Something that I have learned quite a bit about through doing research for my own inquiry project is about self-assessment, and the importance of the students being self-aware about their learning process. This ties in directly with the constructivist learning theory and metacognition. While working on inquiry activities, the students will hopefully being using skills that engage them in their learning so that the students are not just memorizing the material, but actively processing that information.

Compared to regular instruction that just involves students copying down notes and memorizing the information, inquiry activities have the students processing the information to make inferences about what is relevant to what they are learning, and making meaningful connections. Through this process of inquiry-based learning, the students can reflect on what they learn, and better internalize the links in their learning that they create on their own.

The most important thing is that students are actively engaged in activities that they feel are relevant to their own lives and not so out of reach and abstract that they cannot find any interest in the subjects at all. Inquiry learning becomes much more purposeful for older students as they develop cognitively and are able to actually “think about their learning” through metacognition, but this does not mean that inquiry cannot be used with younger students. The role of teachers is to act as guides for students as they learn through questioning and problem-solving.

I have had many different opportunities both last and this semester to work on creating interesting and engaging activities that are designed to help students learn through inquiry. A lot of thought went into designing different types of assessment that would match up the PLOs listed in the BC integrated resource packages with inquiry activities that would capture the attention of the students. I tried using different formats that would allow the students to use their inquiry skills to learn more about the subjects depending on which aspects they are interested in.

The biggest challenge for me though will be using more diagnostic and formative forms of assessment in inquiry-based teaching. I have always focused more on summative forms of assessment, because it seems like the best opportunity for the students to do inquiry projects that will require them to do formulate questions and do the research to find some sort of solution to their question, while also being involved in thinking about the process that they are going through to find that solution. With that said, I am working on building a collection of different diagnostic and formative assessment strategies that I can use in the classroom to ensure that I am continuously checking on student progress and that they are engaged in their learning.

Creating a classroom that is based around inquiry-based learning is something that I will be trying to focus on during my practicum and in the future as well. Although the BC ministry of education created curriculum has several different prescribed learning outcomes (PLOs) that the students must meet, the way that each curriculum is laid out allows room for the students explore their different areas of interest.

Through effective planning I hope to be able to make different sorts of assessments that will give students the opportunity to really build on their interests in biology and science, and become actively engaged in their learning. I have learned from my own experience that passively receiving information through lecture-style learning is not effective, and that being genuinely interested in the course content is what makes different things stick in our heads. This is why rather than just feeding information to students, I want to focus on teaching them the skills required to help them learn. I think that my own biggest challenge will be thinking of different ways to link the PLOs to interesting projects that the students will be excited to work on.

Focus on Inquiry sets out the process of inquiry-based learning as:

1. Planning

2. Retrieving

3. Processing

4. Creating

5. Sharing

6 Evaluating

Through each of these six steps, students are actively involved in learning what they want to. Although inquiry-based learning focuses on the role of the student, there are many different ways that the teacher can help the student along in the process.

For several months now, the Faculty of Education has been focusing a lot on using inquiry in the classroom, and I’ve eventually begun seeing it used in different kinds of classrooms all around the world. At first, I had thought that inquiry was just a new method of teaching that was being implemented now, but after doing more reading and research for my own inquiry project, I now know that inquiry-based learning has been around for a long time.

Although I had a rather good idea of what inquiry-based learning was through all of the classes that we’ve had so far, it was really helpful to read the examples given at the beginning of chapter 1 in Focus on Inquiry. Thinking back to my own high school education, my favourite assignments had always been open-ended research projects that I could take in any direction I wanted. Those were the kinds of assignments that I gladly spent hours and hours working on without getting bored because I was actually interested in what I was learning. At the time, I didn’t realize that my teachers were using inquiry-based teaching methods; I had always assumed that it was less work for them to make more structured assignments for us to do. But now I understand that these were actually the best ways to teach the material. They taught us the necessary skills required for us to work on and research about the topics, but the actual learning was our own responsibility. And these methods worked! Some of my fondest and deepest memories about my high school education are about projects that I did; I remember the things that I learned doing those projects so much more than the things that I had to force myself to memorize for exams.

Through inquiry-based learning, I learned various important skills that I have carried with me since. I developed the metacognitive skills that are required for learners to keep learning, and this is definitely something that I want to teach my own students in the future.

Title:

Managing classroom behaviour through teaching self-management skills to students

Topic & Sub-Topic Research Questions:

How can teaching self-management skills to students help in managing classroom behavior?

• What are strategies that teachers can use to model good behaviour and organizational skills to students?
• What self-evaluation strategies can be used to encourage students to set their own goals and work towards accomplishing those goals?
• How does keeping students busy with activities help with keeping a classroom under control       
•    

Introduction (Why was this research question picked?)

During the short practicum, I observed many different classrooms. Each class had a different dynamic, and thus, the teachers had to use different strategies in order to manage the students. Something that almost all the teachers advised me to implement in my own teaching was to keep the students busy; their rationalization was that students are generally less likely to behave badly in class if they are kept busy. I observed this in several classes, but there were also instances in which students would not focus on their work. Therefore, I began thinking about what strategies teachers can use to help motivate all students to take accountability for their own work.

After learning about social-emotional-learning, and reading about some of the different methods of extrinsic and intrinsic motivation that can be used in classrooms, I became interested in researching further into what other methods can be used to help students develop their own educational goals. My preliminary research led me towards several articles and websites that highlighted the success of teaching students self-management skills and the importance of being accountable for their own work. Therefore, I would like to investigate this method of classroom management, and determine if it would be something that I can implement in my own teaching.

Method Used To Complete Project:

In order to complete this project, I will be compiling researching from online journals and university websites. I will also try to collect anecdotal accounts from current and past teachers on their experiences with managing classrooms with students who did not normally have the self-motivation to help them focus on their appointed tasks in the classroom.

Expected Results:

In addition to the different journal articles that I have already read, I expect to find several more sources that will state the benefits of teaching self-management skills to students with learning and behavior problems. However, what I think will be difficult about this research will be finding actual examples and strategies that were used by the educators. Most of the preliminary research I found has included general examples of how teaching self-management skills has benefited the students, but I also want to be able to relate these successes to how it affects the management of classroom behaviour.

Presentation Method:

For my final presentation, I will be making a poster that includes all the relevant information required for this inquiry project.

For my short practicum, I was placed at one of the largest schools in Vancouver, which also has one of the largest populations of ELL students. During the one staff meeting that I attended, two of the multicultural liaison workers were introduced to the entire staff (not just the teacher candidates). I found this slightly strange, because this staff meeting was held during November; I would’ve thought that the multicultural liaison workers would have been introduced to the staff at the beginning of the year, so that teachers could get as much help for their ELL learners as possible.

In my SA’s grade 12 biology class, there were several students doing very well, but there were also quite a few students who were struggling to keep up with the material and did not do very well on their unit test. When I asked my SA if there were any modifications he tries to make for students like ELL students, he says that he can’t really do much for them because biology is a very content-driven course, and there is very little time he can dedicate to slowing down for these students (especially this year when they lost several weeks because of the strike). He even mentioned to the class that if they were not meeting a certain grade, they should reconsider taking the course because it’s an elective and not a course they necessarily need to graduate.

The majority of the students in my SA’s IB biology 11 class did not appear to be ELL students. However, I did notice while marking one of the assignments that I assigned them, that although they understood the majority of the terms that they were learning in their unit, they couldn’t quite grasp what the terms meant in a context outside of the example they were shown in class. While observing the classes that my SA taught, he relies heavily on lecturing, but does give examples and diagrams to try and better explain the concepts to the students. I think that when I start teaching during the long practicum, I will try to use as many different ways of explaining concepts to the students as possible, and try to relate the different concepts to things that they know and understand.