What do you think inquiry means?

What might this involve? How might this vary from other forms

of learning?

http://deepsouthinquiry.wikispaces.com

Brainstorm what you think you know about inquiry.

Look a little deeper! What do you see?

What else might you want to find out?

•From context to concept e.g. poverty

•Have a go - write a question for a current unit of study e.g. What decides wealth and poverty?

•What might be a good question for our inquiry into inquiry today?

undermining

open

connected

rich

charged

practical

A Fertile Question is...Leads to an expansive answer

Digs into my beliefs / challenges me

Is relevant and authentic

Will lead to a wealth of new ideas

Will be absorbing and consuming

Is manageable and can be resourced

Ref: Yoram Harpaz & Adam Lefstein - Fertile Questions

http://www.learningtolearn.sa.edu.au/Colleagues/pages/default/harpaz/?reFlag=1

Make a list of the questions that will lead you to a richer understanding of inquiry and put them on the wondering wall.

To answer the over arching question we need to develop subsidiary questions that lead to the building of a concepte.g.

* Do I understand what effective pedagogy looks like in the classroom? * Where do I stand currently? * Where can I find out more information? * What am I teaching and why? * How do I teach? * How are my students achieving? Am I meeting their needs? * What are the needs for 21st century? * What are the opportunities and challenges of the 21st century? * What is powerful learning and what is it powerful to learn? * Is there common understanding amongst my learning community?

Many schools have simplified "Inquiry" to make it easier and more manageable.  In doing so they have lost the essence and the purpose.  

Inquiry should lead kids out of the box not into one.  It should reach new ground and depth for the learner and capture the heart and the mind.  

It might not have a neat and tidy conclusion, but something inside the individual should change.  They should emerge with new skills, new ideas, new understandings and new knowledge.  

The teacher should also remain at least as sane as when the unit started because its not about chaos.  

Empowerment of learners is about clear processes and direction that they can apply in future learning.

A baby exploring

A problem needing a solution

A question demanding an answer

What would you do?

A Pathway yet untried

A doorway to be opened

An unassembled jigsaw

A photo without a caption

A hypothesis to be investigated

A trial to be judged

A clue as yet unsolved

Inquiry can be random, cyclic, requiring of perseverance, not easy to answer, unanswerable today and maybe even tomorrow, complex, infinite,not always achievable, invigorating and engaging,self sustaining, global, local, messy, multi-layered, collaborative, personalised, student enabling, building on previous work,

linear filling the boxes painting by numbers roaming only in the known rigid in structure one school term in duration NO MATTER WHAT! just what you do in the afternoons, confined to one learning area nor outside of learning areas simply a display in a powerpoint, a movie or a wiki totally teacher orchestrated totally up to the kids to direct and control a research project unleashed chaos . . . x 31 or 27 every child an island devoid of specific teaching concluded by a SO WHAT?!? something you only do sometimes because you need more

than that to balance the curriculum

INQUIRY IS ABOUT GETTING KIDS OUT OF THE BOX - NOT INTO ONE!

• Inquiry models are ways that have been developed to 'manage' inquiry. They may be helpful to the teacher, and the student, but they should not confine and limit what is achieved. They should grow beyond what they start out to be as we become more conversant with inquiry, and gain confidence to explore further, wider, deeper.• Success is measured only in what new ground is explored or achieved - knowledge, new skills, new processes, new applications.• Inquiry leads to change in the students, in the class and beyond.• Inquiry is regularly reflective, self assessing, seeking feedback, new goal setting and monitoring, inquisitive• Assessed - sometimes summatively but always formatively• Inquiry leads to further inquiry.• It may start with a problem, a big question or a little question. It's where it goes that counts.

What happens when you turn on the tap?

• It requires deliberate acts of teaching in a classroom to further enable and empower students to take on more of the ownership and control. Students need help to enrich their questions, extend their boundaries, challenge their thinking, require them to justify and validate their stand.• It requires deep thinking - critical, analysis, compare and contrast.

Sharon Friesen from Galileo Educational Network in Canada presented a workshop for Waikato teachers following the ULearn Conference in 2007. She kindly provided us with a link to a wealth of resources during that workshop. Check out in particular her inquiry presentation where she dispels some myths about inquiry, and her inquiry rubric that will clarify where you are at with inquiry and where to next.

Resources for developing understanding of and facility with inquiry

http://www.ucalgary.ca/~sfriesen/nz/pirongia/index.html

INQUIRY:HOW KNOWLEDGE IS CREATED

Sharon Friesen

Galileo Educational Network

Inquiry in Two Parts

Professionalism: Teaching is a practice that we practice upon

Teachers inquire into their own practice. They critique, question, interrogate and improve their own practice through Action Research.

In the classroom

Teachers design inquiry-focused studies and learning environments.

History of Inquiry

• Socrates believed that knowledge was vital and could only survive in a dynamic environment of human inquiry.– The legacy of Socrates

would be continued by Plato who set up the Academy in 387 B.C. in order to continue the Socratic method of inquiry.

• “By doubt we are led to inquiry and from inquiry we perceive the truth.” - Pierre Abelard 1079 - 1142

“All truths are easy to understand once they are discovered; the point is to discover them.” Galileo

• "Knowledge," in the sense of information, means the working capital, the indispensable resources, of [for] further inquiry; of finding out, or learning, more things. Frequently it is treated as an end in itself, and then the goal becomes to heap it up and display it when called for. -Dewey

Defining Inquiry

Inquiry is the investigation into an idea, question, problem or issue. It involves gathering information, building knowledge and developing deep understanding. Inquiry-based learning encompasses the processes of posing problems, gathering information, thinking creatively about possibilities, making decisions and justifying conclusions.

Myths About Inquiry

• The teacher must never tell the students what they know.

• Inquiry-based teaching absolves the teacher of any responsibility to act on students’ incorrect conceptions.

Myths

• In inquiry-based teaching, the teacher is only the facilitator.

• In inquiry-based teaching the teacher does not need to know anything about the subject matter, as it is the students who lead the inquiry.

Myths

• In inquiry-based learning the students must learn everything by themselves

• Inquiry-based learning means uncontrolled exploration

Myths

• In inquiry-based learning all student answers and responses are equally valid

• In inquiry-based learning students must do all learning cooperatively in groups.

Myths

• Inquiry-based learning means lower standards.

• Inquiry-based learning de-emphasizes the ‘basics.’

Key Features of Inquiry

• Creating Knowledge– using or manipulating knowledge as in analysis, interpretation,

synthesis, and evaluation, rather than only reproducing knowledge in previously stated forms. It involves idea improvement and ongoing feedback.

• Disciplined Inquiry – gaining in-depth understanding of limited topics, rather than

superficial acquaintance with many, and using elaborated forms of communication to learn and to express one's conclusions.

• Value Beyond School– the production of discourse, products, and performances that

have personal, aesthetic, or social significance beyond demonstration of success to a teacher.

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Designing For Inquiry

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Inquiry begins with the desire to understand.

• a question• an issue• a problem• an idea• a puzzlement• a wondering

“All men by nature desire to know.” - Aristotle

Beginning: What Matters?

• Inquiry needs a topic

• It begins with a meaningful (real) question, problem or issue.

• This question, problem or issue can be initiated by the teacher or by students.

• It requires a strong mapping to the appropriate curricula

Designing Tasks and Assessment

• “The tasks that are assigned to students are one of the few variables under the control of educators that directly affect

student engagement.” Phillip C. Schlechty

Creating Engaging Tasks

Hard Fun

• “If I could go through this experience again, I would. I loved the challenge. The cool thing was that sometimes no one knew the answer so we had to fight hard together to get one. Then when we got the answer it was our own, and we had discovered it. So why not go through the experience when you love what you do and feel like it is your very own?”

(Student)

http://www.ucalgary.ca/~sfriesen/nz/pirongia/index.html

Quality planning

Quality knowledge

Quality questions

Quality resources

Quality reflection

Quality feedback

Quality review

Structure ofObservedLearningOutcomes

Ref: Hooked on Thinking http://hooked-on-thinking.com/

Unistructural MultistructuralPrestructural Relational Extended Abstract

When a tree grows, the roots grow down into the soil, and a trunk begins growing above. From this trunk grow branches, twigs and leaves.

The roots of a tree anchor it firmly in the ground and absorb nutrients and water from the soil. Plant leaves absorb carbon dioxide, pull water up through their roots and use light to make sugar (photosynthesis). Plants use the sugar to grow. Plants give off oxygen as a by-product. The green parts of the plant make the sugar and oxygen. In winter some trees lose their leaves as the nutrients move down into the root systems as light and warmth diminish.

A tree has a trunk, leaves and fruit.

TreeThe tree has an important role to play in the survival of the planet. If, for example, we cut down rainforests or clear native bush to develop an exotic forestry industry, we risk irreversible damage to our planet. How will our planet renew its atmosphere if we remove most of the trees? What effect will it have on birds and insects, and how will that in turn affect us? What do we need to think about here?

list, define, tell, describe, identify, show, label, collect, examine, tabulate, quote,name,

Who? When? Where? What?

Unistructural

summarize, describe, interpret, contrast, predict, associate, distinguish, estimate, discuss, extend, differentiate, scan,

Why?

Multistructural

apply, demonstrate, calculate, complete, illustrate, show, solve, examine, modify, relate, change, classify, reason, combine, explain, connect, contrast, experiment, discover, order, compare, analyse, separate, divide, arrange, part / whole,select, infer, sequence,

How?

Relational

combine, integrate, hypothesise,rearrange, substitute, reflect,speculate,create, select,design, plan, invent, compose, discriminate,modify, imagine,formulate, prepare, generalize, rewrite, assess, support,recommend,decide, forecast,rank, grade, test, measure, compare,convince, judge, explain, conclude, summarize, theorise, evaluate,idealise, apply a principle,

What if? Would? How could?Should? Can? How might?I wonder…

Extended Abstract

There is plenty of thinking that never achieves lift-off, never contributes to understanding and never casts light on issues of importance. Much thinking beats around the bush, wanders off course and fails to inform or illuminate.

That is because thinking can be done in an unquestioning manner.

Thinking without questioning is like drinking without swallowing.

We must raise young ones to question, to wonder and to learn.

We will encourage students to become serial questioners committed to pursuing important questions until capable of making sense of their worlds and capable of fashioning smart answers to life’s challenges.

Jamie McKenzie

http://www.fno.org/nov97/toolkit.html

http://www.cap.nsw.edu.au/QI/TOOLS/pqr/questionmatirx.htm

Keyword Search

“21st century learning”

http://www.21stcenturyschools.com/What_is_21st_Century_Education.htm

http://21stcenturylearning.typepad.com/blog/http://fno.org/Jan2010/bookmark.html

Online Support for Learning

•Any Questions http://www.anyquestions.co.nz/

•

•Ask an Expert http://www.libraryspot.com/askanexpert.htm

•Yellow Pages

•National Library

•Find the email contact on related websites and email these people

•Contact other schools in areas that relate to your study and engage in dialogue.

Online Support for Learning

•Any Questions http://www.anyquestions.co.nz/

•Ask an Expert http://www.libraryspot.com/askanexpert.htm

•Yellow Pages

•National Library

•Contact other schools in areas that relate to your study and engage in dialogue.

•Find the email contact on related websites and email these people.

•Jot down your thoughts

•Speed dating

Think of a unit from last year and describe briefly to a partner.

What were the key concepts that you wanted your students to develop?

What were the learning processes you used to get there?

Did you succeed?

Biotechnology - What is it and how can we use it at school?

* People manipulate a natural process for increased benefit * Man impacts the planet by his choices * Everyone can make a difference - positive or negative * We all have responsibility to make positive choices

Electricity - is a flow of electrons around a closed circuit

* a break in the circuit ends the current flow * switches open and close the circuit * electricity requires an energy source - often from water movement, wind movement, steam movement, nuclear fusion or friction

Music - is an organised pattern of sound

* Music tells a story, creates a mood etc.

1. Write down the keywords that you feel describe what science is about.

2. Dialogue with the others in your group to get greater clarity around this, and then write a statement that the group feels reflects the learning area.

3. Open your NZ Curriculum document and compare your statement with that of NZC p.28.

4. Share with the full group how this compares with the current learning opportunities to work in those ways.

5. How do you now believe your students should learn in science? What processes are intrinsic?

• Name the strands of the science learning area and outline what they encompass. Note the importance of the nature of science - overarching.

• Check out the achievement objectives for levels 1- 4. Jot down the types of context that come to mind for those AOs. Highlight any that have been covered in your school over the last year. Balance?

• Think about what opportunities there are in your local area that could provide field trips, school visits and visitors.

• Think about what opportunities there are to collaborate with others within NZ to undertake a study. Check out LEARNZ, Taking it Global and other collaborative projects. What could you generate within the cluster?

•Extend this to international possibilities.

1. Dialogue with the others in your group to get clarity around keywords for social sciences, and then write a statement that the group feels reflects the learning area.

2. Open your NZ Curriculum document and compare your statement with that of NZC p.30.

3. Share with the full group the alignment with what happens currently. Do students have the opportunities to participate as responsible citizens?

4. Unpack citizenship - what does this mean? What qualities would be developed?

• Look at the strands of the social sciences learning area and outline what they encompass.

• Check out some achievement objectives for levels 1- 4. Jot down the types of context that come to mind for those AOs. Highlight any that have been covered in your school over the last year.

•Balance science / social sciences? (Pie chart activity)

• Think about what opportunities there are in your local area that could provide field trips, school visits and visitors.

• Think about what opportunities there are to collaborate with others within NZ to undertake a study. Check out LEARNZ, Taking it Global and other collaborative projects. What could you generate within the cluster?

•Extend this to international possibilities. What countries? Why? Where will today’s students interact, work, live?

1. Dialogue with the others in your group to get clarity around technology and then write a statement that the group feels reflects the learning area.

2. Open your NZ Curriculum document and compare your statement with that of NZC p.32.

3. How do your current learning opportunities stack up and what changes might you need to make?

4. Check out the strands and AOs.

http://eo.ucar.edu/rainbows/

What makes the colors in the rainbow?The traditional description of the rainbow is that it is made up of seven colors - red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet. Actually, the rainbow is a whole continuum of colors from red to violet and even beyond the colors that the eye can see.

The colors of the rainbow arise from two basic facts:

* Sunlight is made up of the whole range of colors that the eye can detect. The range of sunlight colors, when combined, looks white to the eye. This property of sunlight was first demonstrated by Sir Isaac Newton in 1666. * Light of different colors is refracted by different amounts when it passes from one medium (air, for example) into another (water or glass, for example).

2009 Theme: "Citizenship is Everyone's Responsibility!”

2008 Theme: "Local, global and connected!”

2007 Theme: "The future starts now!”

2006 Theme: "This is our world and we are responsible for it!"

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are needed to see this picture.

List aspects that could be studied in each learning area.

Curriculum themes

Well Being and Leisure

Change

Interaction

Sustainability

New life

That's Life

Energy Life is for Living

Innovation and

Creativity

Power

Do all eyes see the

same thing?

My world, your world, our world

•Work in school syndicate groups

•Use your curriculum document and turn to the science, social science and technology page for your level of the school.

•Write the year in pencil next to any areas you have covered in the last two years.

•Look at those areas you have not covered and make up some themes and some overarching questions that could focus your learning areas for 2010 and beyond.

•Combine with the remainder of your school and negotiate some themes for the next 2 - 3 years.

•List the major concepts that you would want students to gain understanding about at your level of the school for each of these and brainstorm what resources you might need to gather.

Jill Hammonds

CORE Education Ltd

Jill.hammonds@core-ed.net

http://deepsouthinquiry.wikispaces.com

Galileo Resources http://www.ucalgary.ca/~sfriesen/nz/pirongia/index.html

SOLO Taxonomy - Hooked on Thinking http://hooked-on-thinking.com/

Fertile Questions http://www.learningtolearn.sa.edu.au/Colleagues/pages/default/harpaz/?reFlag=1