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
- Farisha
- Miguel
- Jennifer
- Aaron
Diversity
- Devin
- Sarah
- Alice
- Amber
- Ian
- Jeremy
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
