Today I met with most of the TCs that I teach in POT/COM class but don’t supervise on practicum. The purpose of this meeting was twofold. I wanted to:
Thanks to all who attended today’s meetings. I really enjoyed reading your pieces and talking about them with you.
By the way, here’s the rubric I used in my assessment:
– Lawrence
Thanks to all of today’s presenters. Our guest, Tony Clarke – one of the EDUC 310 Inquiry Project Coordinators, was impressed with your tasks.
Remember that your work is due to me today. Please zip / compress all the relevant files into one folder and email them to me at lholbrook@sd43.bc.ca.
Thanks,
– Lawrence
Thank you to all of today’s presenters. Also, I appreciated the whole class feedback on how to improve the format of the presentation process for Wednesday. In that session, we’ll use the 3-2-1 Synthesis pieces to introduce each speaker.
Speaking of Wednesday, here’s the Inquiry Project elements that are due to me on that day:
To save time for you and to aid in my collation of all these files, please compress – “zip” – all of your I.P.-related files together. Mr. Pepper kindly found very short video clips that will show you how to do this on both Mac and PC platforms:
Mac
[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_YnP1sN-LJE[/youtube]
PC
[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mq3vdsCux-c[/youtube]
(P.S. – Hmmmmm. I think it’s interesting that the PC tutorial is over twice as long as the Mac one. Food for your ease-of-use thoughts, no? Feel free to comment below. It’s been some time since I’ve had a commenter – LH.)
Lastly, I’ve compiled and categorized the questions you had for Debbie Gregg, HR Senior Manager of SD#43 (Coquitlam). Here’s the list:
– Steve Jobs… er, Lawrence
Discussing the Drafts of Your Inquiry Project Report
Thanks to everyone for your thoughtful participation in today’s peer editing session. Hopefully, the feedback you received will help as you refine your paper and get it as near as humanly possible to 1499 words. No small feat.
Just a reminder that I am assessing your piece. As per the EDUC 310 Course Outline, your project should reflect an emerging ability to:
So you can marvel at my chalkboard writing prowess, here’s a photo (courtesy of Devin) of the criteria from class:
Outlining the Presentations
I took the last few minutes of each group’s meeting 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, 21 February 2011 – SCARFE 210 from 10:00 am – Noon
Wednesday, 23 February 2011 – SCARFE 1003 rom 10:00 am – Noon
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:
Guidelines for the Inquiry Project Oral/Multi-Media Presentation
One-Minute 3*2*1 Synthesis
This one-minute blurb is a quick review of your presentation for those who did not hear it in class. It should include the following information from your Inquiry Project:
Submission of Inquiry Project Papers and 3*2*1 Synthesis Blurbs
Please submit your paper and your 3*2*1 blurb to me via email on or before Wednesday, 23 February 2011.
Here’s how all the Presentation & Synthesis info looked like on the board (courtesy of Devin’s Android phone):
Thanks to Devin for both photos.
Cheers,
– Lawrence
Thanks again to all those who attended this morning’s inquiry project check-in meetings.
The rough draft of your Inquiry Project 1500-word paper will be discussed in a small group meeting on Monday, 14 Feb. Please make sure that you’ve emailed the draft of your paper to one member of your group a day or two before then 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 you read with your notes/suggestions on it or you may prefer to make the suggestions on an electronic copy and email that to the author after your discussion. Whatever suits you and the author.
I didn’t get a chance to run this plan for rough draft revision by the member of the 10:00 – 10:30 am group – Sarah, Caitlin, Leanne, Amanda, and Tyrel – so I’ll catch up with them some time this week.
Also, we’ll take some time in our meetings on Monday, 14 Feb to talk about what the 10-minute multi-media presentation on your project and the one-page synthesis might look like.
Cheers,
– Lawrence
Today we focused on:
Inquiry Project Assessment Criteria
We used a Jigsaw-ish strategy to think and talk about the I.P. criteria. These four criteria are the same ones I’ll use in the assessment of the projects that are submitted to me. For your reference, here they are:
Inquiry Project Class Schedule
Here’s the schedule that I ran up the flag pole and that you saluted:
Also, here’s the list of the times for Wednesday’s 5-Min Inquiry Proposal Approval Meeting (Thanks Tyrel for typing this up – LH):
Finally, here’s a list with two more bits of important info (Thanks Leanne for typing these up – LH):
I think that covers it.
– Lawrence
Today’s class was focused on prepping for completion of this term’s Inquiry Project. To that end, we did the following:
The Coyote Project Readaloud Using Thinking Bubbles
To get you in an inquiry frame of mind, I read The Coyote Project, a story about one girl’s process of writing a school report on coyotes. As I read, I asked you to use the during-reading strategy “Thinking Bubbles” – a strategy I found in Brownlie, Close, and Wingren’s text, Beyond Chalk and Talk.
After the reading, I asked you to consider the reading and your thinking bubbles then answer the question: “What qualities of inquiry are evident [in the story]?” You came up with a wide variety of responses.
Analyzing a Model Inquiry Project, “Joining Learning to Living” by Nick Sluyer
The goal here was to show you the shape of a completed inquiry project.
You arrived to class with a completed graphic organizer related to the content of the Joining Learning to Living article. Here’s the G.O.:
As a means of processing the content, I grouped you by page # – 19, 20, 21, & 23 – and asked you to summarize your thinking on the What? and So What? of your particular section of the text. Then, we engaged in the One Stays, Others Stray Strategy. One member from each group stayed at their table to share the group’s understanding while the others strayed to other groups and gathered info.
After 8 minutes or so, all TCs returned to their original groups and shared the info they found during their research process. To end, we discussed what stood out in each section of the text in terms of content or process.
Here’s an example of how to use One Stays, Others Stray. It was implemented as part of a Grade 8 Music unit:
Reviewing Your Inquiry Question
To end class, I handed back the inquiry questions that you had submitted before the end of term 1. I mentioned that I thought the questions fit roughly into 7 categories, as follows:
Curriculum
Lesson Design
Assessment
Ss/Te Relationship
Motivation
Diversity
Management
I mentioned that you may have new topics of interest that emerged over your 2-week prac. As such, I urged you to review your question using the suggestions outlined on the Developing and Refining Your Inquiry Project Question handout found here:
Your final inquiry question and the Inquiry Project One Pager you sketch out based on that question – the same One Pager template that you completed when you posed your initial question at the end of Term 1 – needs to be brought to class on Monday, 24 January. Here’s the One Pager handout:
Please include at least one specific source of information (include the bibliographic details) related to your question, as this will show that there is in fact information related to your topic. The librarians at the Education Library should prove a valuable resource to consult as should Google Scholar.
That’s all for today.
– Lawrence
We started class by considering the EDUC 310 Inquiry Task. I used a PPT slideshow to structure the lesson, and the presentation aimed to answer three key questions:
After recalling your prior inquiry-related knowledge to answer the first question and picking out a few highlights from the EDUC 310 Course Outline and elsewhere to address the second, we discussed the attributes of a powerful inquiry question through the lens of the article “How My Question Keeps Evolving” by Michele Sims.
Here’s the slideshow that supported this lesson:
At the end of this class, I assigned the exit slip – completing the EDUC 310 Inquiry Project One Pager – MIDDLE YEARS COHORT. On the front of the page are some questions to stimulate thinking about research questions, if you’re stuck at the moment, and some sample questions drafted by Elementary TCs. On the back of the page are four questions that you need to answer on the handout and bring to class on Wednesday, 2 December 2010. Please note that, in a manner similar to what Sims experienced, this question may evolve as you think on it and as you spend more time in the field.
If, as Confucius declared, “A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step,” consider this your first, tentative foot forward. A baby step. if you please.
Oh, that reminds me. Here’s how Bob (Bill Murray) “baby steps” in the comedy opus, What About Bob?:
[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p3JPa2mvSQ4[/youtube]
Bob sails, too:
[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YrbY4hsNh64&feature=related[/youtube]
Here’s the one-pager in electronic form:
In the end, let’s hope your inquiry proceeds more smoothly than this woman’s:
[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5FRVvjGL2C0[/youtube]
UBD Stage 2 – Assessment Evidence
In preparation for the completion of the unit plan you’ll use on your 2-Week Prac, I presented some information related to the assessment of your desired results via this PPT slideshow:
Here are a few key slides from that presentation, for your reference:
Lastly, here’s a good case for assessing beyond the test:
[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YCuHTMHRBS4&feature=related[/youtube]
Bob and I will be meeting with you on Monday to discuss your unit planning. All meetings are in SCARFE 1310. Please bring:
The Conference Schedule is in the previous post.
At the end of class, I asked you to pick up a handout with samples of and information on how to create engaging and well-constructed Performance Tasks. Here’s that handout if you didn’t get one or if your dog ate it:
Check out this link for a website with more details on Performance Tasks. For even more info, use Google to search the Interwebs using search terms such as: “performance task” “rich task” “authentic assessment” and “authentic education”.
I did that and found this site – Authentic Assessment Toolbox – that has a huge collection of information on PTs, including a bunch of tasks created for all subject areas in middle school. Here’s a screenshot so you can see what’s on offer:
That’s all for now. Bob and I look forward to meeting with you on Monday.
‘Til then,
– Lawrence