Inquiry Reflections

So much to do, so little time: Unit and Lesson Planning with Inquiry

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Winter break – a time of friends, family, and festive cheer. If you aren’t a BEd student that is. I spent my break brainstorming, planning, worrying, fretting, writing, deleting, questioning and dreaming. It was game time to put plan as much as possible to be prepared for my upcoming practicum. Here is a summary of the thoughts I had with regard to planning and incorporating my inquiry into my unit and lessons.

Planning is a lot harder than I expected:

This isn’t because I didn’t know what to do with the content. I had too many ideas that I liked and didn’t have enough time to fit it all in! I had to weigh the pros and cons of each activity, and placed the ones that didn’t make the cut into the “To try at a later date” file.

Planning also takes a lot more time than I thought it would! Writing out exactly what we would be doing, the probing questions, guessing the timing, making the handouts and notes… I would spend many many hours on one lesson and only be partially satisfied. I still go back and change the lessons up. I hope that as I become more practiced and confident, my lesson plans will take less time to make.

Incorporating study strategies is also a lot harder than I expected:

I’ve been planning my first two weeks of the practicum, which is an introduction to science and safety unit. We cover safety, measurement, lab equipment, the scientific method and designing experiments. There isn’t a lot of room for study strategies to come into play in these first two weeks, other than having a class dedicated to study strategies and self-regulation skills. I didn’t want to do this as I think it would be too much of a lecture and students wouldn’t be interested. I wanted to incorporate these skills into the unit so they could practice the skills on content they would be tested on. The nature of the first unit doesn’t mesh well with the study strategies.  A lot of the content is memorization and application, which doesn’t fit with the study strategies that I wanted to teach them.

Due to this clash, I have decided that since I have time, I will incorporate a study strategies class into my first two week unit. Students will spend time looking the study strategies they use, others that they don’t use, and how they could implement them into their routines. I plan on setting it up as a hook, lesson, then carousel activity where students can choose what they want to learn more about and improve on. The carousel will contain areas on specific study strategies, time management tips, test taking tips, how to handle test anxiety, etc. This allows the students to focus on what is important to them. Students will then write a reflective journal entry on why they chose those categories, what they learned, and how they plan on implementing them. This gives students more autonomy over their learning and skills, and helps them evaluate points of weakness and seek help.

I still plan on incorporating study skills into activities and assignments, but those will happen in later units that I’m only beginning to plan now. I intend on using the journals frequently to check in on student understanding. I also plan on using flash cards for vocabulary, summarizing sections at the end of notes for students to write the key points, and concept maps that students can build on throughout the unit.

There just isn’t enough time:

I had this amazing idea that I could plan half of my practicum prior to it even starting, but I’m realizing now that it just isn’t possible. To do it right, I need to slow down and spend my time focusing on a few days at a time, rather than a whole unit. My plans thus far are very thorough, but they don’t extend further than two weeks into the practicum. I don’t think I’ll make it further than this as my plans are a constant state of flux. I can’t keep one day to stay the same, I’m always finding ways of improving it. I’m proud of my desire to have the perfect lesson, but what is perfect on paper might not be in practice. I am eager to see what happens when I teach these lessons to my students.

Self-regulation and time management: Monkeys, Monsters and the Student

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On a practicum visit last semester, I was introduced to this TED talk by Tim Urban. Funny, exceedingly accurate and very well illustrated, it made me ponder my own struggles with procrastination and those of others, including my students. I highly recommend you watch the video if you have the time.

A (very) brief summary for those who didn’t watch the video:

Urban describes the brain of a procrastinator as having parts: the Rational Decision Maker and the Instant Gratification Monkey. The Rational Decision Maker has all the intentions of doing work to meet deadlines, but the Instant Gratification Monkey interrupts and always brings the person off task down a spiral of useless YouTube videos. When the deadline has approached, the Panic Monster steps in and scares everyone. The Instant Gratification Monkey runs away and the Rational Decision Maker is put into overdrive to complete all the tasks necessary to make the Panic Monster leave.

Don’t you wish you had watched the video now? 🙂

Experiences with Monkeys, Monsters and the Student: 

I am a self-proclaimed self-regulated person: I set goals to meet deadlines, I plan how I will achieve these goals, and I reflect once the process is over on how I could improve next time. The most important point in this process is the plan. My plans consist of two strategies: break the task into smaller units with individual deadlines, and assign each deadline a reward. This system allows me to combat my Instant Gratification Monkey because I consistently have gratification waiting at the end of a goal, along with the immense feeling of satisfaction at completing a goal. Some rewards are small (watching an episode of The Office or eating some Ben & Jerry’s ice cream) while other rewards are large (going out with friends for the evening or going away for the weekend). These rewards work sometimes, but frequently the Instant Gratification Monkey strikes and I’ll be up watching cat videos all evening.

I bring up my own struggles because the Instant Gratification Monkey plays a role in all of our lives. No one is immune to the Instant Gratification Monkey and if you claim you are, you are just lying to yourself. Some people can combat the monkey better than others depending on their motivation and self-regulation. My question is: are adolescents more prone to give in to the hands of the Instant Gratification Monkey? Adolescents have less experience dealing with deadlines, focus on extrinsic rewards much more heavily than adults do, and are experiencing information, media and entertainment instantaneously at all hours of the day.

The skills that I use to combat the Instant Gratification Monkey are self-regulation skills. Time management is a key skill that many people I know and have interacted with fail to have, all claiming that it is a skill that they were not taught in school. I think it is more important now than ever to teach our students about time management. If gratification is frequently at our finger tips, how can we ever be effective learners or workers?

The future of procrastinators:

Urban’s final comments in the video were about two types of procrastination: deadline versus non-deadline. When people procrastinate without deadlines, people watch their life go by waiting for them to participate. This has to do with a person’s motivations; those that are intrinsically motivated do not procrastinate on life, they live it to its fullest. My hope is to instill intrinsic motivation in the classroom as well in the lives of my students, so that our future is full of life go-getters who only give in to the Instant Gratification Monkey to procrastinate deadlines, not life.

Urban, T. (2016, Feb.) Tim Urban: Inside the mind of a master procrastinator. Retrieved 10 Jan 2017 from https://www.ted.com/talks/tim_urban_inside_the_mind_of_a_master_procrastinator

Motivation means business

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Heads up: this video is all about businesses, financial rewards and success, mixed in with some really great thoughts on motivation that can easily be applied into teaching practice.

Dan Pink’s TED talk spoke of the importance of intrinsic motivation in the workplace: the more motivated workers were to do their jobs well, the better they worked. Now I’m not relating school to a workplace, but they often share similar characteristics. Many big businesses offer financial bonuses for good performance. Students are offered monetary scholarships for good performance. At the non-monetary level, students can be offered treats, gold stars, or even material goods. What Pink shares in his video is that research says time and time again that the extrinsic motivator system prevalent in the workplace is not conducive to better work practice. I believe that this can be extended down to the school level, where intrinsic motivation should always be fostered.

Intrinsic motivation is another self-regulation skill that is imperative for student success. Pink states that there are three main parts to fostering intrinsic motivation in the workplace: autonomy, mastery and purpose. These three elements are also essential to a student’s education. Students who have choice in their learning and assessment are more engaged; they have ownership over their education because it is for them and they are creating it. When students are held accountable for their learning, their intrinsic motivation will drive them to succeed rather than that coveted gold star. Mastery is equally as important as it allows students to fully gain a new skill or acquire new knowledge – they have not memorized another fact for a test that can be forgotten the day later. If students feel they have mastered a topic, they have achieved a higher self-efficacy which can lead to higher performance. Finally, intrinsic motivation is hard to develop if one does not have a purpose. Students need to be told why they are learning each topic, what they can do with these skills and knowledge, and how they can apply this in the present and future. Students who have a purpose feel more connected to those in the classroom and are more interested in success for the sake of success, not the gold star they have been trained to want.

I hope to foster intrinsic motivation in my students by making the curriculum relevant to their interests, giving students some autonomy in how they learn and the assignments they complete, and by investing students in the purpose of my classroom – to use new knowledge and skills to continually create a better world. I plan on monitoring student motivation through self-reflections throughout my practicum, to see if their motivations change based on topics, activities, and/or assignments. I know that it’s idealistic to be able to do all of these things in only a few weeks, but I hope that I can foster intrinsic motivation in my students for them to carry forward in their future and apply to the aspect of their life that is their passion.

Pink, D. (2009, Jul). Dan Pink: The puzzle of motivation. Retrieved 9 Jan 2017 from https://www.ted.com/talks/dan_pink_on_motivation

Retroactive: Living Inquiry

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After a few weeks of researching, pondering and planning, I was able to share my inquiry with my classmates and faculty at a Living Inquiry Session. Below is the poster that I created to share with my peers to highlight the key points of my inquiry.

 

Feedback on my inquiry:

The feedback I received was mostly positive. Everyone thought that this was an important topic to research as many of my peers had similar experiences of not learning these skills in their education. One of the main weaknesses that arose was that my inquiry was very research focused – I had turned my research mind on rather than my inquiring mind. I knew that due to ethical considerations, I cannot collect any data to analyze, but that is something I am very interested in pursuing. This experience has made me realize that educational research is going to be in my future as I am really passionate about it!

Relating to my actual inquiry, the main feedback I received was on how I could implement reflections. The Science Reflection Journals that I had read about in the literature were great at guiding students on what to reflect, but limited choice as they were formatted as single “fill in the blank” worksheets. The evaluator suggested that I give the option of online reflections such as blogs or visual journals. They also suggested that I show my students primary source examples of field journals to show students that scientists also reflect on their process of learning, discovery and growth.

The evaluator also suggested that I introduce online resources for students to use as study strategies. They suggest apps like ShowMe and Paper 53, both which give students the ability to create their own space for showing their knowledge. I would need to look into the apps more, but I was excited to learn about resources for students.

I wanted feedback on how I should implement these skills into the classroom. I had three main ideas: in a lecture, in assignments, or as workshops. The feedback from my peers supported the first two ideas as I have limited time with the students, and long term incorporation will help students understand these strategies more and will hopefully turn them into habit for the students. In my unit and lesson plans, I hope to incorporate these skills in as many classes as possible, without overwhelming the students with study strategies. I don’t want students to feel that the purpose of these is that we are working towards a test; I want to teach them that by incorporating these strategies into our routine, we can focus more on meaningful learning that will prepare them better for a test later!

Retroactive: Irresistible inquiry

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After careful consideration of possible inquiry topics, I have finally selected a question that I want to pursue further this year. I know that I want to research self-regulated learning, study strategies and self-efficacy. These are topics that I am deeply passionate about so I couldn’t resist learning more about them in the inquiry process. I am very excited to research further within the context of secondary education and the sciences.

As for why I chose these topics and the question that has taken final form, it’s time for a story from Amber’s past…

During my undergraduate degree in Chemistry, I was given the opportunity to spend my fourth year labs in a Research Learning Experience in Chemical Educational Research. At this point in my undergrad, I knew that I wanted to be a secondary school science and chemistry teacher, and I wanted all possible experiences to be informative and relevant to my future. When I first met with my supervisor, I walked into her office with a book full of ideas on what I wanted to research. I wanted to know about exams, the flipped classroom, student attitudes, assessment, curriculum development, and more. But what I was most passionate about learning more about was what study strategies university students used and the effects of these study strategies on student performance. My supervisor was more than happy to let me pursue these interests and my research project was born: The Effects of Study Strategies and Study Strategy Workshops on Student Performance in an Introductory Organic Chemistry Course.

Reading and highlighting texts – an ineffective study strategy commonly used by students

I spent the next 8 months researching study strategies (which were effective or ineffective for studying organic chemistry), and collecting and analyzing data on student’s use of study strategies to see if a relationships existed between study strategy choice and midterm grade performance. I also had the opportunity to lead workshops for lower-achieving students on effective study strategies as an intervention for student success. During these workshops, I distributed a “Study Guide for Studying Organic Chemistry” for students to refer to and learn more about effective study strategies. The study guide and some more information about it can be found in this guest blog post I wrote for the Department of Chemistry here: http://learning.chem.ubc.ca/2015/10/02/study-strategies-guide-for-organic-chem/

Countless t-tests, ANOVAs and Bonferroni corrections later, I had my results: certain study strategies were significantly correlated with student performance, and students who attended the study strategy workshops saw significant increases in their midterm scores. Positive results had never felt so good! Below is my research poster outlining my findings that I presented in April 2014.

From this you may believe that I should be in educational research. While exciting as my results were, my biggest discovery was how passionate I was about teaching students how to be effective learners. The main point I learned from interacting with students is that they did not learn these study strategies or self-regulated learning skills in school. I made it my goal to incorporate these strategies and skills into my future teaching. This project allows me to research my fully developed inquiry:

How does the implementation of self-regulated learning (SRL) skills and study strategies in the classroom affect student self-efficacy?