Learning Log 1.3......Becoming Unstuck

I'll be honest, I wrote the title partially in hopes that it would become true. I've found myself a bit stuck in terms of the big inquiry unit plan for this course and have focused my energy on the other aspects of the course instead - weekly readings, selecting resources, and have jump started our moderation discussion group. I'm not sure if it's because of the other areas of focus that I've become stuck in my big project....I suppose calling it a 'big' project is not helping matters either. In any case, I was really struggling to start this learning log because I will come face to face with my lack of progress. To progress with the hopes of getting 'unstuck' I am going to start with the weekly readings...

Module 7: Inquiry Learning by Design and/or Re-Design

I really appreciated this topic as the notion of simply designing everything inquiry is a bit overwhelming. I feel like inquiry is like most things teaching in that once you do it a few times it becomes a lot more manageable. I really appreciated Kristin Fontichiaro's Nudging Towards Inquiry series as it provides excellent stepping stones for those of us who are looking to incorporate more inquiry into our practice but are unsure of how to start. I really enjoyed reading her "Building Inquiry Understanding with Classroom Colleagues" article because I think using collaboration to drive the move towards inquiry could be very powerful. If teachers make the move together it can be a little more comfortable as we will be navigating uncharted waters together. I really like the idea of doing a staff in-service day where everyone makes the move towards inquiry together - and Fontichiaro provides some excellent resources for the inquiry such as coming up with an idea of what inquiry 'looks like' and 'doesn't look like' first. That being said, I get frustrated when I'm forced to do an in-service when I would rather focus my energy on another aspect so I would probably prefer this be a small-group in-service - or a 'those who choose to come' in-service.

There were other interesting parts of module 7 (I really appreciated the instructor notes honestly....I'll have to figure out a way to save those for later too...), but the 'nudging' series is probably my favourite.

Becoming un-stuck from the Muck....

So I had a bit of an aha moment. I've really struggled reporting on my project in the learning log lately because there hasn't been much....progress. Now it is our second to last learning log and progress must be made in some form or another so I decided to think hard about why I am stuck. I came to the realization that my next step (really, next step awhile ago) should be the assessment piece: begin with the end in mind after all! I understand the importance of envisioning what you want students to be able to do at the end of a unit so you work on logical steps to get there - that makes sense to me. However, I could not truly marry the idea of beginning with the end in mind with inquiry (even though our wonderful Professor told us to!). It just didn't make sense that I would know how things would end while still having the students experience true inquiry. Realizing this I thought that maybe I was looking at 'the end' the wrong way. I'm used to very specific tasks such as write a five paragraph essay, or write and perform a speech. With inquiry, though, I want students to have choice. So how could I know where they are going to go if they are truly choosing their path? That's when I remembered the focus of the inquiry: How does social media affect our lives? And I started to think...maybe, just maybe, what students will get out of the inquiry won't be so much a specific task such as essay writing as it is an understanding or an ability to synthesize ideas. It's early yet but looking at the curriculum these points really stood out to me:

• Access information for diverse purposes and from a variety of sources and evaluate its relevance, accuracy, and reliability

• Apply appropriate strategies in a variety of contexts to comprehend written, oral, visual, and multimodal texts, to guide inquiry, and to extend thinking 

There are certainly more curricular areas that would work with this project but these two points really stood out as great 'doing' skills. I think a good next step could be to think about what 'knowing' and 'understanding' I would like students to get out of this project - see if I can create one single-point rubric (love this!) that could work for multiple ways of demonstrating understanding....and go from there!

..more on this to come...but I think it is safe to say that my fire is lit again!

Module 8: Driving Inquiry with Questions

In the instructor notes on Module 8 the use of Socratic seminars was brought up through Casey Cuny's article "What is the value of life? and other socratic questions." This piqued my interest because I have used Socratic circles in my English classes before with minimal to moderate success; the students and I both tended to 'enjoy' these classes and I came back to this technique because it encouraged class discussion in a more student-driven format - but it still felt a bit forced. I dug into Cuny's article a bit further to see how she had used the socratic seminars in her class and to my delight she offered a simple four step approach to the seminars that I had been lacking. First, a list of prior questions should be created; that is, if the seminar is focused around one big essential question, what questions need to be answered to get there? Let's follow this with the social media unit:

Essential Question: "How does social media affect our lives"
Prior Questions: "What is social media? Do we use different kinds of social media differently? How do we use it? When do we use it? etc"

The second step is to give the students guidelines for the seminar. Here are Cuny's:

•  All students must answer each question in their notes. 
• Students raise their hand to be added to the speaking list. 
• Students must wait until their turn before speaking.  
• Students must take notes on their peers’ responses. 
• Everyone must be respectful and tolerant. 
• Everyone must use evidence from texts to support claims (Cuny 2014).

These guidelines are a great starting point but could be altered depending on the group; for example, if the discussion is flowing well I wouldn't want to force students to stop and take notes.....so it is important to be flexible I think. I usually add a soft ball to toss gently as the 'speaking ball' to make the seminar ever so slightly more dynamic so a guideline around ball tossing would have to be on the list as well. 

The third step Cuny suggests is to guide the discussion; Cuny gives some good tips on this such as reminding students to provide evidence for their claims. I think if this is done well the first few times then students can start to take over this role too. Which leads us to the final step: let go. This is the magic in the seminar - when students are invested in their own learning enough that they start to take ownership over their learning - which is what inquiry is after all, isn't it?

I connected with quite a few articles in this unit that I have stored for safekeeping such as Wilhelm's "Essential Questions" that focuses on what makes good questions and tips on how to alter questions so they are stronger and less about data retrieval, and Koechlin's one-page reference that gives students support on how to "Power up inquiry questions". However it was Cuny's article that I connected the most with as I have grappled with socratic seminars before and now I feel like I may actually have the tools to lead them properly! 

References

Cuny, Casey. (2014). What is the value of life? and other socratic questions. Educational Leadership. 72(3): 54-58.

Fontichiaro, K. (2015b). Nudging toward inquiry – Building inquiry understanding with colleagues. School Library Monthly 31(5): 49-51.

Koechlin, C. and Zwaan, S. (2007). Power up your inquiry questions. Q Tasks: How to empower students to ask questions and care about answers (p.73). Markham, ON: Pembroke.

Wilhelm, J. D. (2012). Essential questions. Scholastic Instructor 122(3): 24-27.