Inquiry Based Learning.....
Part 1:
I tell my students and coworkers often that education in California is way different than it was teaching in Georgia. Everything from how teachers go about becoming a teacher, to the set up of schools and even the way we teach. On of the biggest change for me was learning to use the standards as a guide and that's it as compared to when I taught in Georgia the standards were like the Bible there was no deviating from them.
For me how I'd define Inquiry Based Learning is much like I teach my class (example below) but basically the students are advised of the main (required) topic - think of it like the umbrella and then they help pick/decide what we learn under that topic (the rain drops). Often times this and does vary from class to class because each set of students is different. Once the topics are picked and discussed we work as a class to come up with a research question or questions that we want to learn about. Then I take the research questions and plan the lessons and several activities that will allow students to learn the way they do best like; infographics, museum exhibits, research paper, etc. they will work on this during class and at the end of that unit students will present their projects. Going back to my definition it's figuring out what is being taught with the input of students and letting them learn about it, produce a product about it and then teaching their peers.
Part 2:
Mini-Lessons: Aggregate behavior of the U.S. economy- Day 1: What is unemployment and how is it calculated?
- Day 2: What are the types of unemployment and how do they impact their economy?
- Day 3: Inflation & Deflation
- Idea: Students will be assigned or pick a country to examine the aggregate behavior focusing on their unemployment and how it's defined in that country, the types of unemployment and how it's currently effecting that country. They will also look at the current inflation issue in the country and present at least 2 ways to address it and or the unemployment issue in the country.
- Idea: For their country presentations students will be required a minimum of 5 sources; one must be a government site, one must be an educational video, one must be a scholarly source and the other two can be of their own choice. Students must be able to justify their sources and properly site them.
- Idea: Students will work in groups to look at assigned groups of people such as minority groups, indigenous groups, women, etc. and explain what it means to be underemployed. Based on the group they are assigned they will need to come up with reasons why they are underemployed, changes that could be made to address it both at the local level and at a regional/national level to address it or even eradicate it all together.
- Idea: Throughout the different lessons students will look at ways to address inflation/deflation, unemployment and underemployment and know that they can't totally solve the problem but come up with changes that could lead to solutions. They have to be open-minded and keep many factors in mind such as location, resources, religion, education and others such things.
- Idea: We often ask students to try and problem solve issues and they are often times coming up with these far fetched ideas. For this one they will actually need to come up with an idea to solve an issue during one of the lessons and actually attempt it themselves. For example create a PSA about the importance of ending underemployment in minority groups via video. Then their peers will review it and and the students will take their peer reviews and reflect on their PSA's and what they change to be more impactful or whatever the case maybe.
- Idea: When discussing inflation and deflation students will produce digital supply and demand curves, they will come up with their own sceneries and the curves to go with it.
- Idea: Students will be placed in groups and will be assigned a local business, a small business, a medium business and a major business to examine issues they have faced in the last year or so because of COVID.
I really enjoyed your comparisons between teaching in California vs. Georgia. I agree that we are taught to stick to the standards as much as possible, and I like that you are able to have class collaboration on what specific things they would want to learn about within each standard. I think it would really get the kids excited about their own learning process. I want to implement something like this in my won classroom, but am still workshopping how I want it to look since I have first graders and they are still very new to the concept of doing their own research within a classroom.
ReplyDeleteMy hat is off to you working with elementary school kids, especially after this year. We were distance learning from 3/12/20 to 3/29/21 which in itself was hard enough but I also had a 6th grader and a 2nd grader at home as well. My 2nd graders teacher actually stayed home this entire year so he too was home and she deserves an award. She really tried to let them pick when it came to books to read and topics they were interested in for Science Labs it was hard but worked better over time.
DeleteShanice Solomon
ReplyDeleteIt's very interesting to see the difference in teaching from state to state. I agree that in Georgia's public schools, the standards-based classroom is king and not to deviated from at all.
Options on how to present information after research as well as students being able to work in the classroom makes the concepts taught more meaningful. It is a great way to incorporate inquiry based learning in the classroom. It allows students to really take part and charge of their own learning.
Connecting the eight principles to the ISTE student standards really helps show what each principle entails. I love the idea of examining local businesses and issues faced due to the COVID-19 pandemic. It's a great way to use current happenings to deepen student knowledge. One way to assess could be to have students create their own definitions of the terms in your mini lessons, much like we did for inquiry based learning. Your lessons are going to be amazing and your visual definition of inquiry based learning is top notch. Your infographic serves as a great guide to implementing IBL in the classroom.
Trust me when I first started teaching here it was nuts it took me a long time to kind of "unlearn" the standards-based way. I do find that the inquiry based way can be a little chaotic in my 9th grade classes at first but it leads to some great conversations and they pick up pretty quickly.
DeleteThanks for your complements I was really feeling like my mini-lessons are kind of all over the place especially since they are economics focused which is way different than most everyone else's.