voicEd.ca has invited Canadian bloggers writing about education to post their “best” entry of 2012. This may a piece of writing to which they feel particularly attached, something that received some good response, or an entry that got others thinking in a different way. We’ll be featuring these pieces in this space over the next couple of weeks with the hopes that readers might find them to be a good review of where our thinking has taken us over the past year. Feel free to join in the conversation, or submit your own entry for posting!
The following blog entry is from Louise Robitaille who blogs at Inquiry-based Learning.
Step 1: Teachers gather and collect as much information as possible on the subject, to help students with research, investigations and inquiries. Our grade one teacher gives each group, small clip boards to take notes, a basket to organize material and sticky notes to post information on charts.
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| Finding great websites for research |
Step 2: Teachers help to develop background knowledge for students. Creating a graphic organizer such as a Know-What-Learn-Find (KWLF) chart can help build knowledge. This process helps a student develop questions and helps to develop a curiosity for the subject.
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| Gr. 1 What I know & Questions I have |
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| Grade 5/6 KWLF |
Step 3: Teachers share mentor texts and model lessons. Pete and Danielle spend a good deal of time building background knowledge, asking questions and demonstrating the inquiry process through mini-lessons.
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| Using Mentor Text |
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| Teacher Models |
Step 4: Teachers give students a choice of what they would like to learn more about. In the grade one class students were learning about animals. They brainstormed a list, then each student selected the animal they wanted to investigate.
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| Student selects an animal for inquiry project |
Step 5: Students explore and track their thinking around their understanding and learning of a subject. During the grade one animal study, these boys are focused, engaged and very excited about working on their inquiry project. It’s interesting to note that even though the text was beyond their reading level, they were able to use charts and graphics to learn about their animal of study.
Step 6: Students collaborate and work together to gather and share information.
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| Collaborating! |
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| Engaged and Motivated |
Step 7: Students present and share their learning. As peers listen to presentation, they take notes and list their questions on post-it notes and prepare to give positive feedback.
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| Listing questions for presenters |
Step 8: Public sharing!
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| Sharing our learning! |
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| Celebration! |
Check out the movie clip I made about the grade 1 inquiry using the Animoto app – http://animoto.com/play/dh39oAbzuCsVdtpZZfrwnA
Inquiring minds want to know! Please share your steps to inquiry!
Responding as a parent – If ‘steps to inquiry’ is an ideal example of lesson planning or inquiry learning, to which I would not know not being schooled in pedagogy; than what would be the outcomes for grade 1 students who have mild to severe difficulties in reading and writing issues?
It just struck me as a parent, the grade one students would have to be more or less at the same levels in reading and writing, for collaboration, motivation and engagement to take place. Otherwise welcome to the world of parents, dealing with the fallout of their children with reading and writing issues in the home environment.
This set of students are receiving the message on a daily basis, that they don’t have what it takes to be good learners. Not when they struggled through a reading passage, but their partner eases through it, obtains the goods, and puts it down before the poor kid is only mid-way through the short passage. Then the well-meaning teacher steps in, and the teacher will write on the easel what the student expresses himself. That is if he can just remember what the student had read and listen to during the research activity. As for the charts, and sticky notes, it be a mine field for the grade 1 students with reading issues and by extension expressing themselves in writing, making this set of students less inclined to participate, decreasing motivation and engagement with busy silent thoughts of, “I just wish I could read better”, or other wishing thoughts well doing their utmost to avoid humiliation by their classmates.
What happens to this set of students in the classroom, who really want to avail and take advantage of learning opportunities in the inclusive classroom , but they can’t due to the reading and writing difficulties. The crucial set of tools needed to learned about an animal, but the tools have been denied to them, because the grade 1 students do not qualified for reading and writing help beyond the inclusive classroom.
Not the fault of the educators, but should it not be pointed out to the administration and school board staff by the educators, the problems arising from the new collaboration and inquiry learning models dealing with students who have reading and writing issues that are in need of corrective remediation?
Just wondering?
Hi Nancy,
I’ve been reading “Why Are School Buses Always Yellow?: Teaching for Inquiry, PreK-5 by John F. Barell. He lists the benefits of inquiry and notes that “…research on students with learning disabilities, Scruggs, Mastropieri, Bakken and Brigham (1993, as cited in the National Resource Council, 2000) found significantly higher learning with an inquiry-oriented approach.” (p.21)
Thanks,
Louise
The education researchers within the education faculties that have been cited, are a big problem once their research reaches the bottom levels of school and school boards. Scruggs, Mastropieri, Bakken and Brigham are such creatures, carrying out research at the edges and parameters of LD and other disorders that impacts learning in the classroom, by offering learning strategies for educators within the given progressive pedagogy methods and as such the present one – inquiry-oriented approach.
Furthermore to the statement of, “(1993, as cited in the National Resource Council, 2000) found significantly higher learning with an inquiry-oriented approach, the LD students are better engaged and motivated in their learning, but what is never discussed within the public education circles – will the LD students and other students with weaker skills in the 3 Rs, remembered the newly acquired knowledge two days from now, 1 week or even two months from now?
The researchers that lie outside the education system, will tell a much different story, and in the end why children who have lower levels of reading, writing and numeracy, are often the lowest achievers in the typical classroom. In fact, anywhere between 94 to 96 percent of LD students are at the bottom of the achievement after 12 years of schooling. The remaining 4 to 6 % of the LD students are the lucky ones who managed to get the help that they needed, usually privately, at home and a few at the school level. This particular stat is a given in both Canada and United States, and other English speaking countries such as United Kingdom and Australia. Inquiry-oriented approaches will motivate and engaged all students, but frustration will rear its ugly head for students with lower levels of the 3 Rs. If Barell is any indication, reading chapter 4 of his book, a grade 3 lesson plan, grade 3 students would obviously required a strong foundation in the 3 Rs, and as well as having prior knowledge of the subject material. I highly doubt many grade 3 students would have the experiences under their belt on the oceans, pollution and other related environmental topics, that would necessitate putting the 3 Rs skill set to good use.
Again, what happens to the students with lower skills in the 3 Rs? Outlined over and over again in Barell’s books, he describes LD children having academic weaknesses, and suggests strategies how to over come the academic weaknesses by using his inquiry methods. Academic weaknesses in my eyes is cover for low reading, writing and numeracy skills, and I do so resent this particular term within the public education setting, allowing the dumb-down curriculum and work to take hold as the remediation for the 3 Rs in the inclusive classroom.
I shall repeat my question – ” Not the fault of the educators, but should it not be pointed out to the administration and school board staff by the educators, the problems arising from the new collaboration and inquiry learning models dealing with students who have reading and writing issues that are in need of corrective remediation?
Just wondering?”
And add, cognitively speaking, the present designs of inquiry learning does little to enhance the cognitive abilities of children with reading, writing and numeracy issues. The education researchers within the ivory towers of the public education K to 12 system, have a tendency to ignore the cognitive research that lies outside of the public education model. Nor do they bother with looking at the final outcomes, or even in the playground when kids are being teased by their academic better, peers, how dumb they are.
Suggested reading – Overcoming Dyslexia by Dr. Sally Shaywitz and The Children of the Code which is a web site, of world’s leading reading researchers, learning and cognitive scientists.