Inquiry Learning

Part 1

Our readings for class this week covered inquiry learning.  This topic may be old hat to some of you, but it is relatively new to me.  However, it is intriguing as well as frightening.  The thought of "failing forward", as described by Silvia Tolisano in her Langwitches blog, leaves me apprehensive.  But hey, if you are going to fail...forward is the best way to go.  You know what?  This reminds me of something I heard in a sermon recently.  The pastor said that the second smartest people in the world learn from their mistakes.  The smartest people in the world learn from other peoples mistakes.  I have no idea where he heard this or if he knows anything about inquiry learning, but this kind of sums it up for me.  We do not learn how to solve problems just because someone tells us how to.  We learn by trying - falling - making adjusting - and trying again.  This process lead me to create the word cloud below.  Inquiry learning should become part of who we are.  That is why I used a drawing that my son made of me last year as a template for my visual definition of inquiry learning. (I had to pay him $2.00 for the drawing)  These are some of the words that come to mind when I think about inquiry learning. 

Filled to the top with Inquiry Based Learning

Part 2

One of my projects this year in my media center is to build a makerspace.  A place where kids can come and let their imaginations run wild with creativity.  I saw three graphics this week that helped solidify my resolve to dedicate part of my school media center to this project.  The first was tweeted by @MakerEdOrg.  The second two were in tweets by @jackiegerstein. If we are all born makers...what happens to us?  I am sad to say that one of the reasons we change for the worse is school.  We need to figure out how to change this for the better.   We need to draw out the creativity of children.

Be curious

This looks like me when I was little - the hammer part

Encourage the habit of creativity

When I began teaching my hope was to engage my students with the lessons I was teaching.  I started using technology in the classroom to enhance my lessons, but the part I was missing was extending the lessons outside of the classroom.  In other words,  answering the favorite question among many students.  When am I ever going to use this?  One way to answer this question is provided by Liz Keren-Kolb in her article "Engage, Enhance, and Extend Learning."  She defines Extension as "The technology brings learning outside the classroom walls and into students’ everyday lives, where they can continue to grow after they leave school."  My plan is to extending students learning by having them help me design the media center's makerspace.  They will have the opportunity to generate a name for the space, design/3D print a logo, and promote brand recognition through the production of advertisements.

1. Authenticity: Getting student to come the library can be a struggle.  Giving them the chance to design a space in the room will provide them with the opportunity to make something their own.  Provide a place where their creativity can bloom and not be discouraged.

2. Deep Understanding: I was reading an article this week by Jessica Lahey that talked about mentoring children to help instill hope in them for success inside and outside of school.  In the article she is interviewing Valerie Maholmes who says, “We can’t pick who will achieve and who will not. If these kids in front of us are the kids we need to educate, we have to figure out how to unwrap their gifts.”  Now I know that there are no state or national standards that talk about instilling hope, but this is the best outcome that could emerge from this process.
   
   

3. Performances of Understanding:  Student have the opportunity to be a part of a team that is building a space from the ground up.  They will participate in developing a concept, gathering resources, applying their designs, and promoting their creation.

4. Assessment: Students will be asked to keep a digital record of their progress through the tasks. Much like you would for a science experiment.  They will also present their work throughout the process to their peers for praise and constructive criticism.

5. Appropriate Use of Technology:  I like the idea of using of Google Docs for their digital record like the class did in the decomposition lab.  Parent, teachers will have rights so that they may comment on the student's progress.   Extending the project into the home and to into this home
   
   

6. Connecting with Experts: I would love to have some student from the Savannah College of Art and Design or from the Savannah Arts Academy come in to talk to the students about their designs.  We could also reach out the people a Makerbot, since the logo design will be printed on one of their a 3D printers.

7. Student Success:  A curated list of resources for this topic will be available to the students via the media center website.  Students will also be encourage to set a variety of goals throughout the process and reflect of their progress.

8. Ethical Citizenship: Tim Rylands tweeted this week, "Even without a c with a circle it's still yours."  Throughout the lessons students will be conducting online research and creating artifacts.  The importance of ownership and correct usage with be stressed throughout the process.

I am excited about these lessons!  My hope is that the students will embrace the learning process and become better for it.

Reflection on Goals

Goal 1 - To embrace tools such as blogs, PLNs, and Twitter in an effort to enhance my teaching.
Goal 2 - Expend my knowledge base so that I am a better resource for the staff and students at my school.
Goal 3 - Enjoy learning new things with a group of new people.

I am steadily moving toward the goals I established at the beginning of the semester.  Goals 2 and 3 have seen the most growth.  I have enjoyed connecting with classmates through blogs and learning about their struggles and accomplishments.  I guess this is where my growth mindset is strongest.  I am open and willing to put in the effort to make connections and grow personally and professionally.  On the other hand, goal 1 has been a struggle.  I have had a fixed mindset towards most social media.  Up until my course work for this degree I never saw any need for social media.  Here is where you as a reader will probably...GASP! I looked at social media as a way to waste time reading through nonsense that people posted about themselves.  This began to change when I created a Twitter account for a class a few semesters ago.  I began to follow several people that I saw at a tech conference.  They were not posting the useless information about what they ate for breakfast.  They were tweeting relevant Ed Tech material.  I suddenly realized what Eduardo Briceno was referring to in his Ted Talk when he said " The key to success is a growth mindset."  Changing the way I felt about social media was like turning on a light switch.  My brain went from being like an old timey black and white TV to one with 1080p wide screen LED brilliance. Okay okay.  Maybe that is a bit of a stretch, but things do seem to be different.  Six months ago I would have laughed if someone ask me to Tweet something.  Now I Tweet several things a week.  It may not sound like much, but I have Tweeted 20+ things in the past two weeks.  This would not have happened if I had stayed with my fixed mindset.  Dr. Green has helped me to develop this new mindset.  The materials that are posted in each module light the way to, as Carol Dweck says, "develop intelligence throughout life."  This is the very essence of the growth mindset.

There is one part of my first goal that I still need help with...my blogging skills.  I do not mind reading blogs that other people write.  I find that to be interesting.  However, most of the time I do not feel that I have anything worth while to say.  Hey! It sounds like that fixed mindset is creeping back in.  Out! Out! Darned fixed mindset!  I think what I need to do is look at blogging as a reflection tool.  This way I will not worry about other people's opinions.  I can focus on what went well and what could use a little more polishing.  Blogging, like any other task, can only improve with practice.

Letting Go...Sounds Scary

Chris Lehmann discusses three biases in the introduction to his webinar Inquiry: The Very First Step In the Process of Learning.   The second of which caught my attention the most.  He stated that many people feel that school is there to provide a 21st century workforce, but he feels that schools should help students develop into the citizens needed for the 21st century.  I could not agree more.  Inquiry based learning hinges on teaching students to think for themselves in any situation.  When I was in school, and even today, students were taught a set of curricula.  They were expected to learn facts and figures and then use them in everyday life.  Many students have difficulty in reasoning why and how school and the real world go together.  Think about it.  How many times have you heard a student ask - why do I need to learn this?  I have asked this question many times myself.  Fortunately I had parents and several teachers that pushed me into situations that lead me to learn the "why & how".  In fact, my Mom was into Maker Spaces long before they became hip.  She would supply me with gadgets and gizmos that helped me explore the world.  I still use what I learned from those lessons with the students and adults I interact with.

My first years of teaching were spent showing third graders how to behave around other people.  We worked hard to break the cycle of impulsivity that exploded from them at the slightest provocation.  My students, for the most part, were responsible for raising themselves.  This caused them to look out for the own needs and neglect or even trample the needs of others.  Here is where my years of team sports, coaching and referring came into play like they did for Grant Wiggins in his article Great Teaching Means Letting Go. I used team related activities to help instill in them the values that they would need as they continued through school and into the workforce.  The students discovered ways to relate to one another and solve problems with little intervention from me.  This did not happen overnight.  We spent weeks and months trying different approaches to learning and working together.  The turning point came when we brought our lessons from the class to the fields outside our school.  My students researched the game of soccer.  They taught each other the rules and even devised a plan to mark the lines on the field.  It was amazing watching them grow together in a real life situation.  I still have students that visit me and reminisce about our days on the field.  I do not believe we would have been as successful if it were not for me letting go and providing them the opportunity to apply their skills in the real world.

Reflective Searching

I would consider myself to be an intermediate Googler with a tendency towards horizontal information seeking.  As an immigrant into the Google generation I find that I have developed similar searching styles to the kids that grew up with Google. In the ciber briefing paper, The Information Behavior of the Researcher of the Future, the Google generation is described as as a group that will scan, flick and 'power browse' their way through digital content to find an answer.  Is this a bad thing?  Well... yes and no.  Limiting myself to skimming countless Internet pages will not provide me with the depth of knowledge needed to continue as a media specialist/teacher.  It will however keep me abreast of the information that is out there.  The trick will be to find the happy medium that allows me to glean important bits of knowledge along with the depth of content integration that I will need to be a successful lifelong learner.  This is where my PLN comes in handy.  It allows me to aggregate a large amount of  content into one location.  If I choose to research further I can.  What I need to do is become a better searcher.  The Even Better Search Results video opened my eyes to power of Google.  who knew you could locate something on the Internet based upon it's color?  Google surprises me every day.  

One of my former coworkers sent me a sticker one day.  It had the letters LMGTFY.  I had no idea what it meant so like everyone else in the world I Googled it.  Come to find out it means "Let Me Google That For You".  These six letters, in a manner of speaking, proved to me that Google had become a fixture in everyday life.  I mean think about it...when you want to look up something on the Internet you Google it.  In many cases Google has become synonymous with the Internet.  If Google has permeated so much of our lives what else are they doing?  The filter bubble Ted Talk video opened my eyes to a little bit more of how Google and other search engines work.  I do not want my Google deciding what I get to see when I search for a topic.  I want to be able to filter my own results based on criteria I set.  Maybe the creators of these bubbles could give me the choice of whether or not to filter my content. 

Embracing the Future of Information Sharing

Each of the four resources for this week's module delve into the world of information and how to share it.  This has always been the goal of education, but as Diana Laufenberg points out in her Ted Talk, the way we receive information has changed drastically.  Technology has permeated every aspect of our lives.  While I grew up in a time where the most powerful piece of tech in a school was a Texas Instrument graphing calculator, my children have devices that bring the whole world into the palm of their hand.  According to the InfoWhelm and Information Fluency, by the year 2009 we had created enough new information that if printed would deforest the Earth 12 times.  With so much information out there how do we find what we need?   Brian Alexander uses a three step process similar to the one Jane Hart created shown below.

Jan's Daily PKM Routine

I have to say that at first look this process was a bit overwhelming.  It seemed like you would have to sit in front of your computer or on a smart phone all day.  Then I took a closer look.  I soon realized that I had to make the technology work for me.  The goal here is to create a method of collecting, filtering, and sharing information.  For me that means finding a tools that gathers information from a variety of sources into one easy to navigate location. Rebel mouse has allowed me to do just that.  Now I don't have to spend countless hours scouring the Internet.  After a few clicks of a mouse the Internet comes to me.  The next step is to help my colleagues and students learn to utilize similar tools to help them save time and learn to find the information they need.

A Little Bit of Me

My name is Chris Brist.  I have been happily married to Naomi for 17 years , I am a father of two (Olivia 14 - Michael 12), and now I am a Media Specialist.  I enjoy meeting new people and helping them with whatever they may need.  Nothing beats a face to face conversation.  I like the nuances of body language, the inflection in a voice, and a person's tone when they talk.  In fact, I used to sit in the mall with my grandmother just to watch people.  You can learn a lot about people and relationships just by watching them.  I have to say it was more fun with Grandma.  I miss our time together.  Anyway...because of this, I have had a hard time embracing blogging and other forms of social media.  However, I am going to wade deeper into the pool of social media this summer.  I have listed three goals below that I hope will help ease me into the deeper water.

Goal 1 - To embrace tools such as blogs, PLNs, and Social Media in an effort to enhance my teaching.
Goal 2 - Expend my knowledge base so that I am a better resource for the staff and students at my school.
Goal 3 - Enjoy learning new things with a group of new people. 

Wish me luck!