The inquiry question stated above is, in fact, not the question that I came up with in September of 2015 when I began my journey in teacher inquiry. This was my original question: In the Home Economics (Foods) classroom, how can social/digital media and project-based learning allow for the development of critical media literacy, and inspire students to be global food advocates and independently food literate? It is now January of 2016, and many aspects of my new inquiry has been refined and altered over the months through research, discussions, and teaching experiences.
Compared to my original question, I have decided to open up the teaching practice in question to discover best practices for introducing critical thinking skills instead of focusing on project-based learning. I am an advocate for inquiry and project-based learning because I believe it helps students develop curiosity and skills for independent, life-long learning. Yet I have come to realize that it is not the always the most ideal method of learning and assessment for every classroom; some topics are better taught in other ways. Project-based learning requires a lot of scaffolding and prior knowledge to be able to carry out well. After all, it is the application of subject knowledge that students are expected to convey (Allison et al., 2015). As a teacher, I would have to know and assess clearly the level of knowledge that students are at in order to be confident in assigning project-based learning. Currently, having only ten weeks in the classroom for my teaching practicum experience, a long-term project is not feasible. What is realistic, however, are lessons and activities woven throughout my unit that introduce and help develop critical thinking skills. This is why I want to explore other avenues of teaching and assessment, and find out what the best practices are.
The decision to shift focus entirely away from social and digital media was not done with keenness, but I believe it is still relevant within the scope of my question. Having had limited media and technology access at my practicum school, I have realized that topics surrounding technology use is not applicable to many students. To make my question more encompassing and relevant for a greater population, I want to focus on critical thinking in general. However, critical thinking skills are often required when examining media sources, so bringing in different popular media, from videos to newspaper clippings and flyers, can make learning critical thinking skills a lot more interesting and applicable to students’ day-to-day lives outside of academia.
Also, instead of focusing on only the food and nutrition aspect of home economics, I decided to open up my scope to engage all three areas: food, textiles, and family studies. This is a decision that I should have considered earlier in the semester. Because food and nutrition is my greatest passion and teaching forte, I have a tendency to make all my thinking and experiences relate to that area, but all three domains of home economics have a range of skills to offer to students that I need to be cognizant of.
Allison, P., Gray, S., Sproule, J., Nash, C., Martindale, R., & Wang, J. (2015). Exploring contributions of project-based learning to health and wellbeing in secondary education.
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