Create a blog entry that describes how your thoughts about inquiry-based learning have developed over the past few weeks. What new insights have you developed? Has anything changed? Are there any "burning questions" that you feel need to be answered?
I have to say I have grown a ton the past few weeks. I thought I had a handle on Inquiry-Based Learning. When I got to week 4, I realized I was wrong. Week 4 was probably the most frustrating and challenging weeks in this class, if not in the program so far. At first glance, the assignments seemed pretty easy. Identify concepts and facts. Seems simple! WRONG! Some of them were easier than others, but I was constantly second guessing myself and the more I thought about it, the more frustrating I got. I ended up going with my gut. As I started to read everyone's responses, I realized that it really did have to do with people's perspective and understanding of the content. What might be a fact to someone, might be a concept to other people. The grade level of the student might also be important. Once I got this, the unit was a little easier. Non-investigatable and investigatable questions still were a little confusing and I hard time with my English Unit at first. After a bit of thought, I just went with what I was thinking and it turned out I did just fine :) Prior to this unit, I had no clue that there were non-investigatable and investigatable questions. I am glad I know now and I plan to adjust my units at school. Inquiry based learning is a lot more complex then just asking quesitons.
Web 2.0 websites are not new to me. I thank the Web 2.0 class and the rest of this masters for that. I am toward the end of the degree and I am thankful for the experience I have had. I enjoyed seeing where the websites came into inquiry-based learning. There are a ton of valuable Web 2.0 websites that can be used by students in their investigations of questions. I enjoyed learning about new websites like 280slides.com and revisiting old favorites like prezi, slideshare, and animoto.
There really isn't any burning questions that I still have. I just look forward to discovering what is next in inquiry based learning.
Sunday, July 26, 2015
Sunday, July 12, 2015
Week 3 Reflection Blog
What new insights have you developed? Has anything changed? Are there any "burning questions" that you feel need to be answered?
My thoughts of inquiry based learning has greatly developed over the past few weeks. My perspective is hard to put into words. After everything I have read the last few weeks, I think I deep down knew already but I didn't fully understand. I also discovered that sometimes, I feel that the structure of our school system sometimes doesn't support this type of learning. I would LOVE to do inquiry based learning more often. I noticed while writing the paper last week that SKILLS are needed for college and the work force, not necessarily content knowledge. I have talked to friends of mine that teach at the college level and one of the things that I hear from them are that the students entering college, just don't have the skills to be successful at their level. They don't know how to be responsible or communicate effectively. I feel like a failure as a high school teacher at that point. I know it isn't me necessarily but I understand that something in the public education system needs to be fixed.
Students need to develop important skills in high school, but the time needed to do more of it just isn't there. I tell my friends that I don't even get to teach much until October because of the amount of testing I need to do in September. Between SLO pre tests, CDT testing, AR Testing, and GRADE testing, my students are completely burned out and this testing goes on and off though out the school year. There are numerous disruptions that teachers have to deal with on a regular basis. (SURPRISE ASSEMBLY!!!). It is very difficult for me to plan for these lessons and when I need to get XYZ done before the final, it proves difficult. Even though it is difficult, I learned that I HAVE to attempt a few well thought out, inquiry based learning lessons for each unit and try to do the best that I can with it. I naturally include questioning through out my lessons, but I would love to do more lessons that are more student lead. Students have much more authentic learning when they are free to conduct their own investigations and figure out the answers themselves.
Reading the reports on the skills needed for this Century and watching the inquiry based lessons really opened my eyes to HOW important these skills are. I am going to do my best to incorporate longer inquiry based lessons into my units. I just wish I had more planning time and classroom time to do it more effectively. My burning question is how to incorporate more of inquiry based lessons without sacrificing curriculum.
My thoughts of inquiry based learning has greatly developed over the past few weeks. My perspective is hard to put into words. After everything I have read the last few weeks, I think I deep down knew already but I didn't fully understand. I also discovered that sometimes, I feel that the structure of our school system sometimes doesn't support this type of learning. I would LOVE to do inquiry based learning more often. I noticed while writing the paper last week that SKILLS are needed for college and the work force, not necessarily content knowledge. I have talked to friends of mine that teach at the college level and one of the things that I hear from them are that the students entering college, just don't have the skills to be successful at their level. They don't know how to be responsible or communicate effectively. I feel like a failure as a high school teacher at that point. I know it isn't me necessarily but I understand that something in the public education system needs to be fixed.
Students need to develop important skills in high school, but the time needed to do more of it just isn't there. I tell my friends that I don't even get to teach much until October because of the amount of testing I need to do in September. Between SLO pre tests, CDT testing, AR Testing, and GRADE testing, my students are completely burned out and this testing goes on and off though out the school year. There are numerous disruptions that teachers have to deal with on a regular basis. (SURPRISE ASSEMBLY!!!). It is very difficult for me to plan for these lessons and when I need to get XYZ done before the final, it proves difficult. Even though it is difficult, I learned that I HAVE to attempt a few well thought out, inquiry based learning lessons for each unit and try to do the best that I can with it. I naturally include questioning through out my lessons, but I would love to do more lessons that are more student lead. Students have much more authentic learning when they are free to conduct their own investigations and figure out the answers themselves.
Reading the reports on the skills needed for this Century and watching the inquiry based lessons really opened my eyes to HOW important these skills are. I am going to do my best to incorporate longer inquiry based lessons into my units. I just wish I had more planning time and classroom time to do it more effectively. My burning question is how to incorporate more of inquiry based lessons without sacrificing curriculum.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)