Blog Reflections / Implications

 

Blog Reflection #1

Where do you see Inquiry in your practicum classrooms/schools? Or not?

When I was in the classroom I noticed many situations where Inquiry was present. I really enjoyed observing the “see, think, wonder” activity. This was the very first lesson for the day and the students were intrigued the entire time. It was very clear that my SA was making an effort to open up many lessons for discussion and through discussion with other students and the teacher, students curiosity heightened. The students were much more engaged than other classrooms I was able to briefly observe and I could definitely see the difference in motivation between the classrooms. Since I am not in the classroom right now, it was interesting to have a discussion with classmates who have similar inquiry questions and their the kinds of approaches to looking at creative elements in the classroom. Learning about how to create a strong bond between a teacher and a student, it made me think about taking a step back from my inquiry question and inquiring if a bond between a teacher and student is lacking, if that would affect a students ability to be creative and expressive in the classroom.

What have you learned about your question/topic?

I have learned that creativity and curiosity is much more accessible through working with groups. I was more focused on individual creativity when I should have been recognizing the benefits of starting out in a group where different ideas are being presented in a comfortable setting and atmosphere. Through reflecting on the experience in the classroom I have had so far, I can see a direct connection with activities that foster creativity to interest in material.

What resources have been the most useful?

I found the resources that assisted my thinking into how I can incorporate this into lessons were the most helpful. I love the idea of group work or think pair share which allows students to share their ideas. The resources that are studies about using different tools such as a tablet have helped me validate my assumptions or even question some of them. For example; I was originally against technology just because of the distraction aspect of it but I am now finding through research that it would be to the student’s benefit to use this resource to assist in their learning as well as spike curiosity among topics.

Describe your inquiry process. What challenges have you experienced? How has your thinking evolved? How did you overcome them?

A challenge that I have came across is the lack in information on assessing creativity. I guess it is more about the process but I will definitely have to inquire about this more.

Implications – What does this mean for you as an educator, and possibly other educators?

I think with this new curriculum, teachers are striving to get more curiosity amongst students but it seems harder to asses. The old curriculum was much more laid out in a way that they have to do this and know this and if that is proven in their assignments ir tests then they are comprehending the material.

What are your next steps?

My next step is to further my research into the benefits of group sharing to assist in individual creativity. I really enjoyed an article I read about how students were put into groups of interest where they work together to learn about their shared interest but then later worked individually. This process allowed students to inquire about their own ideas but also other students ideas, allowing students to have a deeper learning experience than they would if they had started inquiring alone. I also would like to look into visual journaling which can assist students in creative writing.

What new questions do you have?

1) How can teachers asses creativity outside of fine arts?
2) How can we allow for students to be more creative which evidently takes more time but also stay on task with the curriculum?

 

 

 

Blog Reflection #2- Knowledge is power!

Focus Topic: What are the benefits of teacher Inquiry?

Teacher inquiry is very important for the continuing learning of teachers. By teachers modeling this inquiry process, students are able to see and better understand the inquiry process. Having teacher inquiry allows for better student-teacher relationships because when a teacher is modeling curiosity, it creates an atmosphere that motivates students to be curious. Teachers inquiry helps teachers better their classroom; this could mean simply inquiring about class management or how to set up a classroom that promotes learning. These are beneficial to the students but also beneficial for the teacher, helping them better understand their classroom and most likely making it easier for themselves.

As teacher candidates we have our own inquiry project right now, but in reality we are inquiring about everything. We are taking in so much information right now and we have to choose what information we think is valuable. I can imagine myself doing inquiry throughout my entire career because I am naturally interested in a wide variety of things.

My inquiry project is about promoting curiosity and creativity in the classroom. I have found that I am interested in very angle of this project so my main difficulties with this inquiry project so far have been narrowing it down. The more I read, the more ways of promoting curiosity and creativity I find. I am finding myself not as focused as I should be and I am researching a little bit of everything which is good at this point but I’m not getting very far with each topic within my inquiry project. I know I want to focus on technology because I have found a lot of research showing that students are more creative using digital resources. I also want to focus on students working in groups because that seems to allow students to open up and be more comfortable with being creative. When I was in the classroom I noticed the value of interesting discussion and how students can build on their curiousity. So, essentially I would like to look more into how to set up discussion so that students want to inquire in topics. Writing unit plans have informed me how to incorporate “hooks” for lessons and actually including that in your lesson plans. Hooking the students will promote students curiosity and hopefully inspire students to want to inquire throughout the unit.

 

 

Blog #3 Reflection

I have learned that the inquiry process is going to take time and I won’t necessarily find an answer to my inquiry but rather ideas to try out in the classroom. Luckily with the new curriculum, I believe this new inquiry based process will guide students in being more curious resulting in hopefully being more creative. My inquiry process right now is more about the research and I am picking what I personally think would be successful in the classroom. The inquiry process is very interesting but also very frustrating because I am taking in so much information in classes and learning how they fit in with my inquiry question. Unfortunately I am finding that I don’t have the time to go in depth in all the areas I am learning about. It will certainly be a lifelong process that I slowly learn how to help students become more curious and creative with the content being learnt. I watched a video of a teacher in the 80s who had set up an archaeology field trip that he created himself and the students were extremely motivated and curious in the unit. Obviously this type of excitement may not be attainable in all subject areas but it was interesting to see how he taught about the body through this unit. This was difficult material but it was attainable to learn and understand because they were so motivated.

I am learning that I need to become more confident in working with technology because this is clearly a huge resource and as of right now, is increasing children’s curiosity and creativity in content. I am also learning that I need to zone in on maybe four ideas that could work in the classroom, possibly how to set up the classroom, a daily routine that promotes creativity, how I can promote creativity in other subject areas and what resources and/or ways of learning to help children’s curiosity and creativity.

Next steps:
* zoning in on certain areas as of now to gage whether I think they will be successful for my inquiry question.
* finding resources of teachers that have done more creative projects that have helped students curiosity. For example: the video I watched about a teacher creating a field trip that involved students going on a dig! Looking at how he presented the material in guiding students curiosity, inspiring them to learn about this topic so they could go on the field trip and be ready to understand what they have dug/found.
* Finding more digital resources (ted talks possibly?)

New questions:
How does outdoor learning promote children’s curiosity and creativity?

 

Implications and Exploration

When I think about how I am going to live my inquiry in the classroom, I expect that I will be trying a variety of methods and seeing which methods are successful. With the new curriculum, students curiosity should heighten and I expect I can work with their curious minds to create creativity within their inquiry projects.

I’ve read a lot about why teachers feel that they can’t really spend too much time on students creativity because it’s time consuming. I understand that allowing students to be creative ends up to be a longer process, but creativity is not its own subject, and can be incorporated in many different ways. When students are creative, they are interested in the activity and essentially will be more motivated. With this new curriculum though, I think there are many areas in which you can do multiple subjects into one inquiry project. Creativity is often in an art form so it can be scaffolded into many subject areas opening up possibilities for cross-curricular moments, helping the teacher achieve the expected curriculum.

What I love about creativity, is the expression of oneself that provides such individuality in a classroom. It frustrates me to see art projects that look essentially all the same when art can be such an individually unique process for a student. When I try out these methods of fostering students creativity I plan on giving the students criteria that follows the curriculum but does not limit their creativity and hopefully will assist in the creative process.

Now that I have had an art and music class, I feel more inspired in how I can achieve this in the classroom. Music itself is very expressive and creative but I was worried that it would be difficult to achieve without instruments (if a school doesn’t have access to this). I am now taking a step back when I think about what music is and seeing how technology can motivate and hook students on a creative project. Music can be an asset to so many projects and by using a program such as garage band, it can provide an experience for students who can’t afford music lessons.

I plan on documenting through my practicum in journal format. During the day, I will take notes in how I see creativity in the classroom and ideas that I may have that could strengthen curiosity and creativity in the classroom. I will then reflect on the day and record what seemed to be successful and some methods that were not.

I was lucky to be in a very creative classroom for the first semester and I learned so much from that experience. I learned the motivation and satisfaction that students feel when they are able to have individual creativity in their work. I think many teachers create projects for the “assessment” requirement but students work so hard on each project, why can’t it be something they want to keep and be proud of? When students make something like a book, they feel value in the classroom. It’s similar to when you win a soccer game and you receive a medal or some kind of award, you put value on that. I think student’s work should have that same value, something that they are proud of and is individually special to each student.

 

Recent Posts

Annotated Bibliography

Posted on by
Reply

Annotated Bibliography

Adams, W. K., & Willis, C. (2015). Sparking Curiosity: How Do You Know What Your Students Are Thinking?. Physics Teacher, 53(8)’ 469-472

I really enjoyed this article and just by reading the title (How do you know what your students are thinking), it immediately spiked interest in me. This article touches on memory benefits when students are learning subject matter that they are interested in as well as the importance of connecting the material to real-world examples. I really enjoyed the approach to quizzes after reading, being more focused on the learner’s curiosity opposed to content. The three questions the teacher studied in the article are:

  • What did you learn from this reading?
  • What are you confused about in this reading?
  • What did this reading make you wonder about? What questions did it bring up to you?

I love how this quiz promotes curiosity in children, accessing their understanding of the material in a way that also sets the student up for inquiry and being familiar with the inquiry process. The article also includes real students responses to a reading assigned and their confusion on certain aspects of the article. This allows the teacher to really zone in on one or two things, spiking the students curiosity but also diminishing frustration due to confusion of the subject matter. The article’s conclusions are simply the benefits of inquiry based learning, where students are encouraged to inquire about ideas.
Chen, C., & Chiu, C. c. (2016). Employing intergroup competition in multitouch design-based learning to foster student engagement, learning achievement, and creativity. Computers & Education, 10399-113.

This article is about design based learning. I just learnt about design based learning only recently from a teacher that had planned to make inventions with his class. This was their first time doing this kind of project and all of the students were really excited about it. After hearing about this I researched a little more about it and found out this way of learning. This article talks about the benefits of this approach of learning for science, technology, engineering and math. It finds a way to make the subject content more hands on which I thought was really fascinating. One weakness in the article (or at least from my personal opinion) is setting this up as a competition. I can see it as a great motivator but I think I have to do some more research before I fully agree with that approach. I don’t want students creativity to be ranked from best to worst. A huge strength in this article is the information is proven by a study that the author and other members Taipei, Taiwan with two sixth grade classes. It feels more authentic knowing that their information is from their own findings from the study.
Cress, S.s., & Holm, D (2016). Creative Endeavours: Inspiring Creativity in a First Grade Classroom. Early Childhood Education Journal, 44(3), 235-243.

This article focused on the need for collaborative creative work. In my mind I was trying to find a way to create individual creative minds but it was interesting to read about a different approach. The article talks about a way to incorporate this idea into your classroom for 1 hour a day. Of course the new BC curriculum involves inquiry for all the subjects but it was interesting to read the process of collaborating work to individual work. This is achieved by grouping students by interest and eventually moving into individual work. The article also touches on the need to use media as a resource and how this spike’s curiosity in students. We are constantly on our phones and computers looking at media and it really is a great and exciting resource that we can use in the classroom to light up our students curiosity in subjects.


Kim, H.J., Park, J. H., Yoo, S., & Kim, H. (2016). Fostering Creativity in Tablet- Based Interactive Classrooms. Educational Technology & Society, 19(3), 207-220.

This article focused on supporting the creativity of students through a tablet. Something that really stuck out to me was: “learners focus on interpreting the materials presented in a textbook or lesson rather than on creating their own visual representations”. This questioned my understanding of taking notes and made me wonder if maybe a more visual way of representing content might help children learn more successfully. Of course, this is more helpful for visual learners but this made me wonder if students that are struggling with content would benefit by showing their understanding in a more visual way opposed to the standard written test format. The article also puts great importance on group activities or how they state it “social creativity”. I was thinking that my inquiry question was more based on individual creativity but maybe this idea of “social creativity” is what will increase students interest and curiosity in subjects.

Lumsden, L. S. (1994). Student Motivation To Learn. ERIC Digest, Number 92.

I really enjoyed this article’s perspective in students motivation to learn. Most of the articles have information regarding how you can set up your lessons but this article took a step back. Students motivation starts at home; if parents are not open to children’s curious questions then they aren’t going to feel like they can inquire about topics in class. The article also breaks down the two types of students: intrinsically motivated and extrinsically motivated which was interesting. I thought about this principle and found myself noticing it in the class I was working with. Some students were more interested in “what they get out of” certain subjects and others just simply want to learn for their enjoyment. A huge strength in this article was the emphasis on creating a classroom where students feel supported. I liked how this article looked at possible sources for students lack of motivation to learn and the importance of the value of each student in the classroom.

 

 

Engel, S., & Susan Engel. (12). Children’s need to know: Curiosity in schools. Harvard Educational Review, 81(4), 625-623.

This article was very fascinating. It was based on observations of both students and teachers in the classroom. It was very interesting to see how a change of wording in an activity could increase or decrease creativity and curiosity about a topic. A key phrase that I have heard in the classroom and now in this article is when a teacher says “I wonder”. It showed how teacher inquiry can highly influence students to be inquirers as well and that it’s ok to be curious about other things that aren’t directly related to the activity. The article also touched briefly on the environment that is needed for encouraging students to be curious, although I wish the article went in more depth. I thought it was really interesting how the article talked about why teachers feel they can’t let students become curious because then they get “off task”, and they used an example of a teacher saying: “No, that’s not part of the activity” and I realized that I have said that before. So now my question is; how teachers can promote curiosity and creativity in the classroom while still keeping students on task? Teachers have to help guide students in their inquiries but I think I’m a little confused how we do that.

 

Klefstad, J. M. (2015). Focus on family: Environments that foster inquiry and critical thinking in young children: Supporting children’s natural curiosity: Susan catapano, editor. Childhood Education, 91(2), 147-149. 

This article had a strong connection to inquiry-based learning. This article focuses on the environment that needs to be present for students to reach their potential. Kelfstad says (2015): “In order for children to reach their potential, an environment allowing them to question, discover, and apply the knowledge they actively acquire is essential”. I knew that inquiry-based learning would spike curiosity among students but I don’t think I really understood how to achieve this. This article promotes the idea of teachers being more of a guide rather than an educator and just someone that encourages students to ask “why”, which I think is an easier way of thinking about it. Klefstad also puts emphasis on the importance of students communicating and collaborating with others. I thought my inquiry was more based on individual curiosity and creativity but I am realizing very quickly that this is best achieved in groups rather than alone. One weakness of this article is it introduces a lot of ideas such as inquiry-based learning but doesn’t go in depth with these topics. Although, this has helped me direct where I would lto furtherther my research on my inquiry question.

 

Robinson, Ken. (Feb 2006) “Ken Robinson: Do Schools Kill Creativity?” Retrieved from: http://www.ted.com/talks/ken_robinson_says_schools_kill_creativity?language=en

I had the opportunity of watching this TED talk in class and it was good to revisit the video after several months. Only part of the video really relates to my inquiry question because he does get a little off track at times. It is always interesting to hear personal stories about how we are essentially educating students out of curiosity or in his example; labelling the student as having a learning disability. I never thought about the fact that the education system is focusing on subjects that you are more likely to get a job in, subjects outside of the arts. I haven’t had a chance to watch his other videos yet but I’m sure some of them can build on this idea. I think that this switch to inquiry based learning will definitely assist in promoting more curiosity and creativity in the classroom and I look forward to seeing that in the future.

 

Grauer, Kit. (2011). Visual journals in the elementary classroom. In K. Grauer, R. Irwin & M. Emme (Eds.), Starting with… third edition (pp. 142-147)

I really enjoyed reading about the idea of visual journaling. I truly believe this could have helped me as a child as I struggled coming up with ideas when writing. I haven’t seen this idea in the classroom yet but I have seen a student that did it themselves and I actually discouraged it as they were instructed to be writing. If the teacher allows a time for just visual journaling, maybe this student would have had his ideas drawn and ready for a written composition. I believe this would be a very beneficial way of ELL students to get their ideas down and reference when having to write. This chapter essentially just introduced the idea of visual journaling and how it creates richer written material. An idea that I did enjoy and thought was a strength in the article was the note of the benefits of sharing their art work. I was thinking about the benefits in having students do a visual journal but then sharing their ideas with a friend, helping individuals verbalize their ideas so they have an easier time writing when the time comes. I look forward to doing further research with this and see if this can be beneficial for other subjects. I do wonder though, is visual journaling beneficial for all students or should there be a section of time in which students get the option to either visual journal or written journal?

  1. Inquiry Proposal Leave a reply