Author: laurynyoung

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Types of Student Inquiry

In my reading this week, I learned that there are four types of student inquiry:

  1. Structured
  2. Controlled
  3. Guided
  4. Free

A structured inquiry is more collaborative than the rest. In this type of inquiry, learners engage in the same inquiry together while following the lead of their teacher.

A controlled inquiry is teacher centered as they make the decisions on what topic, materials, and way their students will inquire. Additionally, the teacher chooses the inquiry question for all of the children to focus on.

In a guided inquiry, the teacher decides on the topic or question, but the students fisgure out the materials and way to find a solution. The teacher guides their learning by providing questions throughout the unit to deepen understanding.

Lastly, in a free inquiry, students decide their own topic or question. There is no guidance or prompt to influence the topic of this inquiry. In this style, the learners design their own questions, methods, and form or showing their understanding.

Before this reading, I didn’t know that inquiry was divided into these different types of teacher to student transmission. The only inquiry that I have experienced in university is guided inquiry in literacy and language which I really enjoyed. Reading about all of the variations of inquiry was really inspiring and I’m excited to learn more about what each type would look like as a lesson.

All of this information is from:

MacKenzie, T., & Bathurst-Hunt, R. (2018). Inquiry mindset: Nurturing the dreams, wonders & curiosities of our youngest learners. EdTechTeam Press.

https://www.trevormackenzie.com

http://rebeccabathursthunt.com

 

 

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Week Three Reflection

This week in EDCI 336, we learned about multimedia learning theory and editing images. At the beginning of class, we were asked:

“People can learn more deeply from words and pictures than from words alone” (Mayer, 2009).

I really connected with this quote as a visual learner. I think it speaks to how we as teachers need to incorporate so many different aspects into our teachings in order to invigorate the minds of our students.

We also got the chance to create our own photoshop images. I decided to tag along with this week’s trend of the Bernie Sanders at the Biden Inauguration. My meme was Bernie sitting at Pam’s desk from the tv show The Office.

I think this information will be extremely helpful when incorporating technology in my classroom.

On Instagram, I have seen many educators using their own bitmojis or creating other bitmoji people to use all around their classrooms. Here is a link to an article about using bitmojis in your class. https://www.edutopia.org/article/educators-turn-bitmoji-build-community-and-engagement.

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“The Inquiry Cycle”

This week I learned about “the inquiry cycle”. The chapter begins by explaining how an inquiry teacher must practise the gradual release of responsibility (GRR). I have some knowledge of the GRR model from literacy last semester. From what I understand, the GRR model would be instrumental in a student-centred approach to learning such as inquiry-based education. The authors explain that for students to be able to follow their passions or inquiries,  inquiry teachers must gradually release responsibility over their students’ education. They acknowledge that transitioning your classroom into inquiry-based can be overwhelming. But, there are three specific things that you must keep in mind to make the inquiry successful:

  1. “Keep your learners in mind”
  2. “Keep your curriculum in mind”
  3. “Keep your assessment in mind”

The point that I was most curious about was assessment. Since I began this journey into inquiry, I have wondered how are assessments performed? MacKenzie and Bathurst-Hunt write that learners could choose their own form of assessment by deciding how they want to show you their understanding. The authors claim that when you empower your students to choose their own way of demonstrating their knowledge, we allow them to tap into their strengths, interests, and learning styles. I really like this idea because I think it would be so much more engaging and inclusive for students.

Next, MacKenzie and Bathurst-Hunt present ten phases of the inquiry cycle:

  1. Determine Your Focus
  2. Start with an Essential Question
  3. Brainstorm Questions
  4. Brainstorm Subtopics
  5. Select a Subtopic
  6. Access Prior Knowledge
  7. Identify Wonderings
  8. Research
  9. Make Cross-Curricular Connections
  10. Perform, Reflect, and Revise

These are the steps that an inquiry teacher and their students should go through before they start a unit. The first step I recognized was “Access Prior Knowledge”. This made me think of the constructivist theory of learning. I noticed that this inquiry cycle is constructivism in its finest sense.

MacKenzie, T., & Bathurst-Hunt, R. (2018). Inquiry mindset: Nurturing the dreams, wonders & curiosities of our youngest learners. EdTechTeam Press.

 

Linked below is a podcast that I found really helpful for an introduction to inquiry education.

Thanks for reading,

Lauryn Y

 

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Week Two Reflection: OpenEd Resources

This week’s class was focused on Open Educational Resources (OER). Alongside OER comes copyright laws, which are extremely complex but important. I had some prior knowledge of copyright and properly sourcing images used on your website. In the CSC class I took, I found using my own photos was so much easier than applying the creative commons filter to google images. I am excited to learn more about easier ways to use photos on my website and how to properly cite them. To relate this type of situation to retrieving learning materials, it is extremely relieving to know that there are educational resources out there that are so accessible. Up until this week, I have only ever heard of teacherspayteachers.com. So, it’s nice to know that there are free resources for my future self to use.

Creative Commons Discussion

In class, we split into different breakout rooms to discuss resources relating to different topics surrounding open educational resources. My group researched the Creative Commons. We discovered that creative commons holds images that can be copyrighted and distributed within the specific copyright laws. This means that the owners of these creative resources are allowing others (like teachers) to use their work. This is really important to me as a future educator because I now know how to find legal resources (ie. worksheets, images for presentations and lessons) to use in my classroom.