Presenting my inquiry project made me very nervous. Part of me wanted to stay with my project and share all the things I learnt with people walking by and then part of me wanted to be no where near it because of fear that people may think it’s stupid. I relate this completely to the way my students will be feeling when they present their inquiry projects. Even though I was very nervous I did stand by my project for part of the time and enjoyed engaging in conversation with my colleagues, expanding on my written information and helping them with questions they have about their classes.
I was really happy with the way my brochure turned out. I felt that it was simple and eye catching and wasn’t overloaded with content. Though there was a lot of content, because I had lots of information I needed to include, I was able to organize it in a way that didn’t seem to overload the reader with information. I also organized it using size, font, colour, bold and italicizes to highlight the important facts and group information together. I think by doing these things it helped to make my brochure less overwhelming and user friendly.
If I had more time I would have liked to expand the project and make a magazine. This was my original plan but do to time I had to simplify my idea. I would also have liked to make a parent tool with some of the same information, as well as other information. I think that I learnt a lot during my research and some of the information I learnt would be beneficial to parents, not just teachers. Parents also need help overcoming reservations and pre conceived ideas about combination classes and resources to help them make the most of their child’s time in the combination class. Overall I am really pleased with my end project, the information I found and the resource I produced.
It is great that you felt good about the learning you have done! Inquiry is a mindset and important to all of us no matter what the occupation to help us move forward in our thinking and choices.