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mrsganley

Web tools to support inquiry based learning - 0 views

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    This has some great tools for inquiry based learning. What makes the list even better is how it is divided based on different phases of inquiry.
mrdanbailey61

Inquiry is Differentiation | Discovering the Art of Mathematics (DAoM) - 2 views

  • explains some of the individual differences that influence problem solving
  • psychologist David Jonassen
  • Given the reality of all these differences, how can I even dream of a functional classroom in which every student is learning at their own learning edge?
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  • I believe that inquiry helps tremendously in reaching learners on different levels at the same time
  • work at their own pace
  • This is kind of funny because whole class discussions actually help make knowledge more equal which makes the classroom experience less differentiated. So while this is not really a tool to help students at their individual learning edges, it is a tool to bring out the differences and spread ideas and questions around the class.
    • mrdanbailey61
       
      This is a puzzle - how do we democratize input? This is why I like the idea of Twitter in the classroom - can be a way for reluctant speakers to particpate.
  • Ok, by now I know that it is impossible to find one particular task that will be just at the right level for all my students.
  • Another way of bringing in differentiation into your class is by letting students work on two different topics simultaneously. The students choose when they are ready to switch tasks for a while and then come back later to pick up the first topic again.
  • students know pretty well how they compare to other students and that they don’t like having to fit in and be the same all the time
  • Assessment and differentiation is a tricky subject,
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    I am not a math teacher, but I really like the ideas here. I am working at getting a handle on differentiation and inquiry-based learning for my subjects and classes (Our classes typically have 5-10 students with assessments and IEPs)..
mardimichels

36 Core Teacher Apps For Inquiry Learning With iPads - 0 views

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    Inquiry based learning with iPads - some useful apps.
Marcie Lewis

Inquiry learning / Effective pedagogy / Media gallery / Curriculum stories / Kia ora - ... - 1 views

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    Great video on learning through inquiry.
Derek Doucet

4 Phases of Inquiry-Based Learning: A Guide For Teachers - 3 views

  • 4 Phases Of Inquiry-Based Learning: A Guide For Teachers
  • Learning focuses around a meaningful, ill-structured problem that demands consideration of diverse perspectives Academic content-learning occurs as a natural part of the process as students work towards finding solutions Learners, working collaboratively, assume an active role in the learning process Teachers provide learners with learning supports and rich multiple media sources of information to assist students in successfully finding solutions Learners share and defend solutions publicly in some manner”
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    A great guide complete with edtech that helps to facilitate each of the steps of the process.
garth nichols

Do You have the Personality To Be an Inquiry-Based Teacher? | MindShift - 3 views

  • Are you optimistic? Viewing the world as damaged or the future as bleak shuts down the brain by transmitting fear. Maintaining an optimistic attitude is an expression of love, inspiring curiosity and hope, and fostering emotional and physical health. Optimism is essential to teaching: Without hope, the reason to learn disappears. Are you open? The world is being refreshed and powered by divergent thinking. Outcomes are unclear, even dangerous. But faith in the flexible thinking of the human mind can support young people as they sort out their new world and have the freedom to discover solutions not yet visible. An open attitude activates the frontal lobes, the place of flow and creativity. Are you appreciative? Deep appreciation gives permission for failure, rather than penalizing for the “wrong” answer. It honors the stops and starts of human development. It conveys the ultimate message of a communal world: We are in this together. Are you flexible? In inquiry, the journey matters as much as the destination. Constant reflection is a necessity to improving thinking and doing. Metacognition encourages wisdom, the ultimate goal of any worthy education system. Flexibility tells the brain and heart to keep working, keep going—you’re getting there. Are you purposeful? Purpose binds teacher and student into the high-minded pursuit of solutions that matter. It is the reason that “authentic” education works and inauthentic education struggles. It tightens the connection between the learner and the teacher in ways that spur the natural creative impulse to change and improve the world.
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    This is an important list of attributes for 21st Century Teaching. As schools and teachers are looking to PBL, we often don't think about what is required in the social-emotional realm of teaching that will allow PBL to fly...here's some good info' on this...
amacrae

The Third Teacher - 1 views

shared by amacrae on 19 Nov 16 - No Cached
  • 2Getting Started with the Physical EnvironmentOVERALL ...It is both an art and a science to design (as opposed to decorate) a learning environment that responds to our ultimate goal as educators – to develop independent and rigorous thought. Therefore, if we want to foster discovery and reflection, dialogue and the sharing of ideas, the overall physical environment should include:•A large gathering space for whole-group work and discussions, located near whiteboards, easels and/or projector screens.•A gathering space for small-group and whole-group discussions – where students can see clearly the representations of learning that are posted on boards or screens and hear classmates as they share ideas.•Flexible and reconfigurable space for small-group collaborative work and inquiry – space must allow for groupings of various sizes, such as pairs, triads and groups of four or more.•Desks and tables configured to facilitate discussion by allowing eye contact with peers and teacher, the unencumbered flow of traffic and enough space for students to write collaboratively.•Active areas for inquiry, investigation and wonder and quiet areas for thinking and exploring technology – all areas need to be accessible to students for communicating and documenting their own learning (e.g., computers, computer software, tablets, digital cameras and video recorders, document cameras, interactive white boards).•Instructional materials organized in such a way as to provide easy selection and access for all students – materials may include computer software, educational web sites and applications, found materials, graphic organizers, newspapers and other media, resource texts, etc.FOR MATHEMATICS ...Mathematically literate students demonstrate the capacity to “formulate, employ and interpret mathematics” (OECD, 2012, p. 4); they view themselves as mathematicians, knowing that mathematics can be used to understand important issues and to solve meaningful problems, not just in school but in life. By extension, the physical environment for mathematics learning should include: •Spaces where students can use manipulatives to solve problems and record their solutions.•Board and/or wall space to display student solutions for Math Congress and Bansho – student solutions should be easily visible from the group gathering space.•Space to post co-created reference charts such as glossary terms and past and current summaries of learning that specifically support the development of the big ideas currently under study.•Instructional materials organized in such a way as to provide easy selection and access for all students; may include mathematics manipulatives, calculators and other mathematical tools, mathematical texts, hand-held technology.FOR LITERACY ... Today’s literate learners experience “a constant stream of ideas and information” – they need strategies for interpretation and making sense and lots of practice in identifying meaning, bias and perspective (Ontario Ministry of Education, 2009, 2006). By extension, the physical environment for literacy learning should include: •Spaces where students can talk, listen, read and write.A place for wonder, mystery and discovery ...“We need to think about creating classroom environments that give children the opportunity for wonder, mystery and discovery; an environment that speaks to young children’s inherent curiosity and innate yearning for exploration is a classroom where children are passionate about learning and love school.” (Heard & McDonough, 2009)
  • maintain that the key to learning in today’s world is not just the physical space we provide for students but the social space as well (
  • A large gathering space
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  • mall-
tantoniades

Life in a 21st-Century English Class | MindShift | KQED News - 4 views

  • Finally, technology is embedded into the structure of all we do. It’s part of how we research, how we capture information, and how we display our learning. It’s never an accessory tacked on at the end.
    • tantoniades
       
      This is where I need to get.  I'm still very much in the "tacking on" phase.
  • My students started by creating a Flickr feed, Facebook page, a YouTube account, a Tumblr blog, and a Twitter account. They decided that visual representations of their knowledge would be the most powerful. So some of my students created photographs depicting images that they felt best represented modern trafficking. These photos were then edited in Picnik, and posted to our blog.
    • tantoniades
       
      I dont know what half of these things are, but I'm going to find out - we do Beloved, which is really similar thematically, and my assessment for the unit is really similar (even if it's not tech-based...yet).
  • A few years ago I tried to teach this idea to a grade 12 class when we were studying essay writing. They didn’t get it. But in the context we were using, after comparing social media content, it made perfect sense to my grade 11 students.
    • tantoniades
       
      I find this really annoying.  
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  • The Museum Box site allows you to build  an argument or description of an event, person or historical period by placing items in a virtual box. Students can display anything from a text file to a movie. My students will be using this platform to argue their thesis, rather than writing a traditional essay.
    • tantoniades
       
      Intriguing.  Go on...
  • My students have started designing our curriculum units. Seriously. While transitioning to our current unit, we discussed the possibilities as a class.
    • tantoniades
       
      I dont mean to be a crank, but this has everything to do with teaching, and nothing to do with technology.
  • Before the technology/constructivist shift in my classsroom, I would have taught all of this quite traditionally. We’d read books, answer questions, and then address those questions in class. I’d lecture a lot, with supplemental grammar lessons here and there, and I’d include some type of artistic project to achieve viewing and representing objectives. The whole design would have been extremely teacher centered. And at the end of it all, I’d hope they learned something about writing and thinking. Instead, inquiry and technology are a natural part of our English classes.
    • tantoniades
       
      Again, I know I'm being a cynical old grump, but you cannot use "technology" and "constructivist" like they're two parts of the same idea.  I think it's perfectly feasible to imagine a constructivist classroom that runs without tech, and vice versa.  Both of them running in harmony...that's the dream, all right.
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    An article about some ways technology can be used to help an inquiry-based high school English class...
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    Hey Tony - I think you'd be really interested in TPACK - a tech integration framework that looks at pedagogical knowledge, content knowledge and tech knowledge. For more info check out tpack.org! We'll be looking at these in our third face to face but it sounds like you're ready to delve!
garth nichols

Beyond teacher egocentrism: design thinking | Granted, and... - 2 views

  • As teachers we understandably believe that it is the ‘teaching’ that causes learning. But this is too egocentric a formulation. As I said in my previous post, the learner’s attempts to learn causes all learning.
  • From this viewpoint, the teacher is merely one resource for learning, no different from a book, a peer, an experience, or an experimental result.
  • It is the learner who decides to try to learn (or not) from what happens.
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  • We think like a designer, not like a teacher, when we say: the teacher is just one element in the design. The choice of task, pedagogy, groupings, flow of work, resources, furniture, light, noise level, role of people and text – all of these design elements are arguably as important as the teacher.
  • What are those conditions, in a nutshell? I would highlight the following: Thought-provoking intellectual challenges (inquiries, questions, problems) The challenge has been designed to optimize self-sustaining and productive work by learners, related to a clear and intellectually worthy goal The learners have become reasonably competent in classroom routines that foster productive goal-focused work The challenge cannot be accomplished by a worksheet, checklist or recipe. It requires strategic use of knowledge and skill, creative problem-solving, and critical thinking; and the eliciting of multiple perspectives on how to address the challenge and gauge progress. There is an unambiguous product or performance goal (even if there is ambiguity about how to achieve the goal), supported by clear criteria and standards, thus permitting ongoing student self-assessment and self-adjustment. There is enough feedback within the challenge (and resources) that the work can be maximally self-sustaining and productive. The teacher is therefore freed up to coach for a significant amount of time, permitting personalized feedback and guidance (as well as just-in-time mini-lessons). This coaching role also permits the teacher to determine what is and isn’t working in the challenge, and thus enables the teacher to quickly change gears if the desired learning is not occurring or the process is not working.
  • In other words, it is a poor design for learning that puts all the burden of teaching and processing on the teacher. Then, the teacher can neither coach nor understand what is going on in the minds of learners. Worse, endless teaching, no matter how expert, soon becomes passive and without much meaning to learners who must wait days, sometimes weeks, to get meaningful chances to interact with the content, to try out their ideas on others, and to get the feedback they need.
  • Group-worthy tasks – Focus on central concepts or big ideas that require active meaning-making The challenge itself has ambiguity or limited scaffold and prompting so that student meaning-making and different inferences about the task and how to address it will emerge. Are best accomplished by ensuring that multiple perspectives are found tried out in addressing the task. This not only rewards creative and non-formulaic thought but undercuts the likelihood that one strong student can do all the key work. Provide multiple ways of being competent in the task work and the task process Can only be done well by a group, but are designed to foster both individual and group autonomy. (The teacher’s role as teacher and direction-giver should be minimized to near zero). Demand both individual and group accountability Have clear evaluation criteria
tanyacatallo

Professional Learning Communities Still Work (If Done Right) - Education Week Teacher - 0 views

  • see themselves as members of strong collaborative cultures saw significant benefits in their day-to-day work in key instructional areas, such as planning lessons, developing teaching skills and content, and aligning curriculum and expectations.
    • tanyacatallo
       
      Cohort21 a great collaborative experience
    • tanyacatallo
       
      Finding meaning in our work is a collaborative activity. The power of collaboration is fascinating!
  • job-embedded professional development occurs when educators are members of high-performing professional learning communities
  • A professional learning community is not simply a meeting: It is an ongoing process in which educators work collaboratively in recursive cycles of collective inquiry and action research in order to achieve better results for the students they serve.
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  • collaborative teams rather than in isolation and take collective responsibility for student learning.
  • implement a guaranteed and viable curriculum, unit by unit
  • criteria they will use in assessing student work
  • monitor student learning through an ongoing assessment process
  • common formative assessments.
  • improve their individual practice
  • school provides a systematic process for intervention and enrichment
Adam Caplan

Technology Integration Matrix - 7 views

shared by Adam Caplan on 22 Nov 14 - No Cached
    • Derek Doucet
       
      Take a minute to make a group shared comment sharing a lesson you did and where it would fall on the matrix.
  • The Technology Integration Matrix (TIM) illustrates how teachers can use technology to enhance learning for K-12 students. The TIM incorporates five interdependent characteristics of meaningful learning environments: active, constructive, goal directed (i.e., reflective), authentic, and collaborative (Jonassen, Howland, Moore, & Marra, 2003). The TIM associates five levels of technology integration (i.e., entry, adoption, adaptation, infusion, and transformation) with each of the five characteristics of meaningful learning environments. Together, the five levels of technology integration and the five characteristics of meaningful learning environments create a matrix of 25 cells as illustrated below.
    • Derek Doucet
       
      I hosted a Hangout to plan a shared experience with a francophone from Cameroon who writes for Thot-Cursus and is a part of Global Voices en français. He spoke to my class about social media and tech in the classroom. My students posed questions based on his articles. Later in the unit, students were let loose with a framework and they were able to choose the best tech to achieve the learning outcomes. And I forever have a network at Global Voices en français who will be making regular appearances in my courses.
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    • Tia Chambers
       
      the students in grade one collaboratively corrected some "sick letters" at the "printing clinic" on a SmartBoard document during a printing lesson. 
    • Adam Caplan
       
      Students were asked to create a finance spreadsheet for a hypothetical bakery and create formulas to help generate averages and other automatic, referenced calculations in Excel.  Even though the process of discovering the formula and function equations was based in individual inquiry, none of the girls runs a bakery, so the content was not especially authentic. This part of the activity's Tech Integration can be rated at Entry. 
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    For use in Option 1 during TIM exploration
Justin Medved

Clearing the Confusion between Technology Rich and Innovative Poor: Six Questions - 3 views

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    "Test your own level of innovation.  If you answer no to all Six Questions when evaluating the design of assignments and student work, than chances are that technology is not really being applied in the most innovative ways. The questions we ask to evaluate implementation and define innovation are critical." Did the assignment build capacity for critical thinking on the web? Did the assignment develop new lines of inquiry? Are there opportunities for students to make their thinking visible? Are there opportunities to broaden the perspective of the conversation with authentic audiences from around the world? Is there an opportunity for students to create a contribution (purposeful work)? Does the assignment demo "best in the world" examples of content and skill?
Justin Medved

PIRSA - The Secret to Engagement: Lessons from Video - 1 views

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    "Derek Muller from YouTube's Veritasium will present a webcast on Wednesday November 27, 2013 at 7pm EST from the Mike Lazaridis Theatre of Ideas at Perimeter Institute.Derek will discuss the question: Do videos really improve student learning? Derek's PhD in physics education research suggests the answer may be no! In this one hour talk, he will share insights from his research as well as the incredible physics phenomena he has captured for his YouTube channel.Derek Muller created the popular YouTube channel Veritasium in January 2011. With almost 1 million subscribers, Derek's 140 videos have received over 45 million views."
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    Hi Justin- Derek Muller spoke to our students last week. I can't speak to the level of conceptual understanding students achieve from watching the videos, but I witnessed some serious engagement and excitement about science and physics in particular. He encouraged the audience to ask questions and observe the science all around them. Sounds like a great complement to inquiry-based learning.
garth nichols

The chasm between high school and university - 0 views

  • Let's start with the secondary system. As this level of education becomes significantly student focused, there are many of us in the system who fear we are coddling students in the extreme and not preparing them at all for the realities of the work world or college/university. Here are samples of policies, largely instituted by the Ministry of Education, that added together, have lead to concerns re: coddling.
  • •Late work: Student work is not penalized for lateness. Late work is viewed as a behavioural issue, not an academic one. •Plagiarism: This is also seen as a behavioural issue, and usually does not result in any academic penalty, even in a grade 12 University level course. •Evaluation: Policies are moving away from grades being derived from an average of all student assignments in favour of a more general approach that reflects "most recent and/or most consistent" achievement. •Lower limits: Students getting failing grades are assessed by this policy which requires teachers to give a mark of 30 to students who are, on paper, achieving anywhere from 1-29 per cent. This is designed to 'give them hope' of success. •Credit rescue/recovery: A policy designed to give students who fail a course the opportunity to make up key missed work with the goal of achieving a passing grade. •Memorization: The idea of students actually memorizing material is viewed as "old fashioned" and is rejected in favour of "inquiry based learning'." The world of the university student is decidedly different, as evidenced by their policies. •Late work: Most courses do not accept late work. Period. •Plagiarism: This is viewed as academic dishonesty, and harsh academic penalties are in place. •Evaluation: Most courses feature few evaluations that are weighted heavily, and grades are based on the average of all assignments. •Evaluation: The move toward knowledge-based evaluation is epidemic. Exams, even in courses like literature studies and philosophy, are commonly multiple choice and short answer exams.
  • •If students are trained for the 14 years they attend school that there really are few consequences to academic problems, how will they fare in the much more rigorous world of post-secondary education? A history professor recently asked me what we (high school teachers) were doing to our kids.
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  • The idea that we have largely abandoned 'knowledge based learning' in no way prepares students for the new reality of university
  • As for the world of work, students who have struggled to graduate by submitting work late, gaining credits through credit rescue, and who have not developed responsibility for their work may improve rates of graduation, but will not serve them in the work world, where the safety nets they have come to rely on do not exist.
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    Interesting perspective on how the MoE is/is not preparing our students for post-secondary and the work force
mardimichels

The Elephant in the Room | Network.Ed - 0 views

  • Even when the most innovative teachers progress from teacher-centred classroom dynamics to inquiry or project based learning, rarely is technology considered to supply the scaffold for a more effective collaborative and socio-constructivist approach to the acquisition of knowledge.
  • We need to realise that these technologies are only absent from schools because we are deliberately keeping them out. We have created an alternative reality in which technology doesn’t exist. We are, in effect, striving to perpetuate a status quo that is already dead and buried in the real world.
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    Interesting (older) article about the use of technology to support innovative teaching methods.
garth nichols

Harvard Education Publishing Group - Home - 1 views

  • Teachers can use the QFT at different points: to introduce students to a new unit, to assess students’ knowledge to see what they need to understand better, and even to conclude a unit to see how students can, with new knowledge, set a fresh learning agenda for themselves. The technique can be used for all ages.
  • Dupuy, Muhammad, and many other teachers are using a step-by-step process that we and our colleagues at the Right Question Institute have developed called the Question Formulation Technique (QFT)
  • In health care, for example, research funded by the National Institutes of Health has shown that the QFT produces dramatic increases in levels of patient activation and improved patient-provider communication. In the classroom, teachers have seen how the same process manages to develop students’ divergent (brainstorming), convergent (categorizing and prioritizing), and metacognitive (reflective) thinking abilities in a very short period of time.
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    How important are questions? Just ask!
garth nichols

Clearing the Confusion between Technology Rich and Innovative Poor: Six Questions - 1 views

  • Transformational Six Did the assignment build capacity for critical thinking on the web? Did the assignment develop new lines of inquiry? Are there opportunities for students to make their thinking visible? Are there opportunities to broaden the perspective of the conversation with authentic audiences from around the world? Is there an opportunity for students to create a contribution (purposeful work)? Does the assignment demo “best in the world” examples of content and skill?
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    Are we really using technology to make our assignments/tasks/activities/lessons INNOVATIVE?
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    Great questions to ask ourselves and our colleagues as we move deeper into integrating tech into our everyday practice
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