My name is 'INQUIRY' part 1
Reflection is such a vital part of
being a teacher to know what went well in a lesson(s) and what could be
improved for next time.
Upon teaching my students the 'Inquiry
Process' and building a learning wall to support their own inquiry learning, it
came to my attention that students were still getting very confused about this
whole thing about INQUIRY. Although the students helped create
the learning wall based around an issue within our Manukorihi community, some
students were still confused how to use the 'Inquiry Process' for their own inquiry investigations.
According to J.Kellow 2012, the inquiry process and models are a guide however inquiry should never go through a step by step process. I agree as the process we used was too controlled and rigid like J.Kellow 2012 suggested - where it lead the inquiry rather than the students themselves leading the inquiry.
From this, I decided to start again about INQUIRY. I thought it was a good idea to open up the lesson with "Hello class, my name is INQUIRY - what questions would you like to ask me? Instantly my students started talking to each other naturally sharing questions...here's what they wanted to know about INQUIRY...
-What do you do to help me?
-What do you mean?
-Why do we need to use you?
-What is your purpose?
-How do you help us learn?
-Why are you important to us?
We knew it was important to know what INQUIRY meant and what this meant for them (students) as learners. Once they found out the dictionary meaning they started to make connections with what they previously had learned about INQUIRY. My students thought it was necessary to come up with our own INQUIRY meaning using our own words are here's what we came up with:
I totally agree! Reflection is a vital component to developing ourselves.
ReplyDeleteReflecting is definitely an important part to ensure we continue to develop ourselves as educators and life long learners. Inquiry learning was a great learning journey for both myself and students of Room 10 the use of the inquiry cycle helped most students, however as you stated I too had many students who were confused about the Inquiry. This is where I conferenced with those students. This term I aim to have a core focus group where we look at the inquiry process to better develop their understanding.
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