For members of the East Mountain High School community who wish to keep a dialogue going. Topics include school programs and initiatives or just educational thought in general. What is the educational process all about?
Friday, April 25, 2008
Inquiry
Allow this thread to continue any discussions of Inquiry Projects.
I like this statement from the Outcomes section of the website...
"An appropriate education should provide individuals with different ways of viewing the world, communicating about it, and successfully coping with the questions and issues of daily living."
I feel that Inquiry-based learning should not be regulated solely to the Inquiry Projects. It is a style of learning adaptable to any discipline or classroom.
The same can be said with Socratic Seminar. This is a style of learning that can be incorporated into each classroom, not limited to 'one day a week discussions' in Advocacy.
This is an interesting statement on that site: "Unfortunately, our traditional educational system has worked in a way that discourages the natural process of inquiry. Students become less prone to ask questions as they move through the grade levels. In traditional schools, students learn not to ask too many questions, instead to listen and repeat the expected answers."
I wonder if some of our school is becoming like this. In the past, the problems with inquiry were mainly centered on the amount of work and time involved. However, this year in particular, I have heard several students complain that they were not allowed to do an inquiry question that they wanted. This truly infuriates me, as I was told that the primary excuses were that, "There is not enough research on that," or that, "That is too broad of a question." Though I understand some of this rationale, it is the exact opposite of giving a student the power to investigate something meaningful to them. If they are not doing something meaningful to them, then what is the point of them asking the question in the first place?
In response to Michael Jameson’s post I have noticed a broad spectrum of the quality of a student’s Inquiry experience. From a special education view point my learning disabled students do not have, for the most part, the academic skills nor incentive or motivation to engage in this process. I have also noticed that a significant number of the general educational population, to a lesser or even greater extent, also lack the academic skills, incentive or motivation to engage in the Inquiry process.
I believe that the entire process is being burdened by having to impose a lockstep approach to Inquiry on the entire East Mountain High school student population. And the Inquiry process can even end up traumatizing a student’s desire to learn (the opposite result of what we want for our students).
At the same time I think the Inquiry process is what makes our school unique and on the cutting edge. What I suggest is a more structured approach. A parsing of the freshman population as to skill levels, motivation and incentive towards the Inquiry process. Those students that are lacking the appropriate skill levels, motivation, etc. to adequately and meaningfully participate in the process might have their essential questions framed by an instructor or we could have a database of pre-existing essential questions. Other parts of the process could also be more structured or even eliminated for certain students.
I wish I had the time to elaborate more on this topic but unfortunately I don’t. I think the Humanities teachers deserve significant recognition for their role played in this important endeavor along with other staff members (example: I was a grader with Sandra Fry and her motivation and insight was outstanding).
One more caveat. I was informed that one of the gifted students along with one of my learning disabled students failed to present any sort of presentation. It could be that the students failed to perform because of their own lack of initiative and I believe there should be consequences. At the same time it maybe that the experience of getting up in front of fellow students and faculty was too overwhelming for that student. Should we traumatize our students in regards to educational experiences we are getting the opposite results of what our goal is (life long learners with a love for learning).
I disagree with forcing inquiry into a highly structured process. It ought to be guided by teachers, but not forced. The worst thing that I hear is when a student has a question or topic that motivates them, and then a teacher shuts them down because the teacher, for whatever reason, does not like the question. This structure and strictness hurts the basis of Inquiry, and prevents students from choosing a topic that they have an actual interest in. Again, teachers ought to be actively guiding and assisting students at every stage, but I believe that if someone is told to do something that they do not want to do, it ruins much of the authentic learning that inquiry can create.
what is a good inquiry question? this is a highly subjective issue. Having actively taught Inquiry for three years i do have a sense of what a good question is, what is not a good question, what question is too narrow or too broad, and what questions are super cliche and overdone. I do have a role as an educator in a time sensitive endeavor to shoot down those questions that simply don't fit the bill. Other questions that aren't quite there, can benefit from guidance and a further examination by the student.
Structure is important, because Inquiry is such a huge beast. We have requirements and deadlines, essentially baby steps, to get towards our goal. Students advocating to go in a somewhat different direction, out of the box so to speak, should be acknowledged as long as they relatively meet the common standards set.
I agree that some special education students may need to go in a different direction to meet their needs. The guidance they need to help them find a suitable direction is substantial.
The writing portion of IP is to prepare students to develop college level research and writing skills. Doing the parenthetical citations, works cited and bibliography pages can be tedious and difficult but are essential for the college bound student.
Judging by what I've read so far, the value of IP is evident. I'm just talking about Projects, not Inquiry-based learning, in these paragraphs. ...And I agree that IPs have had a very positive effect over the years.
The problems are many: humanities or all of faculty? Mentors (we did this successfully early on)? A paper or no paper? Grades, and how to grade?
But just consider one problem for the moment: how can we best stage the presentations so that people have enough time to engage their topic and reach out to their audience? This is a huge logistics problem -- so many projects with a limited set of venues and limited time. Any suggestions?
I agree that we should move towards less structure in the inquiry process. The structure we do provide should be simple and easy to understand. I had a very positive experience with research as a graduate student in Gallup. We participated in an action research project that required us to pose a question and then go through a cycle of research, reflection, action, question restructuring, research, reflection, action, question restructuring, etc...
I really enjoyed this method of researching because it didn't force me into coming up with some grandiose "answer" or "conclusion". It simply required me to follow my interests and to answer questions I was already interested in. The cool part: the cycle can be repeated as many times as necessary. The other cool part, it is a great way to couple research with action in response to the social issues that so many of our students seem to interested in: prejudice, body image, etc...
I understand some of the idea of Educators guiding the inquiry process. I understand when a question can be too narrow or too broad, but in my opinion, this should be exactly that-Guidance and advice to the student, rather than simply being told that a question ought not be done. It is more difficult for teachers, but the inquiry questions should be flexible to a degree, so that a student can, perhaps even during their research, redefine the specifics of their question. I know that I did this with my Senior Research Paper. In fact, a student proposed an idea to me today that Inquiry start with a topic, and a question only emerge after at least some research has been done. What do you all think about that idea?
On a side note-I do agree that inquiry has been an Excellent part of our school. There are problems with it, to me at least, but it has been exponentially more beneficial to me than any research project I completed before high school, and I believe the same holds true for the majority of students.
10 comments:
Here is a fun website:
http://www.thirteen.org/edonline/concept2class/inquiry/
I like this statement from the Outcomes section of the website...
"An appropriate education should provide individuals with different ways of viewing the world, communicating about it, and successfully coping with the questions and issues of daily living."
I feel that Inquiry-based learning should not be regulated solely to the Inquiry Projects. It is a style of learning adaptable to any discipline or classroom.
The same can be said with Socratic Seminar. This is a style of learning that can be incorporated into each classroom, not limited to 'one day a week discussions' in Advocacy.
This is an interesting statement on that site:
"Unfortunately, our traditional educational system has worked in a way that discourages the natural process of inquiry. Students become less prone to ask questions as they move through the grade levels. In traditional schools, students learn not to ask too many questions, instead to listen and repeat the expected answers."
I wonder if some of our school is becoming like this. In the past, the problems with inquiry were mainly centered on the amount of work and time involved. However, this year in particular, I have heard several students complain that they were not allowed to do an inquiry question that they wanted. This truly infuriates me, as I was told that the primary excuses were that, "There is not enough research on that," or that, "That is too broad of a question." Though I understand some of this rationale, it is the exact opposite of giving a student the power to investigate something meaningful to them. If they are not doing something meaningful to them, then what is the point of them asking the question in the first place?
so, how many of us were at fridays freshmen inquiry presentations????
the lack of attendence clearly illustrates that we have a long, hard road ahead of us.
please share some ideas on how to make these presentation days better.
In response to Michael Jameson’s post I have noticed a broad spectrum of the quality of a student’s Inquiry experience. From a special education view point my learning disabled students do not have, for the most part, the academic skills nor incentive or motivation to engage in this process. I have also noticed that a significant number of the general educational population, to a lesser or even greater extent, also lack the academic skills, incentive or motivation to engage in the Inquiry process.
I believe that the entire process is being burdened by having to impose a lockstep approach to Inquiry on the entire East Mountain High school student population. And the Inquiry process can even end up traumatizing a student’s desire to learn (the opposite result of what we want for our students).
At the same time I think the Inquiry process is what makes our school unique and on the cutting edge. What I suggest is a more structured approach. A parsing of the freshman population as to skill levels, motivation and incentive towards the Inquiry process. Those students that are lacking the appropriate skill levels, motivation, etc. to adequately and meaningfully participate in the process might have their essential questions framed by an instructor or we could have a database of pre-existing essential questions. Other parts of the process could also be more structured or even eliminated for certain students.
I wish I had the time to elaborate more on this topic but unfortunately I don’t. I think the Humanities teachers deserve significant recognition for their role played in this important endeavor along with other staff members (example: I was a grader with Sandra Fry and her motivation and insight was outstanding).
One more caveat. I was informed that one of the gifted students along with one of my learning disabled students failed to present any sort of presentation. It could be that the students failed to perform because of their own lack of initiative and I believe there should be consequences. At the same time it maybe that the experience of getting up in front of fellow students and faculty was too overwhelming for that student. Should we traumatize our students in regards to educational experiences we are getting the opposite results of what our goal is (life long learners with a love for learning).
I disagree with forcing inquiry into a highly structured process. It ought to be guided by teachers, but not forced. The worst thing that I hear is when a student has a question or topic that motivates them, and then a teacher shuts them down because the teacher, for whatever reason, does not like the question. This structure and strictness hurts the basis of Inquiry, and prevents students from choosing a topic that they have an actual interest in. Again, teachers ought to be actively guiding and assisting students at every stage, but I believe that if someone is told to do something that they do not want to do, it ruins much of the authentic learning that inquiry can create.
what is a good inquiry question? this is a highly subjective issue. Having actively taught Inquiry for three years i do have a sense of what a good question is, what is not a good question, what question is too narrow or too broad, and what questions are super cliche and overdone. I do have a role as an educator in a time sensitive endeavor to shoot down those questions that simply don't fit the bill. Other questions that aren't quite there, can benefit from guidance and a further examination by the student.
Structure is important, because Inquiry is such a huge beast. We have requirements and deadlines, essentially baby steps, to get towards our goal. Students advocating to go in a somewhat different direction, out of the box so to speak, should be acknowledged as long as they relatively meet the common standards set.
I agree that some special education students may need to go in a different direction to meet their needs. The guidance they need to help them find a suitable direction is substantial.
The writing portion of IP is to prepare students to develop college level research and writing skills. Doing the parenthetical citations, works cited and bibliography pages can be tedious and difficult but are essential for the college bound student.
Judging by what I've read so far, the value of IP is evident. I'm just talking about Projects, not
Inquiry-based learning, in these paragraphs. ...And I agree that
IPs have had a very positive effect over the years.
The problems are many: humanities or all of faculty? Mentors (we did this successfully early on)? A paper or no paper?
Grades, and how to grade?
But just consider one problem for the moment: how can we best stage
the presentations so that people have enough time to engage their topic and reach out to their audience? This is a huge logistics problem -- so many projects with a limited set of venues and limited time. Any suggestions?
I agree that we should move towards less structure in the inquiry process. The structure we do provide should be simple and easy to understand. I had a very positive experience with research as a graduate student in Gallup. We participated in an action research project that required us to pose a question and then go through a cycle of research, reflection, action, question restructuring, research, reflection, action, question restructuring, etc...
I really enjoyed this method of researching because it didn't force me into coming up with some grandiose "answer" or "conclusion". It simply required me to follow my interests and to answer questions I was already interested in. The cool part: the cycle can be repeated as many times as necessary. The other cool part, it is a great way to couple research with action in response to the social issues that so many of our students seem to interested in: prejudice, body image, etc...
I understand some of the idea of Educators guiding the inquiry process. I understand when a question can be too narrow or too broad, but in my opinion, this should be exactly that-Guidance and advice to the student, rather than simply being told that a question ought not be done. It is more difficult for teachers, but the inquiry questions should be flexible to a degree, so that a student can, perhaps even during their research, redefine the specifics of their question. I know that I did this with my Senior Research Paper. In fact, a student proposed an idea to me today that Inquiry start with a topic, and a question only emerge after at least some research has been done. What do you all think about that idea?
On a side note-I do agree that inquiry has been an Excellent part of our school. There are problems with it, to me at least, but it has been exponentially more beneficial to me than any research project I completed before high school, and I believe the same holds true for the majority of students.
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