Inquiry Learning Through the Online Environment

1
Q150

• Inquiry Learning Through the Online Environment
• Debi Howarth
• Principal Project Officer
• Education Queensland, Brisbane
• deborah.howarth_at_deta.qld.gov.au
• 0430 366 118
• [phone]
• Catholic Education Symposium
• Townsville
• April 20 2009

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Q150 Celebrations 2009

• All schools / systems
• encouraged to explore Queenslands past, present
  and future through the Q150 themes of Our
  people, our places, our stories.
• Education Queensland
• series of inquiry based online student units
• teacher guide materials
• units work towards a culminating event students
  share with their community.
• Learning Place
• Student online materials available late April
  2009 for all Queensland teachers who are members
  or affiliates of TLP
• Teacher Guides available at Q150 Events Page
  http//www.learningplace.com.au/sc/events/Q150

3
Writers' Brief

• Literacy Numeracy
• State Library of Queensland digital resources to
  be incorporated
• Had to be built into Bb through Learning place
• Had to build in links to learning objects/videos
  etc - LP not able to build new materials.
• Longevity beyond 2009

• Four inquiry based units - align with SOSE Yr 3,
  5, 7, 9 Essential Learnings. Teacher guides
  online student materials.
• Senior Legal Studies Modern History independent
  study units.
• Local Area Guide.
• Assessment to align with the intent of the QCAR
  Framework
• Work within the Q150 project itself
  sensitivities.
• Indigenous perspectives
• ICTs
• Research skills

4

Knowledge Understandings

• Commenced at the conceptual
• drawn from the ELs
• community (Yr3)
• identity (Yr 5)
• global citizenship(Yr7)
• social change (Yr 9)
• Moved to specific content through the ELs
  organisers for SOSE

5
Skills Processes

• Ways of Working From ELs
• Identified range of relevant strategies and
  skills to use/develop within units e.g. graphic
  organisers Three Level Reading Guide survey
  photo analysis
• Researched appropriate web links learning
  objects to be incorporated. Some became the
  focus of unit phases e.g. Harvest of Endurance
  Scroll (Chinese Settlement) Journey of
  Understanding (Refugees).

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Inquiry

• When students are involved in inquiry they
• Ask questions,
• Identify and investigate problems,
• Form their own hypotheses and/or conclusions.
• Reflect

Arthur L. Costa,1 co-director of the institute
for intelligent behavior in Berkeley, California
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Questions

• Core business for teachers - integral to inquiry.
  
• Units incorporated some question banks into the
  teacher guides and question matrices for
  students.
• Always room to develop further in the classroom
  context.

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Scaffolding

• Graphic organisers
• Research tasks
• Assessment tasks
• Literacy activities

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Four Resources Model
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How do I crack this code?
CODE BREAKER

• What words are interesting, difficult or tricky?
  How did you work them out?
• What words have unusual spelling?
• What words have the same sound or letter pattern
  or number of syllables?
• What words have the same base word or prefix or
  suffix?
• What words mean the same (synonyms)?
• What smaller word can you find in this word to
  help you work it out?
• What words are tricky to pronounce?
• How is this word used in this context?
• What different reading strategies did you use to
  decode this text?
• Are the pictures close ups, mid or long shots?
• Are the pictures high angle or low angle?
• Were there any word pictures, eg similes and
  metaphors? How did you work them out?

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What do I do with this text?
TEXT USER

• What sort of text is this? (information,
  story/narrative) How do you know?
• Is it fact or opinion? How do you know?
• How can you find information in this text?
• How did the author start this text? Did it suit
  its purpose?
• Who would read a text like this? Why?
• If you wrote a text like this what words and
  phrases would you use?
• How is the language the same/ different from
  other similar texts you have read?
• Could the text help solve a real life problem?
• If you were going to put this text on a web page,
  how would it be different to the print version?
• What is the purpose of this text?
• Could you use these ideas in a poem, story, play,
  advertisement, report, brochure or poster?
• How would the language and structure change?

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What does this text mean to me?
MEANING MAKER

• Does the text remind you of something that has
  happened to you or to someone else you know?
• What does the title/cover suggest that the text
  is about?
• What might happen next? What words or phrases
  give you this idea?
• What are the characters thinking and feeling? How
  do you know?
• What message is the author presenting?
• What are the main ideas presented?
• What do the pictures (graphs, diagrams, tables,
  captions, illustrations) tell us?
• Do they fit in with the text and do they provide
  more information?
• What did you feel as you read this part?
• Describe or draw a picture of a character, event
  or scene from the text.

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What does this text do to me?
TEXT ANALYST

• Is the text fair?
• What would the text be like if the main
  characters were girls rather than boys and vice
  versa? Consider different race and cultural
  backgrounds too.
• How would the text be different if told from
  another point of view?
• How would the text be different if told in
  another time or place, eg 1900 or 2100?
• Why do you think the author chose this title?
• Think about why the author chose particular words
  and phrases.
• Are there stereotypes in the text?
• Who does the text favour or represent?
• Who does the text reject or silence?
• How does this text claim authority? (consider
  language, structure and content)
• Who is allowed to speak? Who is quoted

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Using the Model

• Reflective Questions
• What kind of person with what interest and values
  wrote this text?
• What is the text trying to make me believe and
  do?
• In whose interest is this?
• What beliefs and positions are dominant in the
  text?
• What beliefs and positions are silenced or
  absent?
• What do I think about this and what alternatives
  are there?

Text Analyst

• Journal responses
• Reading Circles
• Hot seating PMI
• Higher Order Thinking (Blooms) reflection cards
• Critical analysis based on bias
• Stereotypes
• point of view
• Compare different sources
• Top Level Structure (cause/effect)
• Poetic analysis
• Debate
• Author intent discussions

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Code Breaker

• Reflective Questions
• How do I crack this text?
• How does this text work?
• What are its codes and conventions?
• How do the parts relate singly and in
  combinations?

• Metalinguistics activities
• Alphabet
• Phonics
• Sight Word/ Word sort/ Word family activities
• Onsets, Rhymes, Word analogy
• Cloze
• Spelling activities/ Latin/ Greek roots,
  dictionary Meanings, Thesaurus, Homonyms,
  Antonyms, Synonyms
• Transformations
• Generic features of the text based activities
• Grammar activities
• Book Feature focus
• Key Words/Note making

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Text User

• Metalinguistics activities
• Alphabet
• Phonics
• Sight Word/ Word sort/ Word family activities
• Onsets, Rhymes, Word analogy
• Cloze
• Spelling activities/ Latin/ Greek roots,
  dictionary Meanings, Thesaurus, Homonyms,
  Antonyms, Synonyms
• Transformations
• Generic features of the text based activities
• Grammar activities
• Book Feature focus
• Key Words/Note making

• Reflective Questions
• What is the purpose of this text and what is my
  purpose in using it?
• How have the uses of this text shaped its
  composition?
• What should I so with this text in this context?
• What will others do with this text?

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Meaning Maker

• Reflective Questions
• How do the ideas in this text connect to one
  another?
• What do I know that can help make meaning of it?
• What are the possible meanings and readings of
  this text?
• Meaning maker resources are all our previous
  social, cultural and reading experiences.

• Readers need to know how to
• Infer
• Evaluate
• Generalise
• Make predictions
• Sequence
• Compare
• Classify
• Recount
• Summarise information
• Activities
• KWL, Concept maps, Graphic outline, Story Maps,
  Plot Profile, Character Web
• Reflections, Innovation
• Readers Theatre
• Independent reading, Shared reading
• Think Pair Share, Top Level Structure

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Issues in Development

• Time
• Sequential nature of social and environmental
  inquiry
• Integrity of the inquiry
• Writing with other purposes in mind
• Development process was sometimes frustrated by
  the system security issues in EQ itself.

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Web 2.0

• Some Web 2.0 evident in units
• Wikis
• Discussion boards
• Photostories
• Survey tools
• Learning objects/videos/interactive tools
• Digital resources - State Library of Qld.

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Inquiry and Web 2.0

• Collaboration and participation
• social networking sites/collaborative authorship
  e.g. http//en.citizendium.org/wiki/Welcome_to_Cit
  izendium
• Writeboard http//www.writeboard.com/
• Digital storytelling
• http//www.mangolanguages.com/ - Language
  immersion conversations with native speakers
• Dimdim video conferencing whiteboard
  http//www.dimdim.com/

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Inquiry and Web 2.0

• Access to current content/knowledge the web
  itself
• Kids Newsroom http//www.kidsnewsroom.org/climatec
  hange/
• Childrens University of Manchester
  http//www.childrensuniversity.manchester.ac.uk/
• Internet Public Library http//www.ipl.org/
• Questionaut http//www.bbc.co.uk/schools/ks2bitesi
  ze/games/questionaut/
• News for kids http//www.headlinespot.com/internat
  ional/asiapacific/

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Inquiry and Web 2.0

• Productivity/portability/sharing of info/ideas
• Googledocs
• Docstock http//www.docstoc.com/
• Field trips virtual ones!!
• Google maps
• Immersive media - http//www.immersivemedia.com/d
  emo8
• Geocaching high tech treasure hunt game.
  http//www.geocaching.com/
• Mapwing build, share, and explore virtual
  tours-turn photos into virtual tours
  http//www.mapwing.com/

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Problem Solving

• Create and share 3D Models http//sketchup.google.
  com/
• Webspiration http//www.mywebspiration.com/
• Mindmeister mind mapping tool
• http//www.mindmeister.com/

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Skills of SOSE

• Survey, Data Collection, Inventories
• Zoho Creator http//creator.zoho.com/
• SurveyMonkey http//www.surveymonkey.com/
• Timespace uses timelines http//specials.washing
  tonpost.com/timespace/world/121/

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Conclusion

• Web 2.0 will bring greater meaning to the process
  of social and environmental inquiry.

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Models of Contemporary Learning

• Critique units against MCL for relevance,
  useability, applicability.

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Web 2.0 Enhancement of Resources

• What Web 2.0 tools could be incorporated into the
  units to boost engagement and richness? Where?
  What scaffolding might be required to use the
  technologies?