Week Three – Show me the Wonder This week I was able to activate my plan. I came up with a simple lesson to introduce and inspire questioning. I created a wonder centre with post-its for curious students to write down questions during the day and when we are doing inquiry studies Guidelines did have to be put in place to stop students disrupting group lesson times, and to encourage students to use inventive spelling instead of asking adults. Making the centre portable proved to be a great idea, as I could move it to the carpet and around the room making it more accessible. For the initial lesson, I introduced the Wonder centre and explained what the various words meant on the board. A few students had wonders without being prompted, but the rest, as I suspected, needed encouragement. In preparation, I had collected a bin of books on all types of insects and animals. I asked the kids to take time looking at the books and talking with a friend about what was interesting and what they wondered about. Most of the students were really excited to do this. Instead of explaining to the students what we were going to do with the wonders, I modeled the process with one question later that day. Below is a story I created using story board that is written from the child’s perspective of how we used our Wonder board on the first day. Just to note, I did end up paying $3.35 for the digital book. The site does indicate that their is a feature for teachers to set up classes and use free embed codes to share student work. The students were quite excited by the way they had figured out the answer to their problem. I pointed out how many students had different answers and they were all correct – just another piece of our puzzle. In class we went over using prior knowledge in more detail listing what we already knew about frogs and how we knew it. I also demonstrated how if we think we know the answer to someone’s question we can put a sticky note with our answer on top of the question. I can see how working through problems this way will be time consuming. Thankfully it is aligned with our new curriculum, celebrating understanding the process of problem solving and critical thinking instead of memorizing a bunch of facts about frogs.
As I reflected on the week, I discovered that inquiry teaching is a skill to be learned and practiced. I very quickly wanted to answer questions instead of answering back with guiding questions. I think the students got a lot out of the process and it felt more rewarding as a teacher to guide instead of preach. I could also evaluate their thinking and learning more easily because I could see the method they were using. The trick is, to get kids to figure out new questions to help guide them to their own answers. I’m looking forward to next week with some specific inquiry lessons to help the students develop an inquiry vocabulary.
Brad
5/20/2016 10:57:03 am
What a terrific lesson. I would have loved to sit in and watch all that take place. I am sure the children enjoyed it as well. You will have to remember in this process it is not just you that is needing to learn to teach this way but the students probably need to learn how to learn this way as they have always just been told the answer. How exciting to also read the journey through the book. What a great idea. So creative. Is there a way you can print it for your class?
Lindsey
5/20/2016 06:10:03 pm
Thanks Brad:) I have to say, it's a lot harder than I thought it would be. Because I am so used to just answering questions it will take some time to get into the habit of not. Some of their questions are really tough too. It will be challenging to come up with ways to help guide them to find answers at their level. Comments are closed.
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AuthorK-7 Coordinator in SD68. Archives
January 2017
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