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