Thanks again to all those who attended this morning’s inquiry project check-in meetings.

In addition to talking about what’s new with your paper since we met last, I also outlined the schedule of events for the Inquiry Project.  Here’s what I presented:

Rough Draft Face-to-Face Feedback

The rough draft of your Inquiry Project 1500-word MAXIMUM paper will be discussed in a small group meeting on Monday, 13 Feb.  As arranged in today’s class, please make sure that you’ve emailed the draft of your paper to your fellow group members  so they can read it and prepare some feedback for you to discuss in Monday’s face-to-face meeting.

For Monday’s meeting, you may wish to bring a hard copy of the piece(s) you read with your notes/suggestions on it (them) or you may prefer to make the suggestions on an electronic copy and then bring in your laptop, iPhone, iPad, or what not  Pick your poison.

Please keep in mind that your feedback should be focused on the criteria that Shep and I – and all EDUC 310 instructors, for that matter – will use to assess your piece.  As per the EDUC 310 Course Outline, your project should reflect an emerging ability to:

• Engage substantively with a topic as reflected in careful reading of the literature and an understanding of significant issues, perspectives and assumptions
• Position one self in relation to ideas discussed
• Consider educational issues critically
• Relate one’s learning to curriculum and pedagogy

So you can marvel at my chalkboard writing prowess, here’s a photo (courtesy of Devin) of the criteria taken in last year’s class:

Outlining the Presentations

We took some time to go over the shape of the Inquiry Project Oral/Multi-Media Presentation and the One-Minute Inquiry Project Synthesis.  Here are the details:

Presenters

Monday, 20 February 2012 – SCARFE 210 from 10:00 am – Noon

• Shep’s TCs

Wednesday, 22 February 2012  – SCARFE 1003 rom 10:00 am – Noon

• Lawrence’s TCs

Presentation Schedule

Each day will follow the same schedule.  During the concurrent presentations, 4 students will be presenting at the same time.  Non-presenters will choose who to see after hearing a short blurb about each project:

• Concurrent Presentation #1 – 20 minutes
• Concurrent Presentation #2 – 20 minutes
• Break – 10 minutes
• Concurrent Presentation #3 – 20 minutes
• Yeti vs. Abominable Snowman vs. Invisible Man All Flying in Wonder Woman’s Plane in a Snowstorm Time (A.K.A. Closure) – 20 minutes

Guidelines for the Inquiry Project Oral/Multi-Media Presentation

• GOAL: Highlight the NEED TO KNOW points from your Inquiry Project for your audience
• 15 minutes to present + 5 minutes for Q & A
• Must include a visual component (mind map, puppet show, diorama, puppet show, diagram, puppet show, graph, puppet show, collage, puppet show,…)
• Suggested Format: What? So What? Now What?
  • What?
    • What’s your question?
    • Where did your question come from? (Purpose)
    • What did you do? (Approach)
  • So What?
    • What did you learn?
    • What must TCs know about your findings?
  • Now What?
    • Where will you go from here?
    • Where to look for more info?
    • Where should TCs go from here?

One-Minute 3*2*1 Synthesis

This one-minute blurb is a quick review of your presentation.  This will serve as a “short blurb” you will give to pique the interest of the audience before they choose which of the concurrent presentations to see each round.  It should include the following information from your Inquiry Project:

• Your inquiry question
• 3 – Big Ideas
• 2 – Points to Ponder
• 1 – Action for TCs to Take on Prac…or Beyond

Here’s an example of a 3-2-1 synthesis piece from one of last year’s TCs:

Submission of Inquiry Project Papers and 3*2*1 Synthesis Blurbs

Please submit your paper and your 3*2*1 blurb to your FA via email on or before Wednesday, 22 February 2012.

Here’s a photo of the calendar and due dates courtesy of Tim.  (Thanks to John, too, who took a photo that I didn’t end up using):

On a note completely unrelated to inquiry…

Date for Submitting Your the First Unit Plan of Prac to Your SA

As a professional courtesy and to get some useful feedback, we’re asking you to submit the unit plan of the first unit you’ll be teaching on prac to your SA by Monday, 5 March 2012. This will give your SA a week before the start of Spring Break to take a peek and give you their thoughts on your planning before you start the long prac on Monday, 26 March 2012.

Cheers,

– Lawrence