our task for the unit:
Research what it means to be a hero.
Investigate the qualities that heroes display.
Using the information you have discovered, locate a hero in our local community.
Share their heroic qualities and plan an action to celebrate the heroes in our community.
Children will have questions about this task and those are going to lead into the question map.
Something else that we are trialling, so will keep you informed about how it is going.
We are using the tool - the question map - however, it wasn't working as well as it should be. After attending the Trevor Bond workshop, it was decided that instead of having a leading question, our question will be embedded into a task. This should (hopefully) set up the thinking for the question map so it is used more effectively.
This is our task for the unit:
Research what it means to be a hero.
Investigate the qualities that heroes display.
Using the information you have discovered, locate a hero in our local community.
Share their heroic qualities and plan an action to celebrate the heroes in our community.
Children will have questions about this task and those are going to lead into the question map.
Something else that we are trialling, so will keep you informed about how it is going.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)