Book Study

In our Kindergarten classroom we are just beginning to dive into a new Structured Inquiry. Our focus is currently a thematic unit on Canada and the provinces, people, food and customs that make Canada what it is. Through teacher guidance, students will explore Canada from coast to coast with exciting new topics each week. Our hope is that as we progress with the unit, we are able to explore more with Controlled Inquiry as students develop a greater passion for the subject and begin to ask questions that peak their interest.

We will continue to explore and play within the classroom during Free Inquiry/Genius Hour and engage students through STEAM activities each week.

Nancy and Amy, Kindergarten

Structured Inquiry: We are exploring plants and soils in Science in structured inquiry. We explore and question and play. We have followed pre-made experiments and have created our own as well. Research is minimal now, as most of our inquiry is experimental. We also started asking many questions about Residential Schools (sparked by student interest for Orange Shirt Day) that will possibly develop into a bigger class inquiry.

I would like to either do some Controlled or guided inquiry within some of my guided reading groups. If I am able to find a text or topic that interests a small group, perhaps mini-inquiries would work for us. I am thinking that Health and Religion topics might lend themselves nicely to this - perhaps Guided Inquiry, to use some Design Thinking strategies.

Free Inquiry: We have been "exploring our interests" once a week in a "Genius Hour"-type setting every Thursday for 2 periods. I am finding that our literacy block is not the place to work on these free inquiry projects, as I still have many emergent and early readers who require remedial reading and writing intervention. I will be keeping the "free inquiry" part separate for now as a maker/STEAM/crafting/coding/exploration time. I would love to include the inquiry model with guided questions into this, but as of now it is fairly play-based.

Lindsay, grade 2-3

Right now our class is inquiring together to learn about habitats in science with a structured approach. We are learning how to ask questions in French and then we are finding the answers together. I am hoping that we will continue to work towards participating in a controlled inquiry with students where they will choose their own topic for a research project based on what we have already learned. We have also jumped into the deep end with free inquiry as students are starting to work on their own passion projects. They have chosen their own topics. Using the design thinking approach they have decided the format in which they will present their learning to others.

Philippa, Grade 3-4

In our classroom, we are working on Controlled Inquiry and Guided Inquiry.

We just started “Coding buddies” with the Grades 3/4 French Immersion students. Students are to create music through the coding website “Scratch”.

We are also starting the Great Canadian Mail Race in French. Students are to write a letter to another student in a French Immersion classroom in Canada. They can write about their interests, their family, their friends, ANYTHING.

We are also doing research projects in Science where they can research an endangered species in Canada and present it to the class.

Tracey Walsh, will be coming to our classroom on November 15th to present inquiry as well.

Alana, Grade 5/6

In our classroom, I have worked with some Controlled Inquiry as well as some Free Inquiry. As it is early in the year, I am hoping my students all get into understanding what are good questions to ask. In History, we started out by having our learning goals from the Curriculum. Moving from there, we underlined key terms in each of the goals. Following a template I made on Google Drive, the students filled out everything they could relate to Canada 1700s and the present (in particular, groups of people). Then the students came up with their own question and selected a format. For their future assignment, an area we need to improve would be the co-creation of our success criteria. By giving the students power of co-creating their criteria,I feel they will put towards a better effort in the RESEARCH aspect of the project while also selecting a format they are comfortable with.

Also I have completed a Free inquiry with a particular student whose parents requested to some extra work this year. We have completed all 6 steps of the Inquiry Process (found in the book and using a template I created) with weekly meetings. At this point, she is reworking on her success criteria and what is important is maintaining an interest in the work. Some student's projects can take awhile to create (she has a tentative due date of February due to the amount of coding she has to do) and a calendar is required to make sure the students are keeping up with their work.

Richard, Grade 7/8

What stands out the most to me would the winding and long path that is Inquiry. This journey is not only for our students but for us teachers in a major way. They are a lot of turns and steps to completing an inquiry based project. In my class, we are taking our time exploring what kind of questions we can ask but a challenge we have is our focus on "going by the book". Great example: Mrs Walsh came in to my classroom last week and we did some Design Thinking: Went well but my students were overwhelmed with the time limits on creating ideas and even using markers instead of pencils (they did not want their pages looking "messy" if they made a mistake). While we are continuing to work on accepting that sometimes a project won't work out like you planned, I believe that is part of the Inquiry journey.

Also, I feel as if we are all on different parts of the process (or journey). While we are excited to see the student's final authentic piece, we should embrace the journey that takes us there.

Richard, Grade 7/8

I feel that this image is a good representation of my students' learning through an inquiry-based approach. The learning isn't a linear or straight forward. For the most part I feel that my students are able to embrace the uncertainty of this type of learning, perhaps this is because they are younger and have been exposed to an inquiry approach before. As a teacher, embracing this type of learning model has been more of a challenge. My students have all been working on different topics. Keeping track of their progress and ensuring that curriculum expectations are being met has been more of a challenge for me with this type of learning. I have started to implement some tools and parameters in order to provide some structure to our passion projects which has been helping. Sometimes things get messy. I try to work through the challenges and pitfalls the best I can and accept road bumps as part of the journey. I hope that I am on the right track and I try to embrace a growth mindset as I have encouraged my students to do.

Philippa, Grade 3-4

This is the process that I am using in my classroom. My students need to be explicitly taught how to use the various steps of the inquiry process. This has been teacher led and we have been doing this together as a whole class.

Erin, Grade 1-2

Finding an essential question has been a challenge for us in Kindergarten. We are looking to find a question that isn't too broad and not too narrow. We are looking for a type of question that would inspire more questions. We have narrowed our inquiry topic down to animals in winter.

Nancy, Kindergarten

For us in Grade 5/6, we are having difficulties exploring and researching. The students need constant reminders to explore outside of their comfort zone about their subject. My observations show me that they need to be structured and answer to specific guiding questions. Where as, with new 21st century learning and our TLLP inquiry project, it’s up to them to answer their own questions through their research. Sometimes, the students seem to rush through the research just to finish. We are working on taking our time and processing the appropriate information that goes along with our projects. We are also working on peer editing and what is the most important thing to look for in our work. It is still a working progress.

Alana, Grade 5/6