Saturday, September 25, 2010
Engage Me!
This video clip on YouTube brought home to me the importance of teaching our 21st Century Learners to Think, Create, Analyse, Evaluate and Apply what they have learned by using tools which will engage them.
Questionnaire #3
1. What do you know about your topic?
Having read so much over the past months about Inquiry Based Learning, I find myself reflecting on statements by people such as Chen (2003), who suggests that "Learning occurs only when the learners are actively involved in the construction and reorganization of concepts..." as well as Phye (1997) who says that Inquiry based learning "...combines congnition from a developmental perpective with other important issues, such as motivation, self-directed learning and a focus on the social context of learning". These statements both imply that what we need to teach children needs to be made interesting and important to them.
2. How interested are you in this topic?
a great deal
3. How much do you know about this topic? Circle the answer that best matches how much you know.
Quite a bit - still lots to learn
4. Thinking back on your project, what did you find find easy to do?
Start thinking of ideas to take into the classroom to use with the children.
5. Thinking back on your project, what did you find most difficult to do?
I still find refining of searches difficult to do. Taking the project back into the classroom, I found it very difficult to help the children with learning difficulties to open up and use the variety of search tools effectively. It was also difficult helping them to come up with "researchable questions".
6. What did you learn in doing this research project?
I learned that the way we teach and structure our learning tasks for children has a huge impact on what they come away with. I learned that it is important to allow children to falter as they move along in their learning journey, to enable them to get the most out of what they have learned. By the same token, I also beleive that this method of teaching is not suitable for all children, as much as the experts say it is. I observed a few of the children in my Year 7 class who have learning difficulties become very frustrated and agitated during the process and this hindered their ability to find the information they wanted as they felt quite helpless at times. With these children one needs to guide them a lot more and even supply the places where they may find the information. The information they find is not always easily accessible to them due to their levels of reading and comprehension. Sometimes it may be that we need to guide children like this to the answer. I realise that this is open to debate and that I may be "shot down" for making these suggestions, but sometimes reality bites!
Having read so much over the past months about Inquiry Based Learning, I find myself reflecting on statements by people such as Chen (2003), who suggests that "Learning occurs only when the learners are actively involved in the construction and reorganization of concepts..." as well as Phye (1997) who says that Inquiry based learning "...combines congnition from a developmental perpective with other important issues, such as motivation, self-directed learning and a focus on the social context of learning". These statements both imply that what we need to teach children needs to be made interesting and important to them.
2. How interested are you in this topic?
a great deal
3. How much do you know about this topic? Circle the answer that best matches how much you know.
Quite a bit - still lots to learn
4. Thinking back on your project, what did you find find easy to do?
Start thinking of ideas to take into the classroom to use with the children.
5. Thinking back on your project, what did you find most difficult to do?
I still find refining of searches difficult to do. Taking the project back into the classroom, I found it very difficult to help the children with learning difficulties to open up and use the variety of search tools effectively. It was also difficult helping them to come up with "researchable questions".
6. What did you learn in doing this research project?
I learned that the way we teach and structure our learning tasks for children has a huge impact on what they come away with. I learned that it is important to allow children to falter as they move along in their learning journey, to enable them to get the most out of what they have learned. By the same token, I also beleive that this method of teaching is not suitable for all children, as much as the experts say it is. I observed a few of the children in my Year 7 class who have learning difficulties become very frustrated and agitated during the process and this hindered their ability to find the information they wanted as they felt quite helpless at times. With these children one needs to guide them a lot more and even supply the places where they may find the information. The information they find is not always easily accessible to them due to their levels of reading and comprehension. Sometimes it may be that we need to guide children like this to the answer. I realise that this is open to debate and that I may be "shot down" for making these suggestions, but sometimes reality bites!
Questionnaire #2
What do I know about this topic?
At this stage, I have come to realise that this way of teaching or at least getting children to research has been a minor part of my teaching anyway. I have used guided inquiry type methods, with a little more "guidance" than is required, as the children are not that used to having to come up with the questions themselves. I am motivated by what I am reading about guided inquiry and am very keen to make it a more prominent part of my teaching in the classroom. I now realise that htere are a multitude of models out there, ranging from my favourite, Kuhlthau to the more drawn out model of Eisenberg and Berkowitz.
How interested are you in your topic?
Very interested
How much do you know about your topic?
A fair amount
When you research, what do you find easy to do?
I find it easy to find a lot of generalised information.
When you research, what do you find difficult to do?
I still find it incredibly difficult to refine my searches, knowing what I definitely need in the search and what to exclude. I can only imagine how difficult it must be for the children to research if I am finding it challenging, especially when it is an unknown topic, or a topic that is something I know very little about.
At this stage, I have come to realise that this way of teaching or at least getting children to research has been a minor part of my teaching anyway. I have used guided inquiry type methods, with a little more "guidance" than is required, as the children are not that used to having to come up with the questions themselves. I am motivated by what I am reading about guided inquiry and am very keen to make it a more prominent part of my teaching in the classroom. I now realise that htere are a multitude of models out there, ranging from my favourite, Kuhlthau to the more drawn out model of Eisenberg and Berkowitz.
How interested are you in your topic?
Very interested
How much do you know about your topic?
A fair amount
When you research, what do you find easy to do?
I find it easy to find a lot of generalised information.
When you research, what do you find difficult to do?
I still find it incredibly difficult to refine my searches, knowing what I definitely need in the search and what to exclude. I can only imagine how difficult it must be for the children to research if I am finding it challenging, especially when it is an unknown topic, or a topic that is something I know very little about.
Monday, September 6, 2010
I decided to try this search using Google Scholar to see if I could be enlightened about how to formulate good questions, or at least help children come up with good quesitons: "good questioning skills AND guided inquiry AND primary school" Unfortunately this resulted in 65 000 hits -...more on this later...
The quest for the ulitmate question...
On the recommendation of a fellow Blogger, I searched for Jamie McKenzie's work on questioning techniques and found his work most intriguing. The one suggestion he makes, is posing a Daily research question:
Strategy Three - The Daily Research Question
Each day begins with students walking into the classroom to note an intriguing research question on the board. Puzzles, riddles and curious questions that can be answered reasonably well without months of study. These should require some thought and ingenuity, not be mere trivial pursuit. They should be highly motivating and captivating.
The only thing is, to formulate these highly motivating and captivating questions...
Saturday, September 4, 2010
Inquiry based project in the classroom
I requested the children to fill in questionnaire 1, which they did rather quickly - not having much to write about the topic they were researching. It was also interesting to note that they were not sure what to write in case what they wrote was the 'wrong answer'. Sometimes I think they are quided and scaffolded too much in certain areas, and are too afraid to just write what they feel. Some responses were good, from those children who are natural writers anyway.
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