First of all I can't believe this is my last blog for Inquiry Based Learning. While this class wasn't a cinch it did fly by faster than I imagined it would. When I think back to my impressions of inquiry upon starting this class, I realize there were so many things I thought I knew but now have a better understanding of.
I love the quote that started us off:
"Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire." -William Butler Yeats.
I couldn't agree with this more, and lighting the fire is what this course was all about. Finding ways to engage students and help them take ownership of their own learning is our greatest task as educators. Students need to feel that burning curiosity for life and then know how to pursue it and find success. As I believed in the beginning, we are facilitators and coaches on the side helping students make connections and build on their beliefs. As we have seen, the most impactful way we can teach students is by activating their minds, accessing their beliefs and leading them to discovering connections. The days of traditional lecturing and essentially feeding students information is giving way to providing students with a focus, the appropriate tools and skill set to allow them to formulating ideas, make connections and draw conclusions.
This was illustrated so impressively in the video we watched with the high school science teacher. When I read the title, the physics of optics, I thought what language are they speaking and how could this ever apply to my second graders. I was amazed by how relevant and applicable this lesson was to my classroom. You could literally see the students lighting up throughout the lessons as they played with ideas and collaborated with their peers to make new connections with the material. It was so clear through this teacher how inquiry based instruction is extremely structured and yet flexible along its path. In this environment planning and structure are even more crucial than in traditional teaching. You have to be ready to take turns and back up and accelerate at any given moment because the students are leading their learning. All the while you are keeping them focused on the overarching concept and justifying your movements. It almost seems too complex to pull off but at the same time it is simply student engagement and discovery. I feel more justified in my "unpopular" approach to teaching through this course. The theorist, such as William Glasser, Debbie Diller and The Two Sisters, that I have admired and connected to my classroom environment are all believers of lighting a fire in students. If there is a better way we should offer it even if it defies tradition.
The most challenging week for me was lesson planning with the 5E's. Talk about a departure from tradition, again I felt like I was in a foreign country trying to read a street map. Now it all makes sense. I can see clearly how the science teacher was using the 5E approach to teach his unit plan on optics. It's amazing how hind sight is so perfect. It all adds up; to authentically teach through inquiry the rules change and the planning changes. While it will take some getting use to and it will feel uncomfortable for a while, I am going to build my lessons with the 5E's in mind so that I can focus my intentions with more precision and validity. In this environment, I feel like the light spinning around in the lighthouse beckoning my students and guiding their way or the coast guard monitoring progress along side. The students are out there in the sea learning how to navigate their surroundings, problem solving and testing their beliefs and prior knowledge to get them back to shore. Students need to engage fully to make it back. This is how I view inquiry and the hands on approach to student learning. If I put them all on my ship and did all the work to get them to the shore, what have they learned? Putting the tools in their hands, teaching them process skills and then letting them control their own ships while keeping a close eye on their progress (formative assessments) that's learning, that's powerful and that's what I believe our students need in their education.
When first trying out this approach, I believe the hardest part is letting go and watching students fall. As teachers we don't want our students to fail. It is safer to hold on to the control and walk them through the facts and concepts. It's a lot like taking the training wheels off the bike and gradually letting go. They are going to fall but by falling they learn and with practice they become successful and competent riders.
In addition to utilizing the 5E's in my classroom, I am also going to work on engaging students with Web 2.0 tools and presentations that I create to introduce concepts, explore facts and raise questions. I just finished my first Prezi presentation on book genres. I will be using this to reinforce and examine the two major genres and the sub-genres. The students will get to listen in to examples of books through storylineonline.com and come up with characteristics for each genre. I am also working on a Nearpod presentation on nonfiction that my students can participate in during guided reading instruction. Kidblog.org has already proven to be invaluable to the students learning and I would like to add a class wiki as well. The students are building videos with Animoto to demonstrate their understanding of concepts learned in class. The process skills that students are learning and strengthening through the use of these tools will serve them throughout their lives.
Overall, from what I've learned through this course, teaching and learning in my classroom can only get better from here.
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