Our Experiences Shape Who We Are

Aboard about above across after against along among around at before

Behind below beneath beside between beyond by down during except for

Ok folks, rewind the tape.  I’m taking it back to 1978-1979, I was in 7^th grade.  That awkward time of life when my arms and legs were long and lanky, I had metal wrapped around my every tooth with rubber bands pulling my teeth back toward my spine.  I stood 5’6” and my boyfriend Lenny stood 4’6”.  I was very unsure of myself, my stature, my place in the world.  But when asked about my favorite subject in school, I was able to squeak out the word “science.”  Why was science my favorite?  I'll come back to that later.

My second favorite was probably wood and metal shop.  My daughter uses the wooden stool I made back in 1979 everyday to reach the sink to wash her hands.  This is an actual picture of the stool I made in woodshop in 7th grade.

To adults, I’d never admit that the required “vocational educational” courses were some of my favorite learning experiences.  My third favorite was probably home economics, where we made things like English muffin pizzas and sewed a square pillow (I still have that one, too.)   In foreign language I was exposed to French, Italian, German and Spanish. Then, came our required health classes in sexual education and drug education. Back in 1979 the scare tactic was just beginning to take off and it was serious.  We watched the movie “Dead is Dead” the saddest documentary about heroine and drug abuse which completely ruined the song “Lean On Me” by Bill Withers forever.  In sex ed we learned about every venereal disease, birth control as well as how some of our more daring classmates had gotten involved in their own “investigations”.   

 

Back to academics, I loved my history teacher, but the middle ages? Serfdom was still so far removed from my life although I adored my teacher Mrs. Mensch who was also my homeroom teacher. English was the worst of them all where we had to memorize prepositions (aboard about above across after against along among around at before behind below beneath beside between beyond by down during except for…) I remember how the words were arranged on the page, and each week we were responsible for a new column of words offering us an easy A on a quiz for those who studied.   But this is something that remains with me, it’s etched in my mind.  I can recall the list anytime, anywhere.  Like it or not, this learning has stayed with me.   

As an educator I have often thought of this and wondered, Hmmm, why did we need to know this? The only fact I know about prepositions is that you shouldn’t end a sentence with one.  But, I don’t think I learned that in that same English class.  Memorizing prepositions was my way to make good grades. Memorize. I won’t even go into the details about Mrs. Barker who was missing some of her front teeth, had the look of a bulldog as well as a streak of white in her hair that resembled a skunk, talk about a character! In English our work included meaningless stuff so often that when we were asked to create projects that might have had some meaning, like write about what will you be when you grow up? I just looked at the teacher like what are you talking about?  And did it with the same frame of mind as memorizing prepositions, do it to get a grade.  A pharmacists?  REALLY, me?  I didn’t even know what that meant.  So, I mindlessly slapped together an essay.

We never read in English. Although I remember a student teacher reading aloud to us ONCE, some bizarre science fiction text… We got interrupted so many times that it seems she repeated the same part over and over.  I remember the words she read as she sat on the teacher’s desk as Mrs. Barker was out of the room, “Did the scientists really know?  Would it happen today? Would the sun come out today? Would it?”   It was some story, maybe even by Isaac Asimov or maybe Ray Bradbury about how the sun had been under a cloud for a long time and the people couldn’t wait until it came out… What a missed opportunity.   But then she left, and we never got to hear the end of the story.  Though curious, I was never encouraged to find the book to read on my own, the thought never even occurred to me to find it, and my mother was a school librarian!   

As I reflect on this disjointed learning in school, so disconnected to life or meaning, it seems a waste.

So why science? Well, we had Bunsen Burners and with them we burned the oxygen off of mercuric oxide to make mercury that shone in pools of slivery bubbles.  We brought home our mercury in test tubes on the bus! Ahh the 70's! We dissected sheep’s eyes and learned the names of the parts of the eye, and felt them with our own hands. We flew rockets in the field next to the school, and raced cars down the hallway.  It was a place where we were able to test out things and get our hands dirty.  

Although science was my favorite class and has lots of positives to remind us about schools and learning?  Here is a project from 1979…you are going to design a rocket that will be self reliant in space. 

We had MINIMAL knowledge!  I needed to know what shape goes up well, what we need to live up there- how that might look- elements of space that gave us challenges- to me it was an art project- I learned NOTHING about space. What could have been a useful project was a time waster.

Why was it a time waster?  I had time in school to do it… I had some information on space, I knew that they needed a lot of fuel and that the people needed water and food and oxygen, but that was it.

I was not set in a situation where I even knew what questions I needed to ask to find out what I needed to know to make it better.   I didn’t know what I didn’t know, but I knew that I didn’t know it. 

My teacher wanted us to think… “Why is the sky blue?” he would often ask.  He was always pushing us to think, but this was beyond me.  I needed more information, but was not given the resources or scaffolding to help me to get anywhere.  So I made a rocket out of shapes- including the elements that I knew.  I did well on that project, but never knew why.  This final art piece probably should have been the beginning of the study because then maybe we could have asked questions about our own, or each others, then find out the information about rockets and learned something new that we could have build understandings about space, or what humans need to live, or how rockets go, or the problem of waste, oxygen, temperature, how fuel can be stored.  The design showed me what I knew and all the MANY things that I didn’t. 

But I didn’t even know how to ask the questions that needed to be asked. I didn’t know what questions to ask. So part of that learning should have been scaffolding questioning to examine my own understanding and evaluate what I knew- what the illustration showed that I knew and what pieces, that I didn’t understand.  Maybe comparing them to real rockets, but that might have been overwhelming. 

As an educator having studied learning my entire adult life I reflect on this in different ways than my classmates might.  I see that timing is pretty key to learning in the zone of proximal development. This shows how my belief in knowing the process of inquiry really helps to accomplish deeper learning.  This leads me to realize too that WHEN you enter new content is REALLY important.  (why OPEN in inquiry is critical) Not right away- they gotta mess with the ideas first- then add new content and they can synthesize it to have some questions to ask.  Messing about with the concept is REALLY important but then to extend the messing into a rich context for learning in even deeper ways than one could on their own.

My example of the project on designing a rocket ship is one of process without meaningful content.  That isn’t worth it either. And what implications does this have of makerspaces and how impactful these are on deeper learning? It takes meaningful content, using a process that supports deeper learning that gets us somewhere that we can't go on our own. Isn't that what schools should be?

I wonder if science classes still look like that?  This is one example of why I believe in my heart of hearts that through an intentional design, like that of Guided Inquiry, we could get all of our students to deeper learning in every content area.   

Thanks for reading- see you next time! 

Guiding Learning

I don’t know about you, but I am in constant debate and conversation with my blended learning friends over the need to teach versus students being in charge of their own learning. Today I was reminded, once again, why our teaching is so important.  

Let me tell you what happened that provided me with this reminder. So, we know Vygotsky’s teachings of the Zone of Proximal Development.  That zone is out of reach on our own. Good teachers reach into the zone and teach students right where they are.  This is what I call guiding learning.  This is why we named Guided Inquiry – Guided Inquiry- not just Inquiry Learning or some other name. 

Guiding learning is important. If we leave students on their own to discover, they may never discover important information that can move them forward in their understanding.  They may never see an important bit of information that can take them to new understandings and help them dig deeper into a topic.   

When we don't know something how can we possibly search for it?

Let me tell you my example that led me to remember how this ZPD is important.  My daughter has a love of horses, riding, and pretty much anything horses.  But, we don’t own a ranch or farm or horses of our own.  But she is curious about them and often checks out books from the library about all kinds of horses and horse topics, fiction, non-fiction about wild horses of the west and Shetland horses of Iceland.  She’s learned about their nomenclature, historical information about how horses were used in the past and today.  We’ve gone to horse shows of all kinds and rodeos.  But facts and experiences don’t accumulate to expertise on their own. 

It wasn’t until we read a book on Shetland horses and found something odd.  Shetland horses have a special gait called tolting.  These horses ride at a gait that keeps their riders more steady.  Piquing our curiosity we found a video on Youtube of Shetland horses in Iceland today moving at a tolt.  It was an odd video- all in Icelandic language and we felt immersed into a foreign land where horses did odd things.

The next time we went to lessons with our expert on horses who trains, rides, coaches expert riders in western style horse riding, we told her about what we found out about this curious style of tolting.

Listening to our stories of tolting, she realized that we didn’t know the details about the western gaits.  So she began to teach.  She explained the three gaits in western riding walking, trotting and loping. She explained how  the horse moves in each gait and how each gait differs, how a rider or observer can recognize them, and why it matters to know this. 

This mini-lesson on gait reached into my daughters third space and ZPD taught her new information taking into consideration what she already knew, (the names of the gaits, and how they felt to ride them all) and blended that with new information and why it was useful for her to know this information when she was riding.  Next, her teacher modeled what she described.  She hopped on my daughter’s horse with too short stirrups and showed us what the three gaits looked like. We saw the horse walking with as if seeing it for the first time, recognizing the foot pattern she described.  She showed us trotting and loping too. We really saw these things for the first time in those moments with this new information. Then as any expert teacher would do, she checked my daughter’s understanding and had her ride the horse at different gaits to see if the horse was leading with the correct foot. This expert teacher reached into the ZPD, made relevant the ideas we were thinking about gait, and stretched our understanding in a way we couldn’t discover on our own. Or if we did, it would have taken much longer to discover this and make relevant connections to her understanding as a rider of horses. 

I suppose, we could have looked up gait and found this information on-line, but we knew the gaits of western riding so we wouldn't see the point, relevance or importance in doing so. Now, with our new lens on western gaits, we will look it up and extend our current understanding. So, I argue that ignorant searching is never as powerful or the same as having an expert guide our learning.  Experts stretch us in important and new ways that we could not do on our own. 

We, in Guided Inquiry, are experts in the five kinds of learning. We reach in and guide our students thinking in each of these areas as needed. Let me explain using a few examples for each kind of learning.

Teachers knowledgeable on the inquiry process are experts who can help our students in their ZPD of learning how to learn. We do this by offering the right tool at the just right moment to support thinking and more them forward in the process. We ask a question or provide a journal prompt that gives us information about where they are in their process.  This acts as a catalyst for reaching into the ZPD and knowing where kids are in their thoughts, feelings and actions in the process. We then take that information and confer with students to let them know, for example, that frustration is normal in the explore phase. We encourage them to keep skimming materials until something interesting speaks to them from the page.

Experts in content reach into the ZPD to help students to deepen content knowledge. The horse example above provides a great example of how to reach into the ZPD to grow content knowledge.  In the classroom content experts are looking for misunderstandings and gaps in knowledge and use teachable moments to fill those gaps.

Experts in literacy development support our students to grow their linguistic abilities and communicate what they are learning while it is happening and synthesize new arguments and ideas in cohesive ways to be able tell the world.

Experts in information literacy reach into students ZPD with a mini lesson on locating, evaluating and using sources ethically.  This occurs in an authentic context, when students need to use an atlas, the mini-lesson comes, not before in preparation, but when the student recognizes this need.  We know of this need by assessing learning and knowing where students are in the process, and designing the right time to reveal specific information that will support their learning.

Experts on social learning work toward student collaboration. We strategically place students in groups to provide opportunities for students teaching one another as they expand their own knowledge through inquiry.

So how do we know when and who to teach in this zpd?  We know by using formative assessments and the routine use of tools and learning experiences designed to support what the students are experiencing at any given moment in the process. Journaling throughout with intentional prompts that match the process and zone of intervention you seek information on, provide information on process. Inquiry Logs that track the learning journey, give us information on how students are engaging in inquiry and reading in different phases. Inquiry Charts show us how students are deciding on the questions to dig into deeper. Inquiry Charts can also show us how students are synthesizing information to build bridges between ideas and important ideas. Work that prepares students for Inquiry Circles and the conversations during circle time tell us how students are collaborating. The discussion in the Community of learners at the close of an inquiry sessions tell us about how students are connecting back to the big ideas and essential questions that the unit are grounded in.

All this is to say that teachers are important. Collaborating as a team and using our expertise to guide learning, raises the level of learning for all of our students to heights that they cannot reach on their own. 

We have expertise and can grow our expertise in the five kinds of learning to support our students through inquiry taking them to learning spaces they never dreamed of on their own. Together we learn more. Learning in a vacuum, we can only go so far.

How are you facilitating your students learning in the five kinds of learning through inquiry?

I’m not alone in this Jeff Goldstein argues for the same kind of teaching- http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jeff-goldstein/the-art-of-teaching---in_b_278916.html

When we dig deep and teach this way, not only do we impact in the moment learning, but we also impact lives and hearts forever.