Getting to GREAT Questions for Inquiry: Talking with your students draws out their best intentions

Parts of this blog published in the book Guided Inquiry Design in Action:Elementary School.  

In an inquiry unit on waves, a group of fourth grade students generated the following list of questions. The questions were documented in a collaborative Google Document at the end of the Explore phase in the Guided Inquiry Design process. 

Student Chat - Sound Wave Questions

1.     How are waves created? 2.     In what ways do waves affect human beings? 3.     How do we harness waves? 4.     Why can’t we see waves with our naked eye? 5.     What’s the point of waves? 6.     What makes sound waves waver? 7.     How do sound waves (as in music) make us feel? 8.     How did humans find out about waves? 9.     How many waves are started in a day? 10. Do people always use waves? 11. What creates waves? 12. Do animals use waves? 13. What makes waves? 14. Will people ever see waves? 15. Does electricity carry waves? 16. Do people carry waves?  17. What start waves? 18. Can waves be dangerous? 19. Can sound waves kill people?! 20. How are waves so dangerous? 21. How much noise would you need to make your hearing worse? 22. Can you make waves by just tapping anything? 23. How many ways are there to make a wave? 24. How did people discover waves? 25. Is there a way to see waves? 26. How big can waves be? How small can waves be? 27. How fast can waves go? 28. How do sound waves get into our ears seriously?! 29. Are waves dangerous?! !!!!!!!!! 30. How are waves invented?  31. Why do we have waves? 32. Are waves different? 33. How many waves types do scientist think there are?

34. What are waves made of? 35. Why do we need waves? 36. Why are waves so important? 37. How are waves made? 38. On an average, how fast do sound waves travel? 39. Why are waves so apart/different? 40. How and why do waves move in different directions? 41. How are waves made? 42. Are waves fast? 43. Who invented waves? 44. Are waves slow? 45. Why are waves so important? 46. How are waves made?  47. Why do we need waves everywhere? 48. Why do we have waves? 49. How do waves move?  50. Where are waves? 51. How many waves come a year? 52. How many waves are started in a day? 53. How fast can waves go? 54. Why do we need  waves everywhere? 55. Why do we have waves? 56. How do waves move?  57. How are waves made?  58. Where are waves? 59. Why do we need waves? 60. Do wave do more than they’re supposed to? 61. Do waves help people or animals? 62. Do waves hurt animals? 63. Why do animals use physical sound waves? 64. Can animals hear waves? 65. Are  waves invisible? 66. How fast do waves go?  67. How do you make waves 68. Who makes waves moves and how? Thanks to @LansfordsLines and her Learning Team for these ??'s

At all levels (K-12), through Guided Inquiry Design, students benefit from conferences with the teacher or librarian when transitioning from the Explore to Identify phases. The purpose of this student conference is clarifying. A quick conference with just the right timing helps the student bring life to their seemingly simple questions and transforms them into more complex and interesting ones.

At first glance, some of these questions (above) might seem better than others for inquiry and research. But, the goal of Guided Inquiry Design is that our students choose their own path for inquiry and research. Each of the above questions has the potential to be a worthy inquiry question. A short conference with the Learning Team clarifies meaning, draws out student interest, and provides direction for the Gather phase.

Here are some sample questions from the list above that students chose, and how members of the Learning Team conferred with the student to clarify the ideas. Each conference concludes with the student ready to move forward into the Gather phase. Notice how the Learning Team goes into the conferences with an Inquiry Stance, not a judgmental tone, but one of authentic curiosity for students’ ideas. Notice also that these are short conversations not requiring more than a few minutes of time.

***If you have time, end these conferences by engaging in a quick Google (or catalogue) search with each student after they write their question down. That way, they have a clear direction for key words, some resources, and their immediate next steps increasing independence in the Gather phase. 

 FOUR IMPORTANT THINGS TO REMEMBER

There are four important things for the Learning Team to think about when entering into this conference.

1.     Students have good intentions. We need to reach inside our students’ intentions. Asking questions helps students to clarify the connections they are making. A conversation like the ones above draw out the information the student used to arrive at their question and elaborate on their thinking to get more specific.

2.     No question is a bad question.  Yes, some questions that elementary school students come up with are “right there questions” that have easy answers. But even those questions can hold the seeds of deeper thinking. If you take the time to dig a little bit into student thinking, conferences can really help students tell us more about the great thinking behind those seemingly simple questions.

3.     Students interests drive their meaning making.  Students will have more to tell you if you ask them, “what interested you about this?”, rather than asking, “why did you pick this question?”. Focusing on their interest takes the pressure and judgment off and opens the conversation to their Third Space.

4.     Paraphrasing students shows listening and support. Listening is a key to clarifying. Paraphrasing what students say will help you to be a better listener in the conference.  Using “OK so” or “Oh so” as you talk with students will help you to paraphrase their words so they can “sign off” with their intention.  (See examples above.)

Student questions are the core of inquiry-based learning! Hope this helps you get GREAT questions from your students, the ones that they are interested in and spark deeper learning through research.

Cheers!

Leslie Maniotes, PhD 

Learning in Trust and Trust in Learning

It's a real struggle for many teachers to let go of content and control. It can be hard to let go to trust your students to know that they have the best intentions at heart.  But the more you can do this, the deeper the students will delve into their learning.  

Read and imagine this exchange between Eve, Poppy, Pam, and Lizzie (pseudonyms), a smart group of fourth grade girls of mixed ethnicity in a Title One school in Colorado.

The scene- the students are in Inquiry Circles discussing the book they are reading, The Watsons Go to Birmingham:1963 (Curtis). In this part of the conversation they are examining characters in the text while learning about the civil rights era in the United States.

Here, they wonder about Bryon the older brother in the story. The girls discuss whether or not he can be trusted, or is telling the truth.  In the beginning of the conversation the teacher (Ramona) is not at the group. She enters about half way through and contributes to the conversation. She is monitoring more than one Inquiry Circle and dips in and out of the meetings occurring around the classroom. Eve's job in the Inquiry Circle is to encourage making connections to the text, and so she begins:

Eve:        Does anyone have a connection to that?  Byron trouble.  Does one of you?  (Pointing her pencil at each of the three other girls.)

Poppy:   Yes.

Pam:       Can you tell your connection?  Lizzie, you go first.

Lizzie:    How like my brother every time- 'cause when we got our bunk beds, I got to sleep on the top. And he was like, “On the bottom is better!”  And it’s not!  Because it’s all like you could hear the person move on the top, and he was just fooling around with me just to try to go up there.

Poppy:   My connection is from my big brother, Ben.  He’s thirteen.  And when I try to call my mom’s he acts like he’s not there. And then she actually calls out his name. He’s like really there and so she’s like Ben go away!

Ramona: And so you gotta judge him out a little bit.

Poppy:   And so he usually does that every day that I usually see him. And so now I don’t even believe him when he’s trying to tell the truth because-

Ramona: So you don’t trust him.

Poppy:   Yea.  It’s kind of like  “The Boy Who Cried Wolf.”

Ramona:  So, do you think Byron’s gonna be like that?  I assume you’re talking about Byron even though I wasn’t here.

Poppy:   Yea.

Eve:        (Raises her hand to speak) Well, one time I was about six years old and my brother- I used to sleep with my brother, because I was afraid of the dark. And one time he told me to go get him a glass of milk with the light on.  He turned the light off and he’s like there’s a monster coming for you that just ran under the bed. So now I don’t trust him anymore.

Ramona: Sometimes, it’s hard to trust your big brothers and sisters.

Poppy:    'Cause they always try to fool you around and try to make you believe. 

First of all, what's notable in this scenario is that these 4th grade girls know how to "do" an Inquiry Circle on their own. They draw each other in for comment, do not hog the conversational floor, and they build on each others ideas. It's a real conversation. They are able to dig into this character collectively and by the end they show they really "get" Byron and his motivations.

Secondly what is notable is how the teacher assumes the best in her students. Rather than assume they are off task with their discussion of the connections to their families, she assumes that they ARE talking about the text. She knows that it was Bryon, in the book, that they must be referring to in their connections, even if Byron's name is not yet mentioned. The teacher's preparation for today's Inquiry Circles is evident in her knowledge of the book, its characters, and what the students read for this meeting. This preparation allowed her to drop into the conversation and guide them fluidly.  But, that preparation at home the night before was not enough.  Here, her preparedness is clearly paired with her trust in the girls ability to have an academic conversation about the text on their own. She prepared them for this and now she can trust that the conversations are good in that space. And she is right! That is the art of teaching.

This three minute interchange is a powerful example of the art of teaching.  Ramona accomplished so much in this short interchange.  She gently brings them back to the text with positive intention, and got an affirming response from Pam. She affirmed, to the girls, that they were on the right track by engaging in real conversation with them. She validated their third space interactions (it's hard to trust your big brothers and sisters).  And, she checked and confirmed that the goal of the conversation was directly related back to the book. All of this was done in a way that kept the conversation going, and built rapport with her students through the learning.

This example gives us a look into the classroom of an expert teacher, who has mastered that art. She trusts that they want to learn. She affirms their contributions, and validates their connections to the work.  It sounds simpler than it is.  But it is definitely something to strive for as we develop our own art.

If I were to assess this collaboration on a Common Core Rubric, these girls would be all scored as advanced.  And the teacher... well, she's pretty amazing!

Inquiry is IMMERSIVE learning

So, yesterday I was working on writing the Elementary book in the Guided Inquiry Design series.  I was working with some lessons on wave energy for fourth grade. (Sent to me from a rock star librarian, through my work with the wonderful educators of Norman, Oklahoma) Throughout the day, I was immersing myself in what the learners would do in this unit, in what order these activities fell, and how the order and content would impact their understanding and in turn their ability to craft excellent inquiry questions on the concept to pursue further. (Instructional DESIGN) Working in this way, viewing the videos, examining the experiments, and thinking of the timing of it all, IMMERSED me in the concept of waves and the specific content of light, water, and sound waves, much like it would do for our students. I was thinking really hard about why kids might even want to care about this. I believe that it's important for the learning to be relevant (third space).

After a long day of work, my daughter got home from school and we decided to take a break and go paddle boarding on the local lake.  We had been kayaking recently and decided to try out paddle boarding for the first time. Since they rent them at our local recreation center run lake, we thought we would take them out to enjoy the indian summer weather while it lasted.  It was hard to balance and stand the first time, I was a bit wobbly and unsure. But as my comfort increased, I began to enjoy the beauty of my surroundings.

While I am working on balancing my body on top of this board, immersed in the experience, the beautiful breathtaking views of the sun setting over the Rockies to my west, I had an epiphany.

I had been immersed in the concept of waves all day, playing with the ideas and experiments, watching the videos and in this moment on my paddle board,  EVERYTHING around me connected to that unit of study.

Motorboats were speeding by with wake boarders creating waves. The waves were upsetting my balance and caused me to steady my board. The ducks were making ripples in the water that eventually lapped the shore.  If you are in water, there are waves.  Waves have power, you feel their power when you are on a paddle board and your balance is at stake!

Then I looked to my west at the setting sun.  The light rays were filtering through various holes on the clouds affecting where the light fell and how the sun's energy was directed.  Light rays were being presented to me.

And then there were these loons, who would disappear in the water to pop up again in another place. They were calling their mates with an odd crying sound.  Sound waves were traveling to my ears.

Through opening to the moment, I realized that inquiry based learning, when done well, and when learners are open to the learning through an inquiry stance, provides an immersive experience into life.  Mindfulness, if you will.  If you allow it, as you learn, you will see your world with new eyes. Excellently designed inquiry based learning can provide our students with a unique and new lens with which to see the world.

If we can recognize this immersion through inquiry, we should ask our students about the connections they are making in the world.  Help them to be open to what the world offers them by asking, "What connections did you make to waves last night?  Did you interact with any waves, when, how.... "

Through inquiry based learning in school, all of our lives are enriched!  We can show our students to use the immersive experience of GID to OPEN their eyes to experience the world with new information and understanding. That is what learning, true learning, is all about. Isn't it?