Inquiry was a course that at UBC we took all year. The first semester of the course consisted of readings provided by the teacher on Inquiry related and self-regulated learning approaches to teaching. Not only would we learn about inquiry we also implement it in our teaching. Their are 5 points of inquiry according to….. and they are: connect and wonder, investigate, construct, express and reflect. We spend time in this class coming up with questions that we could investigate further for our inquiry. We would come up with a question and then observe in our practicum class the student could self-regulate their learning. I had many questions I wanted to explore but had a difficult time developing a question that I was passionate about and that it would be original in that it had not been explored with great detail already. Once I connected to a question I went to investigate the question further in literature and observations in my practicum class. With this collected information I wrote my Inquiry paper.
Also when I had developed my question I started to build lesson plans around my inquiry. I used Blogs as apart of a novel study unit. It connected well with the novel in the theme of media and censorship.
I wanted to get as much information on students using digital technology in the classroom as I could. I reflected on this in my weekly reflections and also every second Friday a meeting with other teachers from the school on ways to get technology in the hands of the students. In the school the stat was that 90% of students in the school could and do use their own device when they come to school. With the demographic at our school we strived on a goal to teach students to be digitally literate global citizens. In my Inquiry I wrote about using digital portfolios and blogs but in my classroom I did not limit myself to only those two platforms for the students to use. I also used different platforms for the students to collaborate as a class and with the teacher. Platforms such as Google docs, Padlet, and Freshgrade.
In the future I would still like to have students use digital technology in the classroom and this will further students ability to self regulate their learning on digital technology. I want to integrate the blogs with more subject areas and having the students utilize them with more of a multifaceted approach.