Inquiry Learning.
Inquiry learning helps students to learn HOW
to learn. Through Inquiry learning they come
to understand and manage themselves as
learners.
This powerpoint is based on a presentation
by Kath Murdoch in 2007. If you ever have
the change to listen to Kath do go - it will
change the way you teach!
Inquiry Learning – Kath Murdoch
This planning model follows a sequence of activities and experiences to
build on and challenge students perceptions. The sequence is
inquiry based – it begins with student’s prior knowledge and
experience and moves through a deliberate process that helps the
knowledge to be extended, challenged and refined.
Sequence of activities
•
•
•
•
•
•
Tuning in
Finding out
Sorting out
Going further
Making connections
Taking action.
Learning is
something I do – not
something that is
done to me
Why use an inquiry based approach?
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
It helps children take responsibility for their learning
Provides for new learning – extends on prior – helps to find new
Students evaluate their learning and each others
Detailed approach – working through the sequence of activities
Allows students to use a variety of great thinking tools
Caters for a range of learning styles – multiple intelligences
Allows for deeper understanding – students make connections
Gives students a real purpose for learning
Allows success for all – collaborative learning
Students see teacher as a learner also
Students own it! – their work their ideas.
High engagement – ownership, authenticity, relevance
Deeper independent learning skills
Vehicle for integration of the curriculum
Fosters connected learning – a sense of journey
Taps into student’s CURIOSITY
Inquiry Learning
•
Makes the process obvious to students – Learning intentions clear
Say to the children we are tuning in… we are gathering data… we are sorting out..
•
•
•
Talk about and display BIG UNDERSTANDINGS (related to your learning
outcomes) link activities to these understandings.
Big understandings should not be answered in one session
Instead of a title for your unit why not use a question?
What is the role of technology in theatre? Year 5 and 6 prop making for a
school production
How can we create a healthy garden? Big understandings: different types of
gardens, different conditions needed to grow, different roles and
responsibilities in the group…
How can I be the best that I can be? Commonwealth games/Gold medal Olympic games
What, why and how do we buy? Leading up to a school market day.
How could/can we create a fitness circuit at school?
What makes things move?
New Zealand how has it changed and why?
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
How do people tell their stories?
How can we care for animals?
What makes good constructions?
Why is Asia so important to us?
Fashion – who decides and how?
How does TV influence us?
How can we keep ourselves safe?
How do living things change as they grow?
How do people overcome challenges in their lives?
The question must develop the big picture idea – ask as you work
through the unit
What is it, through this inquiry will they come to understand?
eg: what makes a good leader?
Understandings recorded
this is what they will learn.
Topic considerations for inquiry learning…
Relevance
• Children need to see a connection between the topic and their lives.
• Developmentally appropriate, does it really matter to the students?
Potential for inquiry
• Can you “frame” this topic up as an investigation? Is there a leading
question that will ignite this topic?
Authenticity – Resources
• Are you able to use real people, places, events in your investigation? Will
students be able to gather information about this themselves?
Authenticity – Action
• Will the topic allow students to do something as a result of the inquiry –
what will it work towards or be driven by – could it be linked to a real project
or problem?
Challenge
• Will it take students beyond the known? Does the topic have the potential
for developing creative, critical, ethical and reflective thinking?
Inquiry units can be related to: an action, an event, an
issue, essential questions linked to the curriculum or an
investigation of a problem.
•
•
•
•
Project oriented inquiry – driven by action
How can we create a healthy garden?
Inquiries to accompany key events in the local school, community
or global setting –e.g: How can I be the best I can be (Olympics)
what, why and how do we buy?
Inquiries driven by essential questions (curriculum based
questions) e.g: What makes something move?
Problem oriented inquires eg: What do kids really want? (toys,
new school library) What can we do to look after our river?
Teachers need to be clear …
Understandings – what it is we want our students to UNDERSTAND.
Do – What it is we want them to be able to DO with their learning/skills
Be – What it is we want them to BE
Understandings – transferable concept
- developmentally appropriate
- demonstrated by students
- Learned in a number of ways
- Generally agreed by all
- Are not facts or low level knowledge
- Are generated by the team
- Are refined after tuning in
Display understandings in the classroom
Record your understandings in “kid talk”. Put on the wall and keep
referring to them as the unit unfolds.
Under your understandings you will also be able to record the skills
children need to use or have used during the process of
understanding. (Venn diagram, interview, PMI sort)
Three to four weeks into the unit stand by the understandings and ask
students to explain each understanding – the one/two they don’t
understand is the understanding you need to teach to or guide
students through.
Referring to the understandings helps you and the children connect to
the BIG picture all the time.
Tuning In
Let’s find out what we already know about this topic
The purpose of tuning in
• To find out what students already know, think and feel about a topic
• To provide students with a focus for the forthcoming experiences
• To provide students with opportunities to become engaged in the topic
• To ascertain the students’ questions about and interest in the topic
• To allow students to share their personal experience of the topic
• To help plan further experiences and activities
Tuning in examples
Brainstorm
Post box - post a statement or a question about the unit
Look at the big questions – write understandings with students
Inspiration - mind mapping software
More false, more true – statements children categorise F/T
KWL chart
Mind mapping
Paired interviews - students interview each other about their understandings of topic
Think pair share – Think individually – pair with someone and share
Rocket writing - children write everything they know within a very short time frame
People Bingo - Treaty of Waitangi example
Placemat visual organiser – excellent strategy see hand out
Finding out
Let’s find out about our topic… we could do this by …
The purpose of finding out
• To further stimulate students’ curiosity
• To provide new information which may answer some of the students’
earlier questions
• To raise other questions for students to explore in the future
• To challenge students’ prior knowledge, beliefs and values
• To provide a shared experience for all students to process and
reflect upon
• To develop research / information skills
Finding out examples
Going on visits/trips
Interviewing
Experimenting
Listening to experts – Ask an expert
Asking people
Doing surveys
Looking at pictures and objects
CD Roms, internet, film, video, DVD
Letter writing / Emails – to ask organisations or individuals for information
Newspapers and magazines
Paintings, photographs, drawings, visual images
Picture books and novels
Phone calls
Sorting out
Let’s sort out what we have found out so far…
The purpose of sorting out
• To provide students with various means of processing and
representing information and ideas arising from the finding out stage
• To allow for a diverse range of outcomes
• To encourage students to begin to apply and transfer some of the
information they have gained to an range of tasks or contexts
• To develop skills in the arts, mathematics, language and technology
• To assist students to explore some of the feelings, values and
attitudes associated with the topic
• To create concrete records of experience and information gathered
through the arts, mathematics, language and technology
• To encourage students to review what they know as a group
Sorting out examples
Cutting up survey results
Reflective thinking
Visual organisers – KWL, PMI, Y chart
Sorting photos
Dance and drama – freeze frame, mime, puppet plays, role-play, talk shows, simulations
Media and visual arts – collage, dioramas, models, diagrams, making videos
Maths – classifying, fact finding (world’s tallest building), graphs, problem-solving, timelines
Music – chants, raps, soundscapes, compositions
English – recording in a range of text styles, Build a story, compare and contrast, data charts, oral
presentations, wall stories and charts, Puzzle cards (Who/what am I?)
Going further
Let’s find out more about something in our topic.
What do we still need to find out about?
What would we like to know even more about?
What new questions do we have?
• The purpose of going further
• To extend and challenge students’ understandings about the topic
• To provide more information in order to broaden the range of
understandings held by students
• To meet the particular interests that have emerged during the unit
• To revise, where necessary, some of the key understandings
relevant to the topic
• To develop independent research skills
Going further examples
Individual projects
Questions
Scaffolding, booklets with procedure
Research
Learning Contracts
Information skills and sources
Co-operative group tasks
Expert groups
Multiple Intelligence work stations
Making Conclusions
Let’s share what we have learnt …
The purpose of Making Conclusions
• To assist students to make conclusions and generalisations about
the topic
• To assess and demonstrate students’ progress towards the planned
understandings, skills and values throughout the unit
• To inform further planning
• To encourage students to reflect on their learning
• To foster each student’s ability to synthesise their learning and to
see the ‘big picture’ ideas behind a topic
• To help students explore and justify their feelings and values related
to a topic
• To provide a point of comparison for students between the ideas
generated at the beginning of the unit and those evident now
• To develop metacognitive abilities
Making Conclusion examples
Puppet shows
Models
Booklets
Web 2.0 tools
Making board games – excellent way for students to bring together the knowledge they have
gained during the unit of work and to pass it on to others. Useful “performance” based
assessment task.
Bloom’s Taxonomy
Concept maps
Crossword puzzles
De Bono’s 6 thinking hats
PMI
Time Capsules – choose 5 items to put in a container that would represent the important things
we know about…the topic…what would they be?
KWL – students fill in what they have learnt.
Reflecting and Taking
Action
Let’s think about how things went and what we could do with what
we have learnt…
• The purpose of reflecting and taking action
• To assist students to make links between their understandings and
their experience in the real world
• To enable students to make choices and develop the belief that they
can be effective participants in society
• To provide further insight into students’ understandings for future
unit planning
• To reinforce the link between school, home and the wider community
• To provide further opportunities and contexts for ongoing learning
about the topic
Reflecting and taking action examples
Teaching someone else
Reflect on our learning
Advertising campaigns – students use persuasive techniques of advertising to encourage
others to take action
Exhibition – students work in groups select key pieces of their learning write explanations set up
the classroom like an exhibition and invite other students to come and view.
Design self-guided walks – particularly appropriate for environmental topics
Develop an action plan for the school – examples; improving access for people with
disabilities, reducing bullying in the school playground, reducing packaging/glad wrap in school
lunches, improving an area of the school ground.
Global links – internet allows students to make links around the world with others that are
involved in action plans
Hear all about it – involves creating a news program for ‘radio’ or ‘television’
Letter writing – students register a protest against or their support of ...
Personal pledge – students consider one thing they will do in their own life as a result of what
they have learned
Read all about it – students create a class newspaper devoted to the topic
Information for this presentation came from a two day workshop presented by
Kath Murdoch in 2007
MUST HAVE RESOURCES
“Classroom Connections – Strategies for Integrated
Learning”
Kath Murdoch
ISBN: 1 – 875327-48-7
“Learning for Themselves” Jeni Wilson and Kath Murdoch
ISBN: 978 11 863666657