Applying Technology to Inquiry-Based Learning in Early Childhood Education

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“Children spontaneously inquire, asking questions and exploring, to understand the world; it is an important key to their lifelong development that should be cultivated and nurtured […] technology enables inquiry learning that could not be otherwise accomplished by reducing some of the unnecessary, lower-level procedures involved in these tasks.”

– Wang, Kinzie, McGuire, & Pan

In this article, Wang, Kinzie, McGuire and Pan outline how the use of technology in early childhood education prepares students for IBL learning in later years. In their arguments, they give examples of various applications and programs that are age appropriate (like Learning with Nemo, Math Missions, Sammy’s Science House) and explain how they can help with the development of problem solving skills, cognitive and metacognitive processes and utilization of resources. It’s not asking that technology replace teacher facilitation, but to aid it instead. They emphasis that teachers are a critical feature in inquiry-based learning, since they provide the structure and guidance of inquiry throughout their schooling.

Wang, F., Kinzie, M.B., McGuire, P., and Pan, E. (2009, December). Applying Technology to Inquiry-Based Learning in Early Childhood Education. Early Childhood Education Journal, 37, p. 381-389. doi: 10.1007/s10643-009-0364-6

Inquiry-based teaching in early childhood education – a paradigm shift?

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“The formal part of ECE is termed the Foundation Phase and represents the initial stage of schooling. This is where the ‘foundation for further learning is laid’. This is the phase when the learners’ love for science should start and be nurtured so that they may become critical thinkers and develop a curiosity about the world.”

– Stears, James & Beni

Stears, James and Beni give examples of inquiry based learning in early childhood education. Their work is based out of South Africa, where Early Childhood Education spans from birth until the age of nine. While the education system is different from ours on paper, it stands to reason that laying the foundation of inquiry based learning in early childhood education will allow for a more successful educational career in IBL schooling. And the topics in which the students learn in what they call “early childhood education” is similar to what our students learn in elementary school.

What they propose is that students learn a “Beginning Knowledge” that includes natural science and technology, which will better prepare students for their education and will hopefully garner more interest in the sciences. While Stears, James and Beni seem to believe that the educators in these situations should have a science background, I don’t think it’s absolutely necessary.

Stears, M., James, A., and Beni, B. (No Date). Inquiry-based teaching in early childhood education – a paradigm shift?. Retrieved from https://www.academia.edu/22252534/Inquiry-based_teaching_and_learning_in_early_childhood_teacher_education-_a_paradigm_shift

21st Century Learning: What’s Good for Students is Good for Teachers

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“If teachers are to be effective in supporting the development of the 21st century skills of their students, they must be well versed in these skills themselves […] Thus, as life-long learners, it should be evident that teachers can also benefit from participating in learning strategies that mirror those of the 21st century classroom. Reinforcing the notion that if it is good for students, it can be good for teachers.”

– Dr. Camille Rutherford

In this article, Dr. Camille Rutherford talks about how the 21st century learning is good for our students, it is something that us as teacher candidates and teachers should use as well in our own learning. With how diverse we are asked to be in our classroom by way of differentiated learning and IEPs, the “cookie-cutter nature of most teacher education programs, additional qualification courses and professional development (PD) sessions, [leaves] teachers with limited first-hand exposure to having their own learning experience differentiated or personalized” (Rutherford, 2015). Essentially what she is saying is that teachers and teacher candidates need to be a part of the classroom that 21st century learning is creating – we have to learn in an inquiry-based environment, with access to as much tech that we would have in our classroom (if not more so that we can be prepared for anything), and we must be well versed in the skills of creativity, communication, and creative/critical thinking (Rutherford, 2015).

Rutherford, C. (2015, March). 21st century learning: What’s good for students is good for teachers [Web log comment]. Retrieved from http://www.cea-ace.ca/blog/dr-camille-rutherford/2015/03/1/21st-century-learning-what%E2%80%99s-good-students-good-teachers

The “Basics” and Inquiry Teaching

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“The impression that educators must choose between ‘back to basics’ and ‘inquiry or discovery learning’ often propels the educational policy pendulum to oversimplify and overact.”

– Roland Case

This article by Roland Case outlines the criticisms against and the arguments for inquiry-based learning. It’s the first piece that I have found that actually outlines the criticisms in depth, and they bring up some good concerns. The first critique is that many critics will say “that students can’t possibly discover everything we want them to learn” (Case, 2015), which is true but not what the IBL model is asking for. Instead, Case proposes that you offer students some possible formulae to consider, to investigate, and not just accept as the answers. The second criticism speaks to the idea that there are basics that students need to know through memorization, like consonants and vowels, or subtraction and addition. And while the need for basics is true, memorization isn’t the only way that the students can learn it. As Case (2015) says, “[t]he more we help students comprehend what we want them to remember, the less students need to learn by memorization” (2015). In other words, give the students an example of how something works, and then let them discover one that works better for them.

In support of inquiry, Case looks to the experience of himself and his colleagues of over 20 years, working with over 125,000 educators all over the world. Their work with critical inquiry learning concluded with positive outcomes in any school, no matter the socio-economic status of the school’s community.

As I stated before, this is the first article I found that really explored the other side of my questions.

Case, R. (2015, December). The “basics” and inquiry teaching [Web Log Comment]. Retrieved from http://www.cea-ace.ca/education-canada/article/%E2%80%9Cbasics%E2%80%9D-and-inquiry-teaching

Inquiry-Based Learning: Teaching Students to be Better Consumers of Information by Chelsea Hasenpflug.

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“Inquiry-based teaching is more effective when the students already have strong knowledge of the subject matter at hand. While this is true, I do not think it should stop teachers from using the inquiry method with those students who do not have prior knowledge or have not yet gained ‘internal guidance.’”

– Chelsea Hasenpflug

In an effort to find the disadvantages of inquiry-based learning, like any inquirer should when researching a topic, I stumbled upon this educator’s blog. While I’ve tried to keep my research to Canadian sources, or at least attempted to have the topic be looked at from a broad scope instead of location-specific information, it touches upon the restrictions on inquiry-based learning with the old curriculums. With the specifications on what needed to be covered in all the subjects (which was determined by the government), teachers had limited time to allow students to explore their own learning. This didn’t foster the “processes over product” mindset of inquiry-based learning.

Hasenpflug also touched on the misconceptions around the role of the teacher in inquiry-based learning (as a facilitator rather than a direct instructor). It’s a subject that I’ve been curious about for the past while, and one that I’ve been poking at randomly when given a chance to talk to parents who have school-aged children (not my practicum parents, though). I’ve wondered how our own expectations of what school is supposed to look like limits us to accepting different forms of learning. I’ve applied this idea to many of my cohorts’ presentations, trying to think from the perspective of a parent who is so used to having school look and work in a certain way. I can see how all this change can be hard to trust, but I feel that in the long run, they could see the benefits. It just might take a while.

C Hasenpflug. (2010, March 9). Inquiry-Based Learning: Teaching students to be better consumers of information [Web log comment]. Retrieved from https://chelsearoseh.wordpress.com/2010/03/09/inquiry-based-learning-teaching-students-to-be-better-consumers-of-information/

Inquiry-Based Teaching: Is it Helpful or Not? By teAchnology

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“Are you one of the people who are familiar with how teaching inquiry can improve school performance? If not, let me tell you how teaching inquiry can improve performance.”

– teAchnology

This article is a basic run-down on the advantages and disadvantages of inquiry-based learning. What makes it unique, though, is that it states that inquiry-based learning could be beneficial for “educational system issues pertaining to the racism and the gender inequities”. It goes on to say that, because of the nature of inquiry, teachers are best trained and suited to work with varying students and allow for maximum learning potential from all of their pupils.

One of the drawbacks to the article is that the disadvantages pertain solely to when a teacher needs to introduce it. That isn’t so much a disadvantage as much as it’s a scheduling thing – if a teacher wants to use inquiry in their classroom, they should have already planned to introduce it at the beginning of the year. The other drawback is that it doesn’t expand on it’s claims. It states that inquiry could be great for various reasons, but essentially leaves it at that. The reason I chose this article, though, is because it’s the first one that I have found that talks about the varied learners in the classroom.

Inquiry-Based Teaching: Is it Helpful or Not?. teAchnology. Retrieved from http://www.teach-nology.com/litined/inquiry/

Engaging Young Learners Through Inquiry-Based Learning by Oxford Learning

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Like most teachers, I worry about engaging my students in their learning. While it may not be the be all to end all solution, inquiry-based learning is a top contender – it is “a teaching method that places students’ questions, ideas and observations at the centre of the education experience” (Oxford Learning, 2015). In Engaging Young Learners Through Inquiry-Based Learning, they encourage the educator to step back from the lecturer role and let the students be “active contributors to their own learning experience” (Oxford Learning, 2015). They look at the research in the Ontario Ministry of Education’s report Inquiry-based Learning: On Transforming Wonder into Knowledge, which focuses on the the components that are needed to make inquiry successful in a classroom:

A culture of inquiry: if students are able to express their thoughts freely, and challenge on another’s ideas in a respectful manner, they will be encouraged and comfortable with participating in classroom discussions which are important to inquiry.

External support (for teachers): with our new curriculum, teachers need time to interpret and reconfigure their ways of teaching so that the big ideas and core competencies within the classroom are coherent and applicable to the learning environment. (Those of us graduating in 2016 are lucky enough to have gone through the BEd program with the new curriculum as a major component of our work.)

Educator guidance and support (for students): while the idea behind inquiry-based learning is to be learner-centric, there still needs to be the right amount of scaffolding around them so that they are successful in their endeavors. We, as educators, must teach them how to develop an inquiry project. This does not discredit the idea that students can learn from each other – we are merely another source for them to work with.

Understanding of the audience: educators will always teach them the base knowledge of a subject – there is no inquiry if there is no prior knowledge to work from. Before a student can embark on an inquiry project, the teacher must check that they have that base knowledge so that they have a solid foundation for their work.

Open-mindedness and spontaneity: while it is traditionally the teacher that creates the critical thinking questions for a lesson, the inquiry approach asks that it be left open-ended and allow for spontaneity so that the class is encouraged to think beyond the basic knowledge and discuss what they should explore.

Engaging Young Learners Through Inquiry-Based Learning. Oxford Learning, September 2015. Retrieved from http://www.oxfordlearning.com/engaging-young-learners-through-inquiry-based-learning/

The Points of Inquiry: A Framework for Information Literacy and the 21st Century Learner by BCTLA

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With so much information at the fingertips of our students, we, as educators, need to find a way to help them navigate through it. Too many students will take the information they find at face value, without looking at the source in which they are discovering these “facts”. The Points of Inquiry put forward by the British Columbia Teacher-Librarian’s Association, like many other inquiry models, focuses on teaching the students how to research for reliable sources in the quest to find their appropriate answer while answering three important questions: what does it mean to be information literate in today’s world; what are the implications for teaching and learning; what is an effective framework to guide BC educators?

This article’s focus is to express the “importance of learners being able to think critically about information, about sources of information, and about constructing and answering their own questions” (BCTLA, 2011, p. 15). It gives instructions to do this by covering the 5 points of the inquiry model, splitting each point (connect & wonder, investigate, construct, express, and reflect) into tables for K-3, 4-7 and 8-12, and cover what students should be able to do by those grades in inquiry-based reading and inquiry-based learning. It wraps up by showing readers what the inquiry would look like for Grade 2, 6, and 11s. This is a good resource to better understand the purpose and motivations behind inquiry models.

The Points of Inquiry: A Framework for Information Literacy and the 21st Century Learner. British Columbia Teacher-Librarians’ Association, 2011. Retrieved from http://bctf.ca/bctla/pub/documents/Points%20of%20Inquiry/PointsofInquiry.pdf

This ‘tude is self-inflicted

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Is there such a thing as self-inflicted peer pressure?

All my students are on the cusp of adolescence, so it is safe to assume that there will be some changes in attitude and their behaviour in school. This is often not a gradual change, but bursts of sporadic hormones and, more or less, temper tantrums. Unfortunately, there are some behaviours that are just puzzling, that have me taking a step back with my head cocked to the side, startled by the unexpectedness of the situation. It had been a subtle change, forgotten homework and slouched posture that graduated to a whole new level of attitudes and hoodied defiance. Now, as I mentioned before, these are all pre-teens – attitude can be expected sometimes (though never tolerated). But there are some students you would never expect it from, so it comes as a shock when it’s suddenly there.

If I had to guess, I feel it stems from trying to fit in with the “right crowd”. In striving for that, many people are driven to behave in ways that they wouldn’t normally. Most of the time, this change in behaviour and actions stems from the desired friend group pressuring the person in to it. Sometimes, though, the change seems to be self-inflicted.

Is it created by the fear that people aren’t going to like you if you’re just being yourself? It’s ingrained in us to want to be liked – we see the consequences of not being liked, and it’s never very pleasant. Is it attention they’re looking for? If they behave a certain way, get the type of response from the teacher that pulls a reaction from the class, will that group accept them as one of their own? Is the motivation something else entirely?

Learners are not people that never fail; They’re people that never quit.

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I have had many opportunities to take part in self-assessment since venturing into my undergrad. It’s not a new tool – in fact, the concept comes from the Greek in their Paideia approach (Orr, 2004). As David Orr says in chapter 1 of Earth in Mind: On Education, Environment and the Human Prospect, “[t]he goal of education is not mastery of subject matter but mastery of one’s person” (Orr, p.13). Now, that’s not to say that learning the subject matter isn’t important. In fact, Orr continues on with his “rethinking education” to make four other statements that very much speak to the subjects that students need to learn in school and how they can relate them to their lives. It’s the focus on self that seems to be forgotten most often, though it’s gaining ground in education.

I remember my school days where assessment was based mostly on the tests and projects that were handed in, at least as far as the students knew. It didn’t matter how well I thought I did, how proud I was of my work, the amount of effort that was made behind the scenes – it was all about the end product. I won’t go as far as to say that, had self-assessment been integrated in my grades, I would have done better. It could have had an impact though.

Self-reflection and self-assessment go hand in hand. One must be honest with one’s self to be able to assess properly. In my many self-assessments, I have been honest and admitted when I could have done more, or done the work better. Not everyone will reflect in the same way. Some will give themselves top marks despite minimal effort. The most, as I have come to realize, will be harder on themselves than I would have thought.

The most recent lesson that I gave had a self-assessment attached to it. It’s one they are familiar with, they’ve used it before and it’s very simple:

  1. Not yet meeting expectations
  2. Meeting expectations
  3. Exceeding expectations

The objective was for them to use their creativity and create a monster with the materials that were given to them. I would say that 90% of the students gave themselves a 2, stating that they failed at creating the yarn creature I was asking them to create. Not one of them gave up, some even created their own style of creature, and all of them were engaged, imaginative and had fun. So how is this not exceeding expectations? My comments to most of them went along the lines of “you didn’t let ‘failure’ stop you from trying again” or “there was no right way to make a creature”. They all got 3s in my books.

So what is it about assessing yourself that makes you tougher to please? I had a discussion with one of my professors recently, after I expressed my feelings of failure and fear of putting myself out there with some of my (not so) hidden talents, and he said something to me that, while simple, has stuck and very much speaks to this topic:

“Why are you expecting perfection from yourself, when you don’t expect it from anyone else?”

I don’t have an answer. But I see it in my own self-assessments and in those of my students. So what do we do to combat this? How do we work our way into treating ourselves as fairly as we treat everyone else?

Bibliography

Orr, D.W. (2004). Earth in Mind: On Education, Environment and the Human Prospect, Island Press, Washington.