Friday, October 19, 2018

Having an Inquiry Stance

Educators (teachers, librarians, and school leaders) who use an inquiry approach to teaching and learning in schools today have a leg up on those who don't.

Why?  Because inquiry requires that students ask questions and investigate  to learn from those questions.  Through that process students learn how to find, evaluate, and use information.  Some people call this information literacy.  Information literacy is one of the top literacies necessary for this time and age.  We can find all kinds of information so easily- the trick is to evaluate it and use it well (hint- good librarians are awesome at this!).  

Using an inquiry model, we can guide students to become experts of using information through all content areas.  Inquiry Educators take a step back to re-evaluate all their practices and see if they are aligned with an Inquiry Stance so they aren't imposing structures or old habits that might be counter productive to their students learning.

There are some things that traditional teachers used to do during research that would be counter productive to inquiry learning. (See the left column below.)

Educators who use an inquiry approach, like Guided Inquiry Design assume an inquiry stance when planning and thinking about what activities, assignments, resources, and mindsets to use with students. (See the right column below.)  

Look at the chart below. Where do you stand?  Is there anything that you might want reconsider? 

EDUCATORS Who Take an Inquiry Stance 
Don’t
Do
DON'T 
Think that students have their question at the beginning of the work.  


Collaboratively design engaging experiences that allow students to become curious, interested, and knowledgeable before they get to the big questions.


DON'T
Ask for specific the number and type of sources on the paper/project

(Your paper will have 10 references)

Focus students on gathering multiple sources and perspectives on information. 


Focus on the depth of understanding to determine if students need more information sources. 

DON'T
Constrain the types of resources required.



(Your paper/project will include 5 database articles, 4 newspaper articles, and 3 primary sources.)

Recognize that the resources will be organically dictated by the question that the student asked

DON'T
Only curate resources for students 
(and not allow them to search on their own)


Have students 
searching for, 
evaluating 
and curating their own sources for information and research

DON'T
Set students off to identify their question on their own - (Here's a list of topics- pick one and go do your research!)

Confer with students about their question once they have had some time to explore their own interests in the topic

DON'T
Assess students based on the product alone
Observe students interactions during the process to guide them.

Recognize signs like optimism, frustration, procrastination, increased interest, clarity, lack of confidence, increasing confidence, sense of accomplishment (Kuhlthau, 2004)

Wednesday, October 17, 2018

Inquiry is Essential for Learners Today

Think about it.

You are taking a walk and you see something that makes you wonder- what kind of plant, or bug or animal is that....
You're planning a trip and are looking for the best route, or best restaurants along the way.
Or you hear or read about something you aren't sure about...
Or your mother calls and tells you about a diagnosis your father just got from the doctor, it's an odd sounding diagnosis, one that you've never heard of.

What do you do? You pick up your phone and search. What comes up? Some articles, maybe images, perhaps some blogs or newspaper articles, or a general article from wikipedia.  How do you know which ones are worth reading?

It depends! It depends upon the question you asked and the information available. For example, with the medical information, we know we'd get reliable information from a reputable institution like the Mayo Clinic or John's Hopkins University.  WebMD might have some information, but we might want to cross check that with what's listed on the Mayo Clinic site.
We do this every day.  ALL the time.


So, if we do this all the time as adults, are our students learning that this is how we learn?  Are we giving our students opportunities to ask questions, search for information to understand their questions and learn from them?  Are we allowing them to search the internet and library resources to answer their own questions?  Are we giving them opportunities to mess about in the information context to figure out what is worth reading and paying attention to and not? Are we giving them tools to handle themselves well in this information context (how to find and evaluate information sources)?

I'd argue that today this is one of the essential learnings that we should be teaching all our children and we really miss this opportunity all the time.

If not we are missing a huge opportunity to teach students how to learn from information.  If we are teaching them facts that they can get easily from a quick search on their device and off the internet, like what are plate tectonics, or when was the civil war we are doing them a HUGE disservice. They can find that information so now we can be asking them deeper questions and they can ask deeper questions that they are interested in learning about.

How do we learn today? We learn by asking our own questions, seeking information to understand those questions and creating meaning for ourselves.

We learn through inquiry, folks.  Inquiry is really important for our students to be engaging in within the school context.

If you agree, and want to learn more come check out Guided Inquiry Design, a complete program for learning standards based content, the skills described here, and so much more.

Thanks for reading.
Leslie Maniotes, PhD
@lesliemaniotes