Inquiry Based Learning.

In a traditional classroom, the teacher is the center of attention, the owner of knowledge the main person that gives out the information.  Teachers often ask questions of their students to gauge comprehension, but it's a passive model that relies on students to absorb information they need to reproduce on tests.  What do you do if you reverse the situation?  What if the students ask the questions and find out their own questions.  That's Inquiry Based Learning.

After a session at one of the Digital Learning Series Dinners I came away with many of my own questions.  How do I incorporate this means of learning in my classroom.  Isn't it part of Project Based Learning?  Do the two work together?  Neil Stephenson (Thinking in Mind, Introduction to Inquiry Based Learning, @NeilStephenson) was and is, an excellent speaker who helped me come up with my own questions of inquiry. Neil is the District Prinicpal of Innovation and Inquiry, from Delta School District.  The archive can be found here. He runs an Intro to Inquiry-Based Learning blog here.  Neil used to work at the Calgary Science School which supports grades 4-9 students. Their blog documents the learning at the school by both students and teachers. Stephen's presentation was informative, humorist and just plain good.  He made me think.  And isn't that what you want people to do when they come listen to a speaker?  

So what follows are some questions of my own and some of the answers I've come up with, as well as some of some areas to look further into.  Hope this helps you.  

What is Inquiry Based Learning?  Very simply it's when students ask questions to find out the answers.  Use collaborative learning and deep engagement with complex problems for students to solve.  The more realistic the problem, the better for students.   There is no problem unrealistic that can not be real in the end.  Thus the video below.  

If you haven't seen this before, it's excellent to show students, that when you ask a question no idea is too silly.  You need to be able to teach students taht the more open to divergent ways of thinking about problems, more open to exploring and understanding differrent ways of perceiving the world and less concerned with providing firm solutions to problems that do not have simple or unique solutions, the better equip you are for real life.

This is an excellent video to start up your questions.

For more information about getting students to ask the big questions you can read the book by Dan Rothstein and Luz Santana.  The book "Make Just One Change;  Teach Students to Ask Their Own Questions", documents a step-by-step process to help students formulate and prioritize questions about nearly everything.  

As seen above, coming up with the right questions involves hard thinking of the problem, looking at it at all angles, turning the situation all around, and using "open-ended" questions and prioritizing which are the most important questions to get at the heart of the matter.  

So where do we go from here?  We look at getting our own questions answered.  Here is a list of resources online for you to read for further information.  I hope this information helps you in your own inquiry.

Inquiry Education Resources

The links to the videos he shared to spark our conversation are below.

• Using iMovie for Scientific Thinking -http://calgaryscienceschool.blogspot.ca/2011/04/using-imovie-for-scientific-thinking.html 
• The Ice-Melt Problem - http://vimeo.com/31911076

• Reflections of Me: A Grade 2 Inquiry by Amy Park - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rsn08u43xjs 
• Inquiry Mind:  http://www.inquiringmind.co.nz/index.htm

• Integrating Inquiry in Education - http://www.edu.gov.mb.ca/k12/docs/support/multilevel/chap6.pdf
• Galilio organization – with rubric handout   http://galileo.org/research.html
• Integrating Technology - http://www.galileo.org/preservice/index.htm a little program.
• Focus on Inquiry - http://education.alberta.ca/media/313361/focusoninquiry.pdf
• 10 apps for Inquiry Learning - http://edapps.ca/2011/12/10-ways-inquiry-learning/
• Queen’s University – Inquiry Based Learning - http://www.queensu.ca/ctl/resources/topicspecific/inquirybased.html
• FNO.org – The Educational Technology Journal – A questioning Toolkit - http://www.queensu.ca/ctl/resources/topicspecific/inquirybased.html
• Branch 1 - Inquiry Based Learning - http://www.naturalcuriosity.ca/pdf/BranchISection.pdf
• Book - guided Inquiry:  Learning in the 21^st Century - http://www.amazon.ca/Guided-Inquiry-Learning-21st-Century/dp/1591584353
• Pinterest Account on Inquiry Learning - http://pinterest.com/kmcevoy5/inquiry-based-learning/
• Pinterest account on Inquiry Learning and Technology - http://pinterest.com/rolat/inquiry-and-technology/
• Natural Curiosity -http://www.naturalcuriosity.ca/  - Building children’s understanding of the world through environmental inquiry
• Critical Thinking Consortium - http://www.tc2.ca/ 
• High Tech High - http://www.hightechhigh.org/projects/

Thank you.  I hope this blog entry helps you on your own trail of inquiring questions.

Mentoring.... Isn't not just for the new teachers.

Ever have a problem in your classroom and asked a friend for help?  Your friend talks to you for a while, asking you questions for clarification.  Then they give you some suggestions, advice or work with you to make an assignment or help you change your lesson plan.  Congratulations, you just experienced the "mentor - mentee" experience.  

After a discussion with my peers that are just as interested as myself in regards to Peer Mentoring, we agree on many characteristics that make an excellent peer mentor.

Peer Mentors do:

• learn along with the mentee
• listen carefully (develop excellent listening skills)
• encourage
• empathize
• support
• share resources and knowledge
• give feedback
• be approachable
• encourage self-reflection with questions and comments
• follow up with communication after the experience
• Keep your confidentiality.

 Peer Mentors don't

• spread negativity
• break trust
• think they are the experts
• assume anything
• go in with any pre-conceived notion.
• and make any assumptions about the situation

If you think about someone that you always went to for help in your first year of teaching, or even now that you've been teaching for a number of years, you could probably see many of the characteristics listed above in that person.  

Most people need help, no matter how many years they've been teaching.  Sometimes you can't see the

http://favim.com/image/451636/

forest for the trees, you need to sit back and think, you need time to reflect and another pair of eyes to help you see what you're missing or what you can't see clearly in front of you.  Sometimes you need someone else helping you to reflect and question you on what's really on your mind, what has happened or what you want to happen.  Sometimes you just need to talk in a safe, collegial environment.  That's what mentoring is to me.  Helping people to reflect, and make their own personal learning goals.  That's why peer mentoring is not just for new teachers, it's for everyone.  I encourage everyone to have the experience.  A great support system is there to help you grow, in your professional life as well as your personal life.  If you see my last entry, you'll see that one comment can change the way you teach, only for the better.  Thank you for reading.  That's just my opinion....

How do We Sustain this Learning in our School?

Many of these posts have been written with the intent to show the learning at our school, not just mine, but all the members of this school.  Our Innovation Grant is not just about myself and my co-chair Jennifer Spain, but every person in our school (from secretaries, aides, to the teachers and admin) have been trying new ways to be innovative and improve their own practises. My purpose in this large scale learning (along with my co-chair Jennifer Spain) is to organize events, give people time to evaluate what they are learning and its effects, listen when need be and just plain answer questions.

A while ago my administrator Rex Hayes called me into his office to discuss a meeting he attended with all the administrators who were given the Innovative Grant or the Technology Grant.  There were many but only a few who had the entire school involved in the learning.  This alone caused my heart to swell with pride for my colleagues and I.  But it does involve a different dynamic of reporting for our finding and sustaining such a large diverse amount of learning.

We've worked as a group to increase communication inside our school and outside to the community at large.  We used technology with blogs, tweeting, wikis, forms, and just plain emailing parents.  We've brought in the outside world with invitations to other schools with similar classes:  SKYPEing, speakers, online presentation (Dr. David Suzuki was interviewed live online and this presentation was arranged by a Grade 12 student in our school), and many other learning opportunities.

Something that opened my eyes, and changed the way I viewed Sullivan happened two montes ago at a District Meeting for Department Heads of the district.  We had the opportunity to study what type of leader each of us were (Red for make a decision, Green for gathering things, Yellow for creative, but there's so much more).  Rex asked our group (we had two tables of Department Heads interested in learning about themselves) what was special about our school, a question asked by the presentor.  Someone said "Nicole" and I proceeded to list all the learning in our school.  But Randy Jaggernathsingh (an excellent teacher, friend and role model for me) stopped me and said something that changed the way I view the school.  He said "I've talked to other Social Studies Department Heads here and you know what's different about us, what makes us special?....  We really care for each other.  We're a family".

Last week I had a Department Head release day, running around fixing technology, finishing up projects for the school, talking to teachers with concerns.  That's when I cam to the realization that we

are a family.  From the bratty brother to the perfect one, the ADD sister to the hyper cousin.  We have the aunt that gives out gifts and kind words to family members that need a lift to the uncle that says "Pull my finger" (never understood that one...).  All shapes, all characteristics, all personalities in our family.  But one thing that joins us all is our drive to make this school as great as possible, to care for our kids, and to learn as much as we can so we may reach these goals.  We help each other, cover classes, share materials when asked, and give suggestions when need be.  There is trust and love here.  And like every family, we do have our squabbles, but when it's over, there is still the respect of person to person.  We have our ups and downs, celebrating and tweeting all the great things in the school (1000 sulli rocks) and discussing how to handle the huge growth in our school (we have 5 periods and different times that teachers work, so we're a bit separated from each other).  We've lost members that have moved on or moved out in transfer, those that have taken leaves, but we still share anything we learned through blogs, tweet, interviews, forms, surveys,  meetings and more.  

So when asked by the people who gave us this grant to explore new methods of learning, of communicating, of assessment and so much more, how will we sustain this learning in our school my answer is two fold:  "We were learning and growing before the grant and we'll be learning and growing after the grant.  We'll find the means and release time to help support our family in their endeavours to grow professionally as well as help each other to improve our school."   The second thing to help sustain the learning is also just as simple:  Respect for each other, respect for our colleagues outside our school, and love.  Love of the learning.  This school loves to learn everything, they just need a little encouragement and a pat on the back every once in a while, some recognition.  

This is my answer.  I just organize, the Sullivan members of the family do what they do because of love.

Hey, look at that, my summary is my report of our research.  Moving on to the next job of learning ;)

Spring Break

Like every other teacher in British Columbia, most teachers are on Spring Break. It's a time to rejuvenate, a time to reflect on your practises in your classroom, a time to plan for what is coming, and just a time for a break, to catch your breath for the next months to come. The newspaper and blog will be on a break for these two weeks, thanks for your support and have a nice break.


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Adding a Blog to the School Site

The school site with Surrey Schools, is well organized, especially if you're a parent.  All teachers listed, there, all assignments under the parents (the choice of the teachers to use this).   Under the parent  section it's easy to find what a parent would want to see.  But how do you tell if parents are coming to your site?  You can use a google tracker or other site analysis programs online.  But the easiest thing to do is use a blog.

Updates to our school site is constant, with the office staff taking a lead role, working in conjunction with the administration at our school.  One of our girls (Juanita) updates almost every day.  The main page is where she works the most but as I said we still don't know if parents are coming to it unless we ask for an analysis from our IT people.  Two years ago we had a blog attached to our old site and when we migrated over to the new system (SurreySchools.ca) we brought our blog with us. Take a look.  Most schools now have one.

Sullivan Heights is proud to be actively engaging in 21st Century technologies when communicating with our community.  As part of our efforts, we have discontinued our bi-monthly publication of large school newsletters (with the exception of our annual August mail-out) and instead we are using technologies which include Twitter (Our Twitter Feed), a news blog (News Blog) and our home page (Home).

We encourage our communicty to follow us in any of these systems and parents have responded with a 1000 emails now listed on BCeSIS for teachers to email parents any concerns, or just comments about their children.

Below is a list of views, today, yesterday, notice last month of our school blog and the total since we started this a year ago.  Notice our traffic, which is constant all day.  Many parents have signed up for the emails to their phones to keep in contact with our school.  They enjoy the fact that they can read the quick and easy blog text sent to their phones.

Traffice is from google, with people searching for Sullivan Heights, and as you can see most of our traffic is from Canada.  This is just one of many ways we keep in contact with our parents and students.  We even use tags so parents can look up specific entries that relate to what they want (i.e. dry grad).  I recommend this manner of communication to any school.

Twitter, Website, notes online, or just phone calls... Choices galore...

A large goal of education (and our school) is communication with parents.  But with social media galore out there, which one is best?  I've written previously in regards to which tool is best for e-portfolios, but not for the topic above.  And there is a difference.  When considering communication with students many have Twitter accounts, tweet often, can text message with two fingers without breaking a nail, but are parents this adept?  Some of my parents don't have an email address so why would I expect them to have a twitter account for them to follow?  On the other side of the coin is most parents have a phone and receiving tweets is easier than receiving emails.  One thing that is true though is that most parents do have the Internet, at home or on their phone, so it's a matter of getting the information out to them over a website.

There are a number of websites that are made for the is task: Check my Marks,  School Logics, or Student Achieve are but a few of the online marking programs that parents can log into.  All have negative and positive features to them, each range in price.  As a parent they want to see the marks and what their child did not complete.  But as a teacher I want students to see more.  I want parents to see exemplars of their child's work.  I want them to help me with late or missing assignments.  I want parents to understand if their child is doing well in their learning learning process or need assistance from both home and school.  Mostly I want to be able to communicate with parents at a drop of a hat.  So what do I use?  

I need a website with all the child's notes and assessment strategies in it, so if the student is sick the student and parent(s) can continue to learn at home and the parent can understand what skills I am trying to teach/train their child.  I need a marking system that emails parents the child's current standings, which also includes a section for work incomplete, work not handed in, and also something that shows sick days to the parent.  I want to send out a group email to both parents and students informing them of something happening in my classroom.  The markings system MasterGrade handles most of these situations:  emailing marks to students and parents, doing group messaging, attendance and notes under each assignment outlining assessment.  

I want a calendar of deadlines of tasks/projects for parents/students to track to help with ensuring students  develop time-management skills.  Presently I use IDoneThis (https://idonethis.com/), a Web 2.0 tool that emails me, asking what I’ve done for the day, reminding me to update my calendar and help me planning my teaching schedule.  It’s well organized, easy to use, but it does cost.   

Finally I require a system where at a glance I can assess the students' work/portfolios, with an area to comment and to suggest changes or possibly areas of consideration to think about, for further the students knowledge.  SurreySchools.ca has this capability with the student blog creation.  Student can upload pictures, files, and write their thoughts of what they've learned, and what they want to further their education.  Best of all, as a teacher I appreciate that all blogs are listed in one section, no need to organize, just a click of the link of the student's name and you're on their blog.  Each blog entry is dated, in order, so you can gasp at a glance what has been completed and what  needs to be developed further.  Both peers and the teacher can comment on the students' portfolios, furthering their learning.  

I want and need many features, but it takes three programs to appease my needs for my students, parents and myself as the teacher.

Take a look at these tools and consider what you would like to use.  

Nicole Painchaud @painchaud_n