Category: Free Inquiry (Page 1 of 2)

Milana and I had both focused on the subject of inquiry as our inquiry, and this conversation was a really nice way to share our thoughts, exchange ideas, and do our final inquiry reflection of our learning together.

Thank you, Milana!

My initial plan for this inquiry included having something tangible that would help me conduct or initiate the inquiry process in a public-school classroom. My first practicum is a few weeks away and my mentor teacher has given me permission to use inquiry to explore one of the topics I will be responsible for teaching. She also offered the Advisory time as a possibility for a free guided inquiry (which sounds oxymoronic, I know).

As a tool for building relationships with the students, diagnosing their comfortability with particular curricular content and experiences, and to provide them with an opportunity to voice their own interests, I have decided to create a document with a list of interview-type questions each student can fill out. The information the students provide can help me/us decide what a good topic for a guided inquiry may be, or if inquiry can be used as an approach to some of the other curriculum I am responsible for teaching.

There are 15 questions in a Word .doc that I will ask all the students to fill out to the best of their ability. There is a mixture of open and closed questions, imaginary scenarios and real-life situations, questions related to some usual school curricular content and questions that offer an open door to any interest a student may have.

I hope to use this questionnaire as an opportunity, not only to get to know the students, but to use some of the answers as a potential topic(s) for a quick guided inquiry. My hope with a potential inquiry project would be that, in the least, the students get to practice a bit of democracy, have an opportunity to experience the process of a short inquiry project, and, in some way, use their individual skills to create a group artifact that shows our work and learning.

I am open to this questionnaire being revised, and I look forward to the student’s feedback.

‘If students designed their own schools, what would school look like?’ is the question posed in the mini documentary, If Students Designed Their Own Schools… (2013) that leads to an exploration of a project where students design their own learning.

By each week, Monday, students need to prepare a question they are interested in pursuing and that also relates to the core subjects: English, Math, Social Sciences, and the Natural Sciences. The students conduct research to find answer(s) to their question(s) and present their findings on the Friday of each week.

Along with their weekly research question, the students have an ongoing project called, the individual endeavour, which can be anything, as long as there is a presence of effort, learning, and a mastery of skill(s).

In the last three weeks of the semester, students also work on a project called, the collective endeavour, the goal of which is social impact and to make a difference. I see this group project as an organic way for practicing collaboration skills and unity around a common cause.

It was stated in documentary that this style of education has supported the high achieving students and those who have struggled in school, because there is a belief that “everybody is interested in something.”

At [12:04] of the documentary, one of the students makes an interesting comment: “The world we’re coming into right now – we’re going to really be on our own. We’re not going to be able to rely on our elders telling us what to do. It’s going to be us telling us what to do and then responsible for the next generation trying to help them.”

Watching this documentary gave me another source of evidence that I will use to further the inquiry approach in the public school system.

Putting Inquiry Into Practice…

I had my first meeting with my practicum mentor teacher and the grade 8 class I will be with for my first practicum. When discussing my teaching responsibilities, I asked if I could do a guided inquiry project. My mentor teacher said ‘yes’, but asked me to start from what I will be responsible for teaching from the curriculum.

I would like to take a more open approach, asking the students what they would like to learn about (any subject, any field), but I will prepare for either path. I am hopeful that we may create opportunity for some really good learning and maybe we’ll get to do two inquiry projects – one BC curriculum-initiated and one student-initiated. Let’s see!

For the past two weeks, we have had guest speakers who work directly with the inquiry approach in school settings, with one of those working in an online format. It has been refreshing to listen to the ongoing experiences of these teachers who are employing the inquiry approach in education – and having success. Along with my talk with @trev_mackenzie, these educators have provided me with enough evidence to discuss with my practicum mentor teacher the prospect of doing a guided inquiry project during my upcoming six-week practicum.

And these little wood pieces I prepared for my outdoor green space lesson for EPHE 312 has given me an idea for a potential guided inquiry project, subject to the needs and expectations of the mentor teacher of course.

My first meeting with my mentor teacher is this coming Friday, and I will state my case for doing an inquiry project and see what happens. Fingers crossed!

@trev_mackenzie was kind enough to have a Zoom meeting with me that I could ask some of questions that arose as I read his book, Dive Into Inquiry (2016).

We talked about his success with supporting students understand the, usually new, expectations of thinking for themselves and following their own questions. Trevor assured me, that while some administrators may, indeed, expect the year’s planning of curriculum before the beginning of the school year, administrators also recognize that plans change; that he never felt an administrator was unsure of using inquiry in the classroom.

We spoke about the similarities between inquiry and pedagogical narration, and that the visual documentation process of pedagogical narration provides an advantage when using it to promote an inquiry mindset in the early elementary school years.

I asked Trevor his thoughts on the idea of post-secondary educational institutions being the ironic roadblock to inquiry-style education becoming the mainstay, and while he agreed to some extent, Trevor also did remind me that education is changing; that inquiry is being adopted in more districts by more teachers, and that the universities are also making changes that could see a great shift in education.

To respect Trevor’s time, I ended the meeting by using a quote from his book to summarize the final part of our conversation – “In order to see results you have never seen, you will need to do things you’ve never done” (MacKenzie, 2016, p. 120).

Again, my thanks to Trevor for taking time out of his busy schedule to meet with me, and I hope to also become a force for an inquiry-style in education!

In preparation for a Zoom meeting scheduled for Tuesday, February 20 with @trev_mackenzie, who has been so kind to offer some of his time that I may ask some questions about his book and inquiry in the classroom, I have expanded on last week’s post to include a few select points from my notes for chapters 7 – 13 of Dive Into Inquiry (MacKenzie, 2016).

Dive into Inquiry Chapters 7 – 13 Notes

• “I am confident that if we gave students, from a young age, the opportunity to ask questions they were encouraged to explore, it would guide them to a more meaningful and enriched educational experience” (MacKenzie, 2016, p. 45).
• “By empowering students in the direction of their education, we are nurturing an intrinsic motivation with awesome benefits” (p. 46)
• Four Pillars of Inquiry
  • Explore a passion
    • Use passion prompts to have students, on their own, with partners, or with the whole class, to reflect on and define what they are passionate about
    • Introduce students to passionate people
  • Aim for a goal
    • Allows students to explore more deeply where they want to be in their future and how they can get there
    • Interview students to help them identify a goal
  • Delve into your curiosities
    • Create a curiosity journal
    • What if questions lead to amazing learning opportunities (see page 60-61 for a list of great questions)
  • Take on a new challenge
    • Individual challenges, small group challenges, or single long-term group challenges
• Equation for passion: exploration x discovery + time² = passion
• Path to inquiry question – select a topic, determine what a student already knows about the topic (W5H helps with this), do some preliminary research with strong resources, form an essential question
• Essential Questions: Opening Doors to Student Understanding by Jay McTighe and Grant Wiggins
• Make Just One Change: Teach Students to Ask Their Own Questions by Dan Rothstein and Luz Santana
• The Question Formulation Technique (QFT) in Make Just One Change

• A strong essential question must be open-ended, be related to the course and grade level of the student, and be meaningful to the student
• An explicit list in the text states, an essential question should…
  • Provoke deep thought
  • Solicit information-gathering and evaluation of data
  • Result in an original answer
  • Help students conduct problem-related research
  • Makes students produce original ideas rather than predetermined answers
  • Encourage critical thinking, not just memorisation of facts (MacKenzie, 2016, p. 77)
• An essential question may not have an answer
• Some great question stems to initiate a student’s construction of a question: Which one? How? What if? Should? Why?
• MacKenzie (2016) also provides a list of the essential question stems with a little more direction on page 78.
• During a meeting with students to discuss their essential question, he asks three questions:
  • Is your essential question open-ended?
  • Does your essential question provide the depth of study demanded by the course?
  • How is your essential question meaningful to you?
• The Free Inquiry Proposal has six parts:
  • Identify the essential question and include a description of why/how it’s meaningful. (The meaningfulness of the question can become the prompt for hooking an audience when it’s time to display the learning.)
  • What will be the authentic piece that demonstrates the learning process, and how will that be made public?
  • What sources will be used to research/explore the question? (This is usually just the starting point, as new sources will be found during the exploration, and even new questions asked during the process.)
  • What is the goal(s) of the inquiry project? (Teachers can use these goals to know how to support the student.)
  • How will you provide evidence of your learning?
  • What is the day-to-day, calendar plan that will lead to a successful learning experience? (Map out the milestones of the project, using the date of public display and working backwards from there. Periodically reflect on calendar and revise as necessary.)
• Question: What is the importance of ‘the pitch’?
• Question: How can inquiry projects be used in elementary school? Which subjects are well-suited to inquiry projects?
• Page 92 has a list of a variety of authentic pieces/performances and the learning evidence each produces
• Teacher keeps all inquiry proposals in a binder for quick reference and check-ins with students
• Some tips shared with students for the explore and research stage:
  • Take time to explore
  • Be flexible about what you expect from your time
  • Take time to reflect and relax
  • Use an inquiry journal
  • Excellent inquiry journal teacher-to-student prompts on page 98
• Frequent learning evidence check-ins are valuable for supporting students
• Providing specific, meaningful, and clear feedback throughout the Explore and Research stage leads students to feel supported
• The authentic piece “must summarize their learning and reflect, to an extent, the must-know content [the] course demands” (p. 104) and fit into the learning objectives of the course
• Use examples of other people’s work to get an understanding of what you (the student) would like to achieve/demonstrate in their authentic piece
• When the authentic piece is outside the knowledge of the teacher, collaborate with a professional to do the assessment
• Public displays of inquiry learning include 3 components:
  • A visual representation of the authentic piece
  • An inquiry statement that includes the question and background of the inquiry, including motivation
  • A five-minute inquiry reflection video (using Explain Everything app)
• Adopt inquiry with three things in mind:
  • Think big and plan for the future classroom you want for your learners
  • Start with small changes first to add inquiry to your class
  • Always keep the learners at the heart of inquiry
  • (and a fourth) Find comfort in the mess of uncertainty
• Great quote: “In order to see results you have never seen, you will need to do things you’ve never done” (MacKenzie, 2016, p. 120)

For this week’s inquiry blog post, I will expand on a few select points from my notes for chapters 1 – 6 of Dive Into Inquiry (MacKenzie, 2016).

Dive into Inquiry Chapters 1-6 Notes

• I have heard that some administrators expect to see a year’s plan before the beginning of the school year. And so, my question is: How does administration view the process of using the first few weeks of school to co-design the curricular content with students for the year/semester? Does this freedom need to come with established trust? What did MacKenzie (2016) need to overcome or provide in way of evidence to have administration support his approach?
• “Make learning visible” (p. 20) sounds very reminiscent of the early childhood education (ECE) literature pertaining to Reggio Emilia, documentation, and pedagogical narrations in British Columbia. I wonder if this terminology has from ECE…
• Inquiry is “the process of being open to wonder and puzzlements and coming to know and understand the world” (Alberta, Focus on Inquiry, 2004; as cited in MacKenzie, 2016, p. 22)
• Inquiry-based learning is “a process where students are involved in their learning, create essential questions, investigate widely and then build new understandings, meanings, and knowledge. That knowledge is new to the students and may be used to answer their essential question, to develop and may be used to support a position or point of view. The knowledge is usually presented to others in some sort of a public manner and may result in some sort of action” (Alberta, Focus on Inquiry, 2004; as cited in MacKenzie, 2016, p. 22)
• MacKenzie (2016) talks about flipping control in the classroom, empowering student learning and scaffolding with the Types of Student Inquiry (Structured Inquiry, Controlled Inquiry, Guided Inquiry, Free Inquiry). Question: I wonder if there have been students who are so acclimatized to a teacher-led model that they do not ever feel comfortable with the gradual release of responsibility approach he talks about taking with the students in his class(es).
• The author refers to Understanding by Design by McTighe and Wiggins, which is a resource I will need to look into.
• I appreciate the listing of the twenty-first century learners soft skills: curiosity, creativity, initiative, multi-disciplinary thinking, and empathy, growth mind-set, grit, character. Having experienced the Japanese macrosystem, it is the last two, grit and character that I think students in Victoria, BC may need to focus on. It would help if the adults in their lives were more able to model characteristics like grit and character.

Partway through chapter four, MacKenzie (2016) provides a QR code link to a video entitled, If students designed their own schools. I have revised my inquiry planning sheet to add this as next week’s learning task, including the activity of listing the pros and cons, as described in MacKenzie (2016).

I have finally created a tentative plan for my inquiry project with the same document being the tracking sheet. Taking it slow for now, I have planned to read half of the chapters of Dive Into Inquiry (2016) by next Friday and the rest of the book by the following Friday. As the author, Trevor MacKenzie is an educator in SD61, this will provide me with a local voice that advocates for inquiry in the classroom.

To widen my own understanding by listening to all perspectives, I will follow the book with a podcast by John Sweller, Why inquiry-based approaches harm student learning. It will be interesting to hear what evidence there may be that suggests an inquiry approach is actually harmful to student learning. I am always open to listening to all the degrees on the circle.

From there, I would like to have some in-person conversations, but because I have yet to confirm whether anyone can offer their time to me, I will leave this as a to be determined.

And finally, my goal of this inquiry is to create a document or resource that I can use to possibly implement an inquiry project into my six-week practicum – or sometime later in my career, depending on the goals and perspective of the teacher who will be overseeing my practicum. But, having something tangible to show my practicum teacher that explains how I plan to go about the process will likely increase my chances of being able to do so instead of just going into practicum with high hopes and germinal aspirations.

With the goal of understanding how to best incorporate inquiry into my teaching practice, it is important that I begin inquiring about inquiry from any perspective available. And so, when speaking to representatives of school districts at a career fair in the Learning Commons at UVic, I inquired about inquiry.

“How are inquiry projects being done in your district?”

“If I was a practicum student in your district, would the supervising teacher(s), administration, and/or district be open to me doing inquiry projects in the classroom during my practicum?”

The answers I received to these questions led me to a thought:

Inquiry is now a buzzword in education, and just like the term pedagogical narration in early childhood education, the consumer of information needs to be wary of unsubstantiated conjecture masquerading as knowledgeable-by-experience. Educators need to be diligent in discerning between those who talk the talk and those who walk the talk, as there is a substantial difference. And when interacting with those who only talk the talk, my recommendation is to politely smile, say ‘thank-you’, and move along.

The next stop on my journey through and to inquiry is with Trevor MacKenzie’s publication, Dive Into Inquiry (2016), which I have borrowed from the UVic library. Reading through and taking notes will be my task for this upcoming week.

For this inquiry project assignment for EDCI 336, I will look at how I can support the inquiry process for other learners. Inquiry as a process aligns with my philosophy of learning and educating, and is an educational approach that I have been in relationship with since my training in early childhood education.

The Reggio Emilia-inspired style of education that was the foundational approach of my diploma in early childhood education, challenged me to think about the interests, explicit or implicit, of the child, along with the underlying developmental stage of each domain and respond in a curricular way to scaffold the child’s understanding, abilities, and development. In the last semester of my diploma, we were introduced to the project approach (Helm & Katz, 2000).

Whether as a practicing early childhood education in Ontario, Japan, or in British Columbia, it was my initial training that set the foundation for my interest in self-driven learning. Before entering the PDP program at UVic, my career in early childhood education culminated with this project; an effort to help early childhood educators understand and practice an inquiry-driven approach referred to as pedagogical narrations in British Columbia.

As an education student, the inquiry project I did for EDCI 360, entitled, ‘What if the Goal of Education was Flow?’, was driven by the, slightly, more digestible question, ‘How do we help students reach a state of flow to maximize engagement and learning?’ One of the criteria for reaching a flow state, according to Csikszentmihalyi (1988), is intrinsic motivation. Reflecting on my own life, the moments I felt the most joy in a success, as defined by my own parameters/conditions, I had decided the learning path to embark on; I knew what I knew, and I knew what I didn’t know – which led me to the understanding of I wanted or needed to know – which led me to a state of knowing. And I’m not saying that that knowing is all-knowing, that the knowing is complete or perfect, or that my knowing is better than anyone else’s knowing. No. But what it does mean, for me, is that when I was able to act on my own interest in something, I tapped into intrinsic motivation and that energy source fueled my inquiry. And now, it seems like a natural progression to learn more about Reggio Emilia, project-based learning, pedagogical documentation/narration from the perspective of inquiry; to develop my skills using another set of literature, resources, and experiences. And so, as stated above, I will start this inquiry by looking into the inquiry-based learning literature to find out how I can support the inquiry process for other learners.