Designing a cross-curricular unit plan that incorporates aspects of student inquiry is a major assignment in LLED 351, Literacy Practices and Assessment, and also excellent practice for practicum and future planning. The following resources were developed to assist BEd students in completing this assignment but are helpful to anyone getting started with inquiry-based learning.
with permission from https://www.trevormackenzie.com/school-posters
When designing learning experiences to support all learners in your class, it is essential to consider your learners and context. A teacher will ask themselves a variety of questions to ensure they are planning objectives and activities to engage, support and extend learning for all learners in their classroom. Universal Design for Learning (UDL) supports this approach and recommends that teachers think ahead about all learners rather than relying solely on differentiation. This doesn’t mean that differentiation isn’t of value – it is! See this link for some strategies. What it means is that UDL will help to ensure the teacher is cognizant of planning for the success of a far wider range of students lessening the need to explicitly and individually differentiate as you teach.
Here are the slides from our in -class session to help review inquiry, planning, accessing and evaluating resources.
UNIT PLAN EXAMPLES
In our session, we discussed topical research projects we often see in K-7 classrooms that might involve students researching specific aspects of a given topic (for example, if animals, students may be asked to learn about the Appearance, Food, Habitat, Life Cycle, etc.; if planets, they might find out about appearance, size, density, gravity, location/position, etc; if a Country study or Ancient Civilization study, they might find out about the culture, religion, population/people, etc…).
To put a more inquiry oriented ‘spin’ on this traditional topical research practice, the teacher might provide a guiding or essential question (or the students might co-create questions) to provide a REAL purpose for gathering the information. A couple of examples:
- Dinosaurs or animals – Which animal would make the best pet and why? Students learn about different dinosaurs (including appearance, food, habitat etc) in order to determine what dinosaurs needs and how they might adapt to life in our class, in our homes, in this particular habitat etc.
- Space – on which planet would you prefer to live and/or what would you need to survive? You might even incorporate ADST by designing and cardboard prototyping a tool that would support survival (thanks to one of Lisa’s students for this suggestion!)
Examples of Unit plans that incorporate elements of inquiry (remember, what these look like can vary greatly… these are simply examples!)
- Insects (Primary)
- Circle of Life (Primary)
- Communities (Primary)
- Collapse of a Society (Upper Intermediate/Middle Years)
Digital technology links:
- Concept Maps:
- MindMup (free basic level of this concept mapping software allows individual maps – as a paid feature, it can integrate with google drive to allow co-creation of CMaps) Coggle is similar to Mindmup – their paid access allows co-creation and it integrates with Office 365. Most schools will have licensing for concept mapping software for the computer lab, laptop carts and/or ipads. (MindMup, Coggle, Inspiration, Kidspiration, Wrike…)
- All Class Response (a strategy that can give ‘voice’ to all learners and afford co-creation)
- Padlet brainstorming/co-creation
- remember to moderate posts!
- Interested in other all class response/assessment ideas? Visit this post related to EPSE310 the BEd Assessment Course
- HERE is our padlet wall with some helpful tips for planning
- Padlet brainstorming/co-creation
Resource Evaluation and Setting Criteria:
As students engage in inquiry, you might have them develop their digital literacies. Consider helping them learn to effeftively evaluate resources! In our session, we look at the “Tree Octopus” and students worked to determine the validity of the site and provide evidence for their reasoning. You can find similar activity ideas to help your students develop digital literacies on MediaSmarts (Canadian developed). You can even search the resources by province, grade level, and curriculum.
As we developed criteria, it was impressive that the class was able to come up with most of those that one would use to evaluate a resource! Please remember to come up with your own 5 finger rule for evaluation (or feel free to adapt one you find – be sure to cite your sources)
- Is it verifiable using external resources? Is it reliable? How do I know?
- Authorship or sponsorship or ownership.
- Using WhoIs you can try to identify the domain owners of a particular website – can help determine ‘fake news sites’
- Check the About page
- Time, when was it published? is it dated or still relevant or current (or appropriate!)
- Authorship or sponsorship or ownership.
- Appearance, navigation, organization, accessibility – including thinking about reading level, learning differences, use of visuals, text heavy, use of text features (bolding, captions, chunking etc)
- Language use (leads to credibility and also accessibility) – is it text heavy? is it visual? Are there frequent errors in grammar etc? Does it use a lot of jargon or does it use scientific language? What is the appropriate register of language for your needs? your student needs?
5 Finger Rule for Website evaluation (for your interest/reference) – from Kathy Schrock’s guide to everything. (links to additional critical evaluation resources from Kathy’s site)
TEMPLATES for planning?
Personally, I really like the Unit Planning template designed by the Coquitlam school district. I find that the question prompts support TCs and beginning teachers in particular as they consider their students’ needs. Working with Claire Rushton, Director of the Teacher Ed Office here in Scarfe, I’ve put together an ‘in progress’ UBC blogs resource site with planning templates we’ve created or gathered, resource links and examples: Designing Learning. Should you select a template, it is important that it doesn’t simply become a task of ‘filling boxes’ – more importantly, you want to consider how the learning path or sequence of learning helps build students towards their understanding of the ‘Big Idea’ or Essential Question.
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION & Resources
Scaffolding Inquiry:
Keep in mind as you plan that inquiry can take different forms. It does not have to look like a completely ‘free and open’ student directed process and it is important to scaffold for student success. See this short video about Trevor McKenzie’s illustration of the swimming pool as a representation of the ‘stages’ or kinds of inquiry.
Know your Students – Inclusive approaches:
As mentioned earlier, knowing your students is critical. I’d suggest creating a class profile (a profile of sorts is, I believe, required for your assignment) and even, at the start of practicum or beforehand, surveying each of your students individually to learn about their preferences, interests, etc. This information (in addition to knowing if they have access to a digital device they can bring to school regularly) can be of value in planning for engagement and success! Shelley Moore has done some excellent work on inclusion and has several examples of class and student profiles – Templates here: https://blogsomemoore.com/shout-outs/templates/.
The Learning for All pdf is an assessment guide from the Ontario Ministry of Ed, 2013 P.34 contains info about creating class profiles (more in-depth than needed for this course assignment, but of possible interest/use in your teaching.)
Students can create their own learner profiles – an excellent metacognitive activity that supports core competencies.
framework that educators can use to evaluate the effectiveness of applying a certain technology in their classrooms. SECTIONS specifically refers to 8 different areas: Students, Ease of use, Costs, Teaching & Media, Interactivity, Organizational issues, Networking and Security & Privacy.
